Yet another brilliant idea from the hand of Lord High Destroyer.
The magic pen is at work again for the Orange con man of Wharton….this time he has created a sovereign wealth fund for the US….
President Trump signed an executive order Monday to create a national sovereign wealth fund, which could be used for the US to acquire a stake in TikTok. More than 100 countries have such funds, which act as national investment funds, controlling a total of more than $8 trillion in assets, the Guardian reports. “Other countries have sovereign wealth funds. They’re much smaller countries. They’re not the United States,” Trump said Monday. “We’re going to be doing something, perhaps, with TikTok. Perhaps not.” Trump said the fund could also be used to pay for government investments in infrastructure.
At least 20 states have their own sovereign wealth funds, with Alaska’s the largest at more than $80 billion. Trump’s order directs the Treasury and Commerce departments to take steps toward setting up the fund, Politico reports. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it could be formed within 12 months. He said the plan is to monetize assets owned by the US government “for the American people.” Trump has said he wants the US to hold a 50% stake in TikTok when its US business gets new ownership, and the fund “could be among the cleanest ways of giving the US a stake in the company without nationalizing it,” the Hill reports.
Trump didn’t offer details on how the fund would be financed. Sovereign wealth funds typically receive a government’s surplus as a “nest egg” for its citizens, reports Reuters, but the federal government hasn’t had a budget surplus since 2001. “Given the United States’ track record, a proposal that relies on hypothetical future budget surpluses is unrealistic,” experts at the Center for Global Development said last month. Officials in the Biden administration also discussed setting up a sovereign wealth fund.
This smells….it may sound good on the surface but deep down there is something else going on….
But just what is SWF?
There is an official definition of a sovereign wealth fund, written by sovereign wealth funds themselves in 2008 and published in Appendix I of the Santiago Principles. In short, this defines sovereign wealth funds as having three key characteristics:
- A sovereign wealth fund is owned by the general government, which includes both central government and sub-national governments.
- Includes investments in foreign financial assets.
- They invest for financial objectives.
These key elements exclude:
- Public pension funds, which are ultimately owned by the underlying policy holders.
- Central bank reserve assets, which are not invested.
But are these funds all they are cracked up to be?
One drawback of SWF is that, although expected, returns are not guaranteed. Exchange rates might be negatively impacted by a decline in SWF as well. Mismanagement of assets might happen due to the lack of transparency in some SWFs….And because SWFs are usually completely under the control of governments, they can be used to pursue purely political goals. Moreover, SWFs often have no fiduciary responsibilities or minimal reporting obligations, making it difficult to understand where a country’s money is invested.
There is the key to this proposal/EO……
What is the motive behind this?
I smell a con yet again…the lack of adequate transparency fits well into the Trump style of management(?)
He is going to bankrupt this country even worse than the 2 party system…..
And you dullards voted for this tool.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
Sounds more like a GoFundMe scam.
There are SO many hustles underway at the same time that it’s difficult to keep an eye on them all…while you watch people being rounded up and flown to prisons, he is siphoning off money at a wildly alarming rate.
Uh? Now just a minute, Trump doesn’t have the legal or constitutional authority to do any such thing. There is nothing in law or in the constitution that gives him the ability to create any kind of fund. The executive branch can only collect and/or distribute funds as allocated by the US Congress.
WTF is going on with those spineless weasels on the democratic side in congress that they aren’t challenging this crap? If they had any guts they’d have 99% of the crap he’s been trying to pull in the courts already.
I am sure court is in his future but then he relishes tying everything up in the courts. chuq
It should be renamed The Soverign Trump Fund. He can use it to fund Barron’s election campaign in the next election. (If there is one)
Best wishes, Pete.
And to buy TikTok so he can censor it. chuq