Land of Make Believe

Once upon a time financial barbarians schemed to take over the political system, endearing themselves to both the Red and Blue political parties through donations (direct and indirect via affiliates), lobbying and political action committees, as well as the lure of post public service employment as a private equity underwriter (PEU).  Legendary PEU founders became "policy making billionaires" and elected officials did their bidding in exchange for boat or balloon rides.

PEUs could be on all sides of a deal, debt and equity, while multiple affiliates could earn fees for their role in making the deal happen, as could the parent PEU.  Elected officials said this was good as there were "many arms of various lengths."

A wise man in the story observed private equity and characterized it as:

Everything is ours.  We do not lose.  We do not pay taxes. We create the prices.  We make and change the contracts.  We do not use our money.  We make the laws.

This broad widespread power is strange because many PEU firms have a history as bad actors.  The wise man asked:

Who knew free markets meant free passes to corrupt insiders?  Have you ever seen a system where the perpetrators of previous financial carnage and malfeasance are allowed to glide through to their next scheme with the regulatory runways foamed so they can light the fuse of a greater financial systemic bomb? 

The era of make believe did not descend on us in a day.  It's been in the making since PEUs were founded and grew in political power/influence.  The wise man paid attention.   

We have witnessed so much corrosive behavior, we think it's normal.  Once you accept a little corruption, like diehard Clinton fans, Obama fans, and George W. Bush fans, you let the Devil in the door. 

The next step is how many meals the Devil shows up for? Trump hosts a 24 hour "all Beelzebub can eat" carving station, set up buffet style. It's all the same, the only difference being what's in the DOGE bag. 

There is no pushback because everyone is in on the take. Private equity has shown us the way. Private equity puts up numbers you cannot see and verify, and Trump engages in the same with all "the deals" he announces and claims victory without details.

The Devil would be in the details but they are never shown by the PEU boys or their political supplicants.  Surprise provisions enter legislation and "no one knows" where they came from.  Thus, we are living in the Land of Make Believe.  

Politicians Red and Blue love PEU and their new TechGod brethren.   Increasingly more elected officials are PEUs, some in the past, while others have that as their future.

The Land of Make Believe has a PEUture.  For the rest of us, it remains to be seen, but early signs are "you are on your own" and there are no financial cops on the beat.

Insufferable TechGods Go Banking

Billionaire TechGods hope to open a digital only bank in Columbus, Ohio.  The group includes TechGod of War Palmer Luckey, TechGod of Spying Joe Lonsdale and Superior TechGod Peter Thiel.  

Erebor, the people-less digital bank, will fill the void left by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.  Really?  Regulators are going to approve a new bank for the person who took down the old?

If it had been Apple Valley bank with regular folk the normal FDIC max of $250,000 would have held.

Erebor will be a crypto focused bank and hold stablecoins, also known as "the pretty."  Thiel already has a Bitcoin Treasury gig with Anthony Pompliano's ProCap Financial.  

Erebor's name has interesting roots.

Straight from the Underworld of Dark TechGods, the live forever, tax hating variety.  These are the people benefiting from Trump II's Big Beautiful Shirk & Jerk.  They freely take from the Treasury, but hate to give.

Erebor is a churn play by Palmer Luckey who plans to employ 4,000 workers by 2035.  Those people need a bank.  Why not a captive one?

Trump's Big Beautiful Shirk & Jerk

To celebrate the passage of Trump's big beautiful shirk and jerk benefiting the billionaire class, the Trump Organization is releasing a truly one of a kind music masterpiece.  "There really has never been anything like this.  Not in the history of the world."

Donald Trump sings the Hits of the 80's New Wave era.  

Trump noted making the record brought back memories of the 80's palling around with Jeffery Epstein and his cadre of child sex victims.  

In his sales pitch Donald noted people can download the album on their new Trump Mobile T1 phone, possibly made in America or a country that rhymes with it, or a country that does not rhyme, in which case it would be Bust dat Rhyme.  The T1 comes with a White House number pre-loaded.  It's listed under "Daddy."

Trump expects big sales of both the phone and album on Amazon.  Please buy both items ASAP as Jeff Bezos has a monstrous wedding bill to pay.  

Trump noted that he did not touch Medicaid.  Congress did with a little help from the special executive department DOUGEBAG (Department of Ungodly Greedy Executives Biased Against Government). 

Just like he did with government operations, Trump is turning Medicaid over to the TechGods.  Good luck navigating the proof of work portal, guaranteed to give one cardiac arrest or, if kicked off enough times, a major stroke.  

Which leads us back to the Big Beautiful Shirk & Jerk, benefitting billionaire private equity underwriters (PEU) and their new TechGod brethren.

TechGods are coming after your language and cognitive skills.  Just in case they're already having an impact, the Trump sings the 80's is a joke, DOUGEBAG is a takeoff on DOGE, but pretty much the rest is accurate.

Update 7-3-25:  The House passed the BBS&J, so Trump II can now celebrate by singing "I'll Melt the World to Stomp on You."  The bill accelerates Social Security and Medicare insolvency to 2032.

Insider Money Funnel on Hyperdrive

DOUGEBAG could not find hundreds of thousands in wasteful spending, specifically $600,000 for golf carts and $80,000 for portable toilets (as it would not be right for nonmember Secret Service agents to use club facilities.)

The insider money funnel continues pumping huge sums to government officials with full time jobs like Governor Kristi Noem who got $80,000 for fundraising.  Noem did not declare this money when she became Homeland Security Chief.

Former Congressman Matt Gaetz has been offered a home run payment of $2 million for a major deliverable, one requiring Gaetz use all his connections to Trump II, the digital Caligula.

So while the Red Team was circulating serious green a citizen in Miami was rounded up by police and thrown out of a meeting.  Their offense?  The expectation that a question would be answered.

That citizen failed to show up with green fuel for the insider money funnel.  No acknowledgement of you...no answers as you are not really there.

New Party Time in the Schism

The dynamic duo of Pablum and Doink has deteriorated to the point that one must go.  The two billionaires paired orbits to get Pablum elected and Doink the opportunity to impart his mark on government via DOUGEBAG (Department of Ungodly Greedy Executives Biased Against Government).

DOUGEBAG employed the private equity underwriter (PEU) playbook.  That includes substituting people for crappy, incapable and unreliable technology.

Their two massive egos eventually repelled one another.  Pablum created his own new universe which takes common words in use for centuries and brands them as new on his social media site.  I expect he'll eventually put them all in a book and sell it, Creations by Pablum:  Usurped from Webster.

Doink returned to his six five companies and his six five part-time CEO jobs.  A former business partner said this of the fractured relationship between Trump and Musk:

“Knowing Elon the way I know him, I do think he’s going to do everything to damage the president.”

That appears to be underway.  Pablum is known for punching back harder, so this could quickly get out of hand.  How long before the two go supernova?  Beware the blast radius.

Update 7-2-25:  Jesse wrote:

I have trouble finding reliable sources of information these days. 

 And when it comes to making careless, clickbait statements of speculation, excess is considered the rule. 

 This is the age of puffery. And the cheeto-bandito is the puffiest.

And I thought Pablum nailed Trump II, the digital Caligula.  Add Puff Daddy Cheeto-Bandito to the list.

Nothing Wrong: PEU Edition

 NomDePlumber wrote on X:

"Nothing wrong with a Private Equity fund manager which owns an insurer, which sells annuities, which are backed with Private Credit loans, which finance the Private Equity fund manager portfolio companies, and which require capital protection against default losses, which consists of loss-absorption guarantees by offshore reinsurers, which the Private Equity fund manager also owns.

That sums up the current state of my lingering concern about private equity underwriters (PEU) being on all sides of a deal, charging fees for their multiple roles and setting up recurring payments via management fees, as well as special dividends/distributions.  

NomDePlumber's observation highlights the credit/equity side of PEU family churn, but it also occurs in operations as affiliates buy goods and services from one another.  I imagine AI is turbocharging PEU internal cross selling.  

AI is another opportunity for sponsor fee generation.  There's the fee for "parent AI services" and AI could be used to identify yet to be thought of new PEU fees for yet to be conceived products.

And the U.S. Treasury is supposed to backstop all of this when profit accelerating leverage reverses and becomes a capital destruction buzz saw?  Yes, Virginia that is the way Congress works.  Politicians Red and Blue love PEU (and their new TechGod brethren).  

AI Regulation: No Prophylaxis in Sight

The majority of people do not want AI and I am one.  

I am all for advancing knowledge, that from the creation of theory and the real world testing of that theory.  That is not AI, essentially a giant cauldron of inference using parameters.  

This interview opened my eyes to issues around AI development, that there literally is no code to examine and that the people wanting carte blanche to develop AI have a primary profit motive and are of the same ilk that gave us individual/society destroying "social media."

Why is it in the federal government's interest to usurp states rights on AI?

Because TechGods and PEU Legends want it.  Their profits are prioritized over our safety and general welfare.  

China "cannot" legally steal your intellectual property, but AI can "strip-mine the human expression and ingenuity" in copyrighted works.  

Trump II's revulsion for regulation comes at a very bad time.  AI needs more than guardrails.  It needs a few red lines.

If you want to learn more about the development path for AI view this video.

Update 6-30-25:  Fifteen risks of AI