Tag: economics
‘We had no choice but to take dramatic steps to bring USAID under control’ — Marco Rubio
Trump signs Executive Orders in the Oval Office and makes comments to press, Feb. 3, 2025
Trump signs order creating first-ever US sovereign wealth fund — and TikTok could be its first purchase
WASHINGTON — President Trump signed an executive order Monday to create a sovereign US wealth fund — saying that TikTok may become one of its first acquisitions.
The world’s largest and wealthiest sovereign funds are owned by China and resource-rich countries like Norway and Middle Eastern emirates.
“Other countries have sovereign wealth funds, and they’re much smaller countries, and they’re not the United States,” Trump said.
“As an example, TikTok, we’re going to be doing something perhaps … and we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever we make, or if we do a partnership with very wealthy people — a lot of options, but we could put that as an example in the fund.
“We have a lot of other things that we can put in the fund.”
“We’re going to stand this thing up in the next 12 months. We are going to monetize the asset side of the US balance sheet for the American people. We are going to put the assets to work,” Bessent said.
“And I think it’s going to be very exciting. We’ve studied best practices that’s done around the world. It will be a combination of liquid assets, assets that we have in this country as we work, work to bring them out for the American people.”
Lutnick added that “the extraordinary size and scale of the US government, and the business it does with companies should create value for American citizens.”
Trump on USAID: ‘It’s run by a bunch of radical lunatics and we’re getting them out’
USAID Staffers Told to Stay Out of DC HQ After Musk Said Trump Agreed to Close It
Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development were instructed to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters on Monday, according to a notice distributed to them, after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.
USAID staffers said they tracked 600 employees who reported being locked out of the agency’s computer systems overnight. Those still in the system received emails in the agency system saying that “at the direction of Agency leadership” the headquarters building “will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3.”
The developments come after Musk, who is leading an extraordinary civilian review of the federal government with the Republican president’s agreement, said early Monday he had spoken with Trump about the six-decade U.S. aid and development agency and “he agreed we should shut it down.”
“It became apparent that its not an apple with a worm it in,” Musk said. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.” “We’re shutting it down.”
Musk’s comments online came after the administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk’s government-inspection teams, a current and a former U.S. official told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Trump on Canada, Mexico and China tariffs
CEO of Canada’s 2nd biggest company defends Trump’s tariff demands, slams Trudeau for not stopping trade war
The CEO of Canada’s second-largest publicly traded company says Canadians want their government to do all the things that President Trump is demanding — and slammed outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for not preventing the trade war.
Trump, 78, on Saturday, signed an executive order to slap 25% across-the-board tariffs on America’s northern neighbor, citing its failure to meet his demands on helping crack the fentanyl and illegal immigration trade.
“Canada thrives when it works with America together. Win by helping America win. Trump believes that Canada has not held its side of the bargain,” Tobi Lutke, who co-founded Shopify, wrote on X.
“These are things that every Canadian wants its government to do, too. These are not crazy demands, even if they came from an unpopular source. These tariffs are going to be devastating to so many people’s lives and small businesses.”
How cryptocurrency works
Vance on DOGE and why we need it
Trump Signs New Executive Orders While Taking Questions From Reporters In Oval Office
The Great Poisoning of America
I largely agree with this but what’s even more important for ‘them’ is to thoroughly weaken and debase the population in preparation for full totalitarian takeover. If it were just about the money, why were they flooding the country with illegals? Why the rash spending spree under Biden? Why all the money to Ukraine on a senseless war? Why the wasteful green energy and DEI boondoggle? In every policy we see the same or similar motive to poison the population, ruin education, poison the wells of truth and prosperity. This indicates wholesale war on USA through infiltration and takeover. Just one example is Mayorkas who acted like a hostile general working against USA by encouraging a flood of illegals while at the same time denying he was doing it. There are deeper and much worse motives than just balancing the books at play here. ABN
It’s possible an AI-induced financial catastrophe could happen as early as this year
One AI, called Truth Terminal, has recently made the news by becoming the first AI millionaire by promoting crypto currencies it was gifted. While not fully autonomous yet, it’s quite likely by later this year, some AI agents—not dissimilar from viruses—will be able to independently wander the internet, causing significant change in the real world.
AI could have huge ramifications for the financial world. Let’s examine one wild scenario—which I call the AI Monetary Hegemony—something that could possibly already happen in 2025.
A fully autonomous AI agent is programmed to go on to the internet and create cryptocurrency wallets, then create crypto currencies, then endlessly create millions of similar versions of itself that want to trade that crypto.
Now let’s assume all these AIs are programmed to try to indefinitely increase the value of their crypto, something they accomplish in similar ways humans do—by promotion and then trading their cryptos for higher values. Additionally, the autonomous AIs open their crypto to be traded with humans, creating a functioning market on the blockchain for all.
This plan sounds beneficial for all parties, even if people decry that the AI created-crypto currencies are essentially just Ponzi schemes. But they’re not Ponzi schemes because there is an endless supply of AIs always newly appearing to buy and trade more crypto.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize the AIs endlessly replicating and acting like this could quickly amass far more digital wealth than all humanity possesses.
Trump offers buyouts to all federal workers
The White House issued a memo Tuesday offering to pay federal workers who don’t want to return to the office through Sept. 30, as long as they resign by Feb. 6.
Why it matters: The action, first reported by Axios, marks an acceleration in President Trump’s already unprecedented purge of the federal workforce.
Driving the news: The Office of Personnel Management described the offer as administrative leave with pay and benefits.
- More information was shared by OPM later on Tuesday online in a memo titled, “A Fork in the Road.”
State of play: Employees who wish to resign were told: “1) Select “Reply” to this email. You must reply from your government account. A reply from an account other than your .gov or .mil account will not be accepted. 2)Type the word “Resign” into the body of this reply email. Hit “Send.”
- The subject line, and some of the wording, echoed an email Elon Musk sent to Twitter employees in 2022 giving them a similar ultimatum: to either leave, or stay and become “hardcore,” The Verge points out.
- Musk himself appeared to acknowledge this in a post on X Tuesday evening.
Zoom in: “The government-wide email being sent today is to make sure that all federal workers are on board with the new administration’s plan to have federal employees in office and adhering to higher standards. We’re five years past COVID and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office. That is unacceptable,” a senior administration official tells Axios.
- The White House expects 5% to 10% of federal employees to accept the offer, which would potentially mean hundreds of thousands of people.
- The administration projects the buyouts could ultimately save taxpayers up to $100 billion a year.
- The offer applies to all full-time federal employees, except for military personnel, the Postal Service, and those working in immigration enforcement or national security.
American Buddhist Net 