Paul Krugman: I’ve been in a meeting with a number of men (and a handful of women) in suits, and while there has been intelligent discussion, my main impression is that Very Serious People are irrationally complacent about the consequences — economic and political — if Trump wins.

I’ve been in a meeting with a number of men (and a handful of women) in suits, and while there has been intelligent discussion, my main impression is that Very Serious People are irrationally complacent about the consequences — economic and political — if Trump wins.

It truly terrifies me. Way too many people in power seem to lack the imagination needed to grasp the danger.

they think their money will protect them

Some are right. But most are wrong.

The thing these folks misunderstand is that just because you can navigate the systems that provide your current level of influence, the specific system of state-blended corruption, violence, and abject lawlessness is /different/ and can (and does) arbitrarily remove the systems they relied on

what's $107 billion among friends...

2017–2019 Saudi Arabian purge - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

If I were an authoritarian leader of the United States, I'd force Musk to sell SpaceX & Starlink to my kids. Because those are two very easy ways to throw massive amounts of money at "things the government can spend money on excessively and my family profits"

There are plenty of examples of these people littered throughout the last 9 years. No amount of money can protect you from an egomaniacal narcissistic president whose brains are starting to leak and all the sycophants who will be in power with him. Not even Elon money.

It also decreases the overall profits available due to resources diverted to influence-seeking and other corruption, insecurity, brain drain, etc.

It’s also a literal failure of imagination—it’s not that they think their money will protect them from deranged consequences, it’s that they don’t actually believe those consequences will occur. Trump 2 will be like Bush or at worst Trump 1. Lay out why that isn’t so and they look at you blankly

This but in real life. It’s…weird. And when you get a bit worked up about their lack of alarm, they look at you condescendingly, like you’re the crazy one

Lots of windows in penthouses and mega-mansions.

Death comes at you fast in autocracy. $ can endanger as well as protect. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspici...

Exactly. And almost all of these folks don't know how to navigate it, and will be very surprised to find out how the things that give them protection and in this society don't necessarily translate into protection, never mind influence and wealth, during a state collapse

I don't get the sense they're thinking that way at all. Meaning, they're imagining themselves powerful, raking in govt benefits and smiling as the state crushes things/people they don't like (eg "wokeness"). They're not thinking anything like "this is risky for me, but I can navigate the challenge."

No, no, you don't understand. The leopards won't eat MY face!

Rise of Orban in Hungary is a model for the Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, CPAC. www.vox.com/policy-and-p...

There'll be a lot of being robbed/killed by your own security team.

Today’s WP underscores your point. 1. Where’s the money since the “government” crackdown? 2. Since freed, where are the people? www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/0...

China cultivated high-rolling crime families before turning on themwww.washingtonpost.com A Post investigation found that criminal networks in Myanmar enjoyed the protection of Chinese officials as well as the military government in Myanmar.

Trump very publicly shows favoritism to a bunch of rich people so they assume he's just going to do that for *all* of them rather than only those he decides he likes on any given day

Yeah, the joke from the 1st term that Trump only knew like 10 guys which was why they always cycled back even after being on the outs. A core of insiders that he constantly leans on, sort of how Putin does things too. There arent many openings.

Thing about Narcissists, they dont inherently see you doing them a favor as them owing you anything, they believe they're owed favors just as a natural course of things.

Money has no power where there are no laws. It merely means that you get to enjoy some property until Dear Leader gets a vagrant notion to kill you.

For the most part, it will! That's what sucks.

Until it doesn't. Russian rich guys tend to fall out windows a lot.

Felating the czar is a cost of doing business. Some don’t pay.

And even if they do, maybe there's a regime favorite who wants that action. Elites who rose under rule of law don't fare well in mafia states. Different skill set.

they’re always paying someone. no one is truly free with that much money & wanting to make more & keep it. gotta keep the wheels turning, they just pivot.

yes, it won’t protect them all, it can never protect them all. there’s already more than proof of that in life. yet, rich or poor, some humans don’t think it’ll happen to them until they’re neck deep. the ones that see it coming already have plans & contingencies in place & even then nothing is 100%

yes, it does for the rest of us. i wish more people would see it that way and press to tax the rich, as that is what seems to be working just about everywhere else. they’ve confused rich with just plain quality of life.

A perfectly defensible ethical stance, said nobody ever

If I hadn’t spent time living and traveling in Argentina shortly after the end of their military dictatorship in 1990, I don’t know that I’d get how close to the edge any society is to just having fascism take over. And life still goes on. The momentum of the banal or something.

They don't need imagination. Trump and his cronies are saying in plain English what exactly they're going to do. Loud and clear.

It’s not a lack of imagination so much as negative imagination, they see the facts on the ground and imagine that they’re not what they plainly are.

right now Trump's implicit pitch to much of the business community is "if I win I will destroy fed independence and force them to lower interest rates and if Biden wins he will respect it and rates will remain high" and honestly it's not even wrong if all you care about is making money

Feels like the guy estimating impact of climate change on the economy & looking at agriculture like "that's 5% of the economy, so 5% impact at worst". People so focused on their strategy to win the game they don't notice their strategy depends on the existence of a game board they're going to break.

Kills me that so many of these ‘serious people’ don’t seem to be accounting for the fact that consumers make the economy run. Everything they want will inherently destroy the consumer class and then number go down real big, but I guess that’s a problem for next quarter.

I'm not entirely sure they understand that the little people (consumers) are vital to their (VSP's) continued well-being. I think they believe they exist on an entirely different plane of existence.

Rates alone does not an economy make. His whole plan is straight up anti democratic, so unconstrained and overly enabled he will implement his policies, including the destruction of the IRS and throw our whole country into a tailspin. We’re Sarajevo 84 because of this madman.

It’s more of a tax and regulation story. Large businesses aren’t really being negatively impacted by higher rates.

Yes, but there’s also the mass deportations, the diminishment of civil rights and the resulting civil unrest, the targeting of politically disfavored companies (already happened, btw!), and many other proposals whose negative impact to the bottom line should be factored in as well.

The play is to sneak unfettered capitalism under the cover of sticking it to the libs bc that’s the base they need to take it

I would amend that to “making money in the short term.”

If all you care about is making money... In the very short term. Destroying the rule of law also destroys the perks of being rich as you'll always be on edge making sure you don't upset your fascist overlord. A lot of rich dead Russians cozied up to Putin as well.

Yup. Biden not replacing Powell has been an obvious massive unforced error.

they can't imagine an America that they're not members of the elite, they don't believe it can happen here. they are dead wrong - everyone has a target on their back in a dictatorship

I think if you have enough money you can, in the worst case, leave the country, so it’s not really a target then

if it happens here, the way it has in other countries, it all goes down very fast. The few well connected escape, but most people are lucky to leave with very little of value

Lots of wealthy people met their end in the Holocaust. When they take your home, business, seize your accounts and other assets how are you going to buy your way out? When they get rid of one “undesirable” group they will start looking around for another because they can’t exist without one.