The Golden Fleece
Thursday, January 8th, 2026
Bill Bonner, from Baltimore, Maryland
The week before Christmas, stock in shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries rose 10%. It is in line to build a whole new class of floating boondoggle. Investors’ Business Daily:
The U.S. Navy will begin building a new class of war ship that will be the centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s “Golden Fleet” initiative, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Announced late Monday, the new vessels will be labeled “Trump-Class” ships...The new project comes after Trump criticized U.S. Navy ships for being “ugly” during a speech earlier this year.
The press likes to wallow in the mud of ‘chaos’ and ‘internal contradictions’ of the Trump administration. Little do they realize that there’s a madness to the method.
Violence...confusion...bullying — it is all intentional...at least from an historical point of view...and completely consistent. Almost everything the administration has done points in the same direction.
Yesterday, for example, came two remarkable Trump proclamations.
In the first, POTUS greatly increased the war-making budget. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:
In a post on Truth Social, President Trump called for increasing the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 defense budget to $1.5 trillion, rather than $1 trillion he said he previously wanted to propose. We preliminarily estimate that this would increase defense spending by $5 trillion through 2035, adding $5.8 trillion to the national debt when interest is included.
And then, he moved toward taking direct command of the firepower industry. Bloomberg:
Major defense contractors that work with the government must end stock buybacks, stop issuing dividends and cap executive pay at $5 million a year until they invest more in factories and research to speed development.
Hours later, Trump signed an executive order codifying the decision. And in a separate post, he singled out RTX Corp., a maker of the popular Patriot missile system.
Raytheon, the name of RTX’s defense unit, will “no longer be doing business with Department of War” unless it “steps up” with more upfront spending on plants and equipment, he said. Shares of RTX as well as rival defense firms Northrop Grumman Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp. and General Dynamics Corp. declined.
Whew!
Time for a cynicism recharge.
But the problem faced by History, at the beginning of the 21st century, was that the US empire was so dominant...with such a big lead on the rest of the world...that it almost didn’t seem possible to bring it down. And yet, it had to decline — sooner or later.
But instead of stooping over and aging gracefully, the US appeared to be getting stronger. The budget was balanced. US debt was $5.6 trillion, and actually going down. US military power was unrivaled...with no real enemies. Russia wanted to join NATO. China wanted to join the WTO. Both wanted to be part of America’s grand order, not enemies of it.
It would take a lot of bad judgement to bring this empire down.
But then, Dame History, that stunning coquette, found the men she needed. George W. Bush launched his preposterous war against Iraq. And then the war in Afghanistan. And then the War on Terror...the Fed’s zero interest rates...the war on Covid...stimmies...huge deficits…Wokism...the Ukraine, GAZA...DEI…tariffs.
Obama, Trump, Biden, and Trump again...and voila, we have $38 trillion in debt... and former friends are ‘gunning up’ just in case.
And now, rather than make an effort to repair the damage — by cutting deficits and de-escalating wars — the administration beats the war drums even louder.
Among other things, it introduces a whole new fantasy...a ‘golden fleet’ of new ships that appeal both to Trump’s vanity and his aesthetic judgements.
Investing more in surface ships is not really a big deal — not when compared the Big, Beautiful Budget bill...or to kidnapping foreign heads of state. But these new ships probably tee up not only a financial disaster...but a naval disaster too. David Stockman:
In this day and age the skies are full of satellites and military arsenals are rife with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and high-powered, lethal fighter aircraft— and soon, mother-ship bombers capable of launching swarms of hundreds of weaponized drones at Navy battle groups floating on the surface waters like sitting ducks.
The Navy says these slow-moving ‘bomb magnets’ “will stand as the centerpiece of the Navy’s Golden Fleet initiative and will be the first of its kind providing dominant firepower and a decisive advantage over adversaries by integrating the most advanced deep-strike weapons of today with the revolutionary systems of the years ahead.”
Blah...blah...blah
More than likely, though, the Navy will spend billions designing the new ships and all the gee-whiz gear that goes in them...and by the time they are ready to lay the keels everyone will see that they are already antiquated.
The three Zumwalt-class destroyers, for example, each cost $8 billion. The Navy was never able to find a clear mission for them, so the additional 24 ships that had been planned were cancelled.
The Constellation-class frigates were designed and re-designed. After $9 billion, the Navy gave up. None were built.
And the Navy probably wishes it had never built the Littoral Combat Ships it christened in 2002. After cramming the hulls with expensive gadgets and state-of-the-art electronics, the basic mechanical systems failed. One of them broke down at sea and had to be towed back to port. Cost over-runs exceeded 200% of estimates. Finally, last February, the program was ended.
Ford-class aircraft carriers and Columbia-class submarines have been plagued by overruns and delays.
With luck, the Trump-class ships will never actually be built. Defense contractors will still make billions by designing and testing new weapons systems. But at least they won’t suffer the embarrassment of having them sunk in battle.
Regards,
Bill Bonner
I don’t know much about naval warfare. I was never in the Navy. I get seasick in bathtubs. But it does seem odd to spend billions designing ships everyone already knows won’t work, just so they can look impressive in press releases. It’s kind of like buying a luxury car you never drive because it might break down. Except the car costs eight billion dollars and explodes. So yeah, build ships because the President doesn’t like how the old ones look and implement defense policy that resembles a Yelp review with nukes. Call it the Golden Fleet, paint it shiny, name it after yourself, and suddenly the empire feels young again, like Botox for geopolitics. Meanwhile History’s in the back, tapping its watch, because every empire eventually mistakes aesthetics for strength, noise for power, and spending for strategy.
Anyway, maybe the Trump-class ships won’t be built. Which would be nice. Because historically speaking, the most successful weapons programs are the ones that never leave the drawing board. You don’t build dominance by ordering floating monuments to vanity that double as missile magnets. You build decline that way. Big, beautiful, debt-financed decline.
Next up. Let’s eliminate all stock buybacks. They used to be illegal. They still should be illegal.