Whee!
As an empire becomes more costly...less productive...and more top-heavy, growth slows and corruption speeds up. It is as if the rascals see the ship sinking...and loot it before it goes down.
Tuesday, August 18th, 2026
Bill Bonner, from Poitou, France
‘If Watergate were to happen now, it would be like a 12-hour news story.’
—JD Vance
The vice president is talking about the shrug...about the way grift is ‘normalized.’ It becomes another part of what Steve Bannon called the ‘flood the zone’ strategy. You keep so much stuff coming at the voters that they don’t have time to think...or react. It seems to be working. Surveys report that Americans are not outraged; they are tuning out.
Trump is president. He’s the Big Man, the most powerful man in the world. But surveys show that people are less and less inclined to pay any attention to him. He’s the one who should’ve...could’ve...and didn’t. They will label him a ‘conservative,’ and blame him when even nuttier Mamdani-style socialists are elected.
Every POTUS this century has been a disaster. Each of them has put more grease on the skids...helping to speed America’s toboggan-like decline. They all overspent. They all committed war crimes. They all bowed down before the big lobbies and did as the Deep State elite commanded. And, generally, with the support of the public.
But no US leader, present or past tense, has done it with the bravado...the chutzpah...and the sheer gall of DJT.
The Donald took the White House in 2017. Since then, US debt has approximately doubled. About $8 trillion of it came on during Joe Biden’s spendathon. But $12 trillion, so far, is the bill for Trump – more than any president ever...so much new debt that now the debt bomb has been dropped. It cannot be recalled or disarmed. It will hit the ground in an explosion of chicanery, bankruptcy, and inflation.
In matters of war, Trump cannot be said to be worse than, say, George W. Bush. But Bush kept within the boundaries of broadly acceptable fraud – assembling an international coalition to attack Iraq with the blessing of the West’s most self-righteous institutions and the stamp of approval from the great and the good. At least the man who wears a mask when he robs a bank admits that there is something low-down about it.
Trump is more brutally honest...attacking Iran with only the rogue state, Israel, by his side...in defiance of world opinion, the Geneva convention, good taste and good judgement.
But where Trump really stands head and shoulders above his predecessors — going all the way back to Warren Harding — is that he is by far the most corrupt president the US has ever seen. Harding presided over the Teapot Dome scandal. And people went to jail for it...showing how much standards have slipped. But Harding was not where the buck stopped; there is no record of him gaining anything personally. Bush and Obama, too, were disasters, but neither took much personal profit from their White House sojourn. A book contract here...speaking fees there...a few million perhaps; hardly worth mentioning.
Corruption moved into a higher gear with Joe Biden.
Recall the theory. As an empire becomes more costly...less productive...and more top-heavy, growth slows and corruption speeds up. It is as if the rascals see the ship sinking...and loot it before it goes down. This does not mean that the Biden crew were especially evil or avaricious. A baby hyena is a cute little thing; it is not his fault he grows up to be an ugly killer.
Corruption is a symptom, not a cause. It’s what happens when win-win is no longer a winning strategy. Ambitious people turn to win-lose. First, they increase the general level of flimflam — focusing most of their efforts, like Willie Sutton, on where the money is. They set up heads-I-win, tails-you-lose hedge funds, for example. Or, they change the rules so that they take profits from rising stock prices, but get a ‘bailout’ from the feds when they go down.
The Biden ‘crime family’ got its crooked money in several different ways. Hunter, the President’s son, collected $4 million for helping to run a Ukrainian energy company. He knew not a word of Ukrainian...and not a thing about energy. He got another $2.6 million from Chinese businesses in return for unknown services. He spoke no Chinese either. But he was fluent in flimflam. He sold $1.5 million worth of his paintings. And his uncle, Jim Biden, received $500,000 from Hunter’s Chinese business pals...again, for no identifiable reason.
Corrupt practices? Most people will say so. But farm league stuff. When it comes to grift, Trump is in the Super Bowl.
Trump’s crypto business has brought in about $1.4 billion.
The plane from Qatar was worth $1.1 billion.
Jared Kushner’s hedge fund drew in $5.4 billion.
Selling advance notice of his Truth Social posts is estimated to be worth $1.2 billion.
Trump collected $10 million from selling pardons. Reuters said “nearly all the clemency decisions” were linked to payments.
Melania got $28 million for her documentary; it grossed only $16 million.
Sons Donald Jr. and Eric have made sweet deals with weapons contractors...though neither knows anything about weaponry. The Financial Times:
A Florida-based drone manufacturer with financial ties to Donald Trump Jr. has landed its largest Pentagon contract to date as the US military steps up efforts to boost domestic drone acquisition. The company, Unusual Machines, in which Trump Jr. holds a stake worth about $4 million, announced it will supply the Army with 3,500 drone motors.
These are merely different forms of influence peddling. But there is also some $13 billion worth of Venezuelan oil, taken by the US. No one seems to know where it is, but it is rumored to be under Trump’s control.
As POTUS, Trump earns about $200 per hour on the job. But Ralph Nader estimates that Trump’s side hustles earned him $1.1 million per hour in the first 12 months of his second term:
That’s right, $1.1 million an hour based on a 40-hour work week over one year. (And remember, Trump spends a lot of his time on his vengeance missions, his golf game, and napping—so a 40-hour work week is a generous estimate.)
Good work if you can get it. And it takes corruption to a whole different level...in comparison, Joe Biden was nothing more than a shoplifter, running from a mid-town mall with a pair of Nikes.
The ‘Corruption Perceptions Index’ ranks the world’s countries. As might be expected, it ranks South Sudan, Somalia and Venezuela as the most corrupt. Denmark, Singapore and New Zealand are on the other end of the scale. And where’s the US?
The United States (64) continues on a downward trend, recording its lowest ever score in the CPI index.
Is anyone outraged?
No, we’re beyond that. Watergate took two years to unfold. Today, the nation can’t sit still for an afternoon.
Whee!
Regards,
Bill Bonner
"Bush and Obama, too, were disasters, but neither took much personal profit from their White House sojourn." Obama's net worth pre 2008 election: $1 million. Net worth now: $90 million. Not a bad return for not doing anything.
Hi Bill, I started out as a Trump supporter and have been critical of your treatment of him in the past but things have changed. For once, I agree with everything in this letter. Have to say it, you’re right.