The Never-ending Grift

[Renauda]

I would suspect it to be unlikely.

[taiwan_girl]

Agree.

[Horace]

When doing publicity for a book, one does not usually request payment. When approached by an oppositional media outlet and their cynical reach for ratings, I can understand it.

[jon-nyc]

That’s when you say no. Unless you’re the kind of woman for whom it’s always just a question of price.

[Horace]

@jon-nyc said in The Never-ending Grift:

That’s when you say no. Unless you’re the kind of woman that makes it just a question about price.

There's nothing unethical about requesting an appearance fee. CNN is free to say no.

[jon-nyc]

Though they backed off once it became public.

[taiwan_girl]

Thousands of copies of Donald Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bible were printed in a country that the former president has repeatedly accused of stealing American jobs and engaging in unfair trade practices — China.

Global trade records reviewed by The Associated Press show a printing company in China’s eastern city of Hangzhou shipped close to 120,000 of the Bibles to the United States between early February and late March.

The estimated value of the three separate shipments was $342,000, or less than $3 per Bible, according to databases that use customs data to track exports and imports. The minimum price for the Trump-backed Bible is $59.99, putting the potential sales revenue at about $7 million.

https://fortune.com/2024/10/09/trump-god-bless-the-usa-bibles-printed-in-china/

[jon-nyc]

I wonder if his 60% tariff on china will have an exception for bibles…

[jon-nyc]

The menswear guy sleuthed this one out.

[Jolly]

May come as a shock to y'all, but a huge portion of the book printing biz is now in China.

[jon-nyc]

Not a shock at all. But if you publish a book entitled ‘here’s how we’re going to rebuild American industry’ you’d pay the extra few bucks and have it made in the US.

[Jolly]

Talk to Lee Greenwood.

[taiwan_girl]

Donald Trump announced last month he is selling “truly special” Trump Watches priced up to $100,000 and constructed with “premium, Swiss-made” materials.

But wait, there's more:

Now, the watchmaker's origins are in question after CNN tried to track down the company behind the devices. They aren't based in Switzerland, but their address returns to a strip mall. In Wyoming. Next to an HR&Block and a Wendy's.

Even the address for TheBestWatchesOnEarth LLC was questioned by CNN's report. The address the watchmaker listed is a daycare. It's also the same address used by a lobbying firm that represents Montenergo's Government. The location is also tied to an LLC that sells male enhancement honey.

It’s also the address given for the company behind Trump’s golden sneakers.

I supposed they could be importing them from Switzerland, but my guess is that they come from a country across the Pacific Ocean.

[taiwan_girl]

It has hardly been a month since presidential candidate Donald Trump started hawking digital tokens in something called World Liberty Financial, a loosely defined lending business that mimicked some of the more spectacular failures of the last crypto bubble.

Basic questions about the business — What exactly is it? How does it work? What is newly matriculated NYU freshman Barron Trump doing as one of the company’s “Web3 Ambassadors”? — have gone unanswered.

And if the point of World Liberty Financial is simply to raise a ton of money through unregistered securities offerings, historically a pretty lucrative business in cryptoland, even that has gone awry. In the opening hours of trading, a period of maximum hype, the company has raised a paltry $12 million or so, falling far short of its $300 million goal.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-s-scammy-crypto-company-is-already-a-disaster/ar-AA1so2yC