The Never-ending Grift
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https://www.fastcompany.com/91352863/trump-mobile-is-here-experts-are-baffled
Trump Mobile would be an MVNO—a mobile virtual network operator—which, at present, doesn’t own any of its own infrastructure. That may be intentional, considering the risks involved. “The puzzle to me is why are they resurrecting this idea from, like, 10 years ago and trying to milk a little bit of extra money out of this,” Dediu says.
MVNOs have minimal presence in the U.S. smartphone market, holding less than a 5% share. The major providers—Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile—dominate, and they will supply the actual infrastructure for Trump phones.
and
Success is far from certain. “I’m struggling to figure out why even the phone would make sense,” Dediu says. While some profit could be made on hardware sales, he notes that branding might allow a $200 device to be sold for $500, though the costs of servicing customers could quickly erode that margin.
@taiwan_girl said in The Never-ending Grift:
“The puzzle to me is why are they resurrecting this idea from, like, 10 years ago and trying to milk a little bit of extra money out of this,” Dediu says.
He answered his own puzzle. Grifters gonna grift. Magat grifters gonna grift magats.
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Since January, President Trump bought over $100 million in bonds, including corporate, state, and municipal bonds.
The filings reveal more than 600 financial purchases since January 21, covering sectors potentially benefiting from US policy shifts.
Trump's annual disclosure showed over $600 million in income from various sources and assets worth at least $1.6 billion.
But
“President Trump’s net worth has increased substantially, with much of that concentrated in crypto holdings and Trump Media. Given that, there is no evidence currently that his bond purchases are anything other than a prudent diversification within his billions of dollars in assets,” said Mr John Canavan, lead US analyst at Oxford Economics.
“It seems like he was primarily purchasing corporate and municipal bonds and others that are high quality and highly rated, so it’s just a way to take a little bit of risk off the table,” he said.
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The NYT tallied up the fortunes amassed by the Trumps since the start of his second term:
The number came up to $1,408,500,000.
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Not saying anybody from the President Trump administration was involved, but.............
For one prediction market trader, the Trump administration's weekend capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was a nearly half-million-dollar payday.
On Polymarket, a popular site for making bets on the outcome of real world events, a user wagered $32,000 that Maduro would be toppled by the end of January hours before Trump ordered the operation. When it was clear the U.S. had captured Maduro, the trader made more than $400,000 in profit.
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/05/nx-s1-5667232/polymarket-maduro-bet-insider-trading
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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/28/melania-trump-documentary-amazon-release
Re: Melania documentary
But no one paid $40m to acquire Am I Racist? – or an additional $35m to market it. That’s how much Amazon has poured into Melania – remarkably, the most the deep-pocketed company has ever paid to secure distribution of a single film. This is seemingly the result of a post-election bidding war when corporate panic over matching a seeming rightward turn in the populace was at its peak.
Technically, paying the president-elect’s wife this much money – Melania reportedly pocketed nearly $30m of Amazon’s initial $40m outlay – was legal, because the first lady isn’t part of the government. She’s just a private citizen who happens to be married to the president and happened to receive a multimillion-dollar check from a company with many government contracts through its web services and other divisions.
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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/28/melania-trump-documentary-amazon-release
Re: Melania documentary
But no one paid $40m to acquire Am I Racist? – or an additional $35m to market it. That’s how much Amazon has poured into Melania – remarkably, the most the deep-pocketed company has ever paid to secure distribution of a single film. This is seemingly the result of a post-election bidding war when corporate panic over matching a seeming rightward turn in the populace was at its peak.
Technically, paying the president-elect’s wife this much money – Melania reportedly pocketed nearly $30m of Amazon’s initial $40m outlay – was legal, because the first lady isn’t part of the government. She’s just a private citizen who happens to be married to the president and happened to receive a multimillion-dollar check from a company with many government contracts through its web services and other divisions.
@taiwan_girl said in The Never-ending Grift:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/28/melania-trump-documentary-amazon-release
Re: Melania documentary
But no one paid $40m to acquire Am I Racist? – or an additional $35m to market it. That’s how much Amazon has poured into Melania – remarkably, the most the deep-pocketed company has ever paid to secure distribution of a single film. This is seemingly the result of a post-election bidding war when corporate panic over matching a seeming rightward turn in the populace was at its peak.
Technically, paying the president-elect’s wife this much money – Melania reportedly pocketed nearly $30m of Amazon’s initial $40m outlay – was legal, because the first lady isn’t part of the government. She’s just a private citizen who happens to be married to the president and happened to receive a multimillion-dollar check from a company with many government contracts through its web services and other divisions.
Apparently Melania has been nominated for a FIFA film award.
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Re: Melania documentary
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/amazon-pulls-melania-movie-theater-1236494861/
As first reported by The Oregonian, and then nationally spotted by The Daily Beast, an Oregon theater long known for finding creatively witty ways to advertise its movies was asked by Amazon to stop screening Melania.
The Lake Theater and Cafe in Lake Oswego had touted last week's release of Amazon MGM's controversial documentary with declarations such as "Does Melania wear Prada? Find out Friday" and -- quoting Sun Tzu's The Art of War -- "To defeat your enemy, you must know them. Melania starts Friday."
Then manager Jordan Perry says their booker received a call from somebody at Amazon asking the theater to pull the film.
"The studio was not happy and/or did not appreciate my take on marketing their film to our own public," Perry told The Oregonian. The theater marquee was then changed to: "Amazon called. Our marquee made them mad. All Melania showings cancelled. Show your support at Whole Foods instead." This was followed by "Join Amazon Prime for Free Two-Day Shipping." (Amazon had no immediate comment on the matter).
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Investors in World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture co-founded by President Trump and his sons, have secured what the company described on its website as “guaranteed direct access” to certain members of its team for those who lock up $5 million worth of their tokens for a six-month period in exchange for voting rights.
Among those listed on World Liberty documents as the firm's "Supporting Team" are the sons of the U.S. president, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Barron Trump. The company said Trump and other family members won't be part of the direct access arrangement.
and
“Among the privileges for Super Nodes is preferential access to the World Liberty Financial business development team and executives – not to specific founders – to discuss partnership opportunities,” said its spokesman, David Wachsman. The World Liberty proposal first issued in February said the "Super Nodes" would gain “guaranteed direct access to the WLFI team” for “partnership discussions.”
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A section of the World Liberty website entitled “Meet our team” previously listed, among others, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Barron Trump. Following Reuters' questions about the proposal, the website page was altered with the "Meet our team" section removed entirely.
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Under the terms of World Liberty’s business, 75% of all new token sales go to the family of President Trump, meaning that those who have purchased $5 million of the tokens effectively sent $3.75 million to the Trumps. Under a previous version of the terms, the Witkoffs were entitled to 12.5% of all new token sales, meaning they would effectively be sent $625,000, though the most recent version says only that they receive an unspecified portion of a 25% stake.
Meet the Team page that was scrubbed
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