America's Life Savings Belong to Donald Trump Now (or, What Happens to the Economy Next)

Hi! How’s everyone? How are you guys feeling? Welcome back old friends, welcome new ones, and here’s a tiny puppy hug from Snowy to chase away those there-go-my-life-savings blues.

Apologies for the radio silence. I'll write more this week, I promise. I wanted to be a little judicious about how to approach what's happening in and to the world.

I’m feeling…slightly ill. There’s nothing wrong with me. But I felt nauseous today, reading the news. Stock markets cratering. The world coming undone. Millions upon millions of people are going to be affected by this, tragically so.

Stop reading here if you're already feeling shaky. I mean it. You can always come back to this. Thinking clearly is what's necessary right now, and if all this does is traumatize you further, please don't read it.

And if you're going to read it, let me put a Basic Principle up front. I say it often, but I don't think enough of you believe me. Don't take anyone's word as gospel right now, not even mine. Listen to your instincts and trust them. They are what are going to protect you best and fastest. They are there for a reason, and that is times like these.

We have a lot—a lot—to discuss. From capitalism to fascism to the mayhem in the markets and much more, right down to how existential alienation gets us here, and what to do about it. We'll dig into that this week. But first...

I want to teach you a principle that you can use to think about what to do now. Let’s cut through the noise, the panic, the fear. This is no mere “stock market crash.” If your money guys are telling you that, and that everything will be OK, they are mistaken. The deeper reality is this. 

America’s life savings belong to Donald Trump now. And so d0 much of the world’s.

Do I have to tell you how this story ends?

If that sentence chills you, then please think about what began to happen in the last few days. Million upon millions of people began to lose their life savings.

Stock markets crater for all kinds of reasons. Many are perfectly acceptable and legitimate and even normal. Oh no, this industry overinvested in this, uh oh, this bank made some poor choices, whoops, we pushed the interest rate too high this time. Those are just humdrum mistakes. People get things wrong all the time, and that's OK. This isn’t any of that. It is about a global economy’s life savings basically being in the hands of Donald Trump.

See the difference already? And, more to the point, not just some theoretical abstraction's life savings, yours.

So while the effects appear to be momentarily the same right now, in reality, this is no way a mere “stock market crash.” It is just the beginning of a longer, deadlier economic process, whose consequences are going to echo through history. People’s lives will likely never be the same again, nor will the world they live in.

A tragedy is now going to unfold. One of historic proportions. I’m working with as many of you as I can individually (literally, I barely sleep), and we’ll start group sessions soon, as many of you have requested, and we’ll even try to do emergency group meetings so I can help guide all of you. But I can only reach so many people.

That makes me feel physically ill, because today I need to teach you about what’s going to happen next. I warned you what would happen right now, months ago, and sadly, as ever, my prediction was all too accurate. When I make these “predictions,” I don’t do so out of spite or malice, and that is not what they are at all. I am just teaching you, because if these lessons don't endure, what do we have left? And teaching you about difficult subjects like these, about human suffering, its causes and consequences, affects me deeply. But rarely more so than these last few days.

I’m always judicious with you about just how much to share. I don’t want to scare or frighten you. But I think I have to spend a little bit of time discussing with you now where things go from here. And in my estimation, elegant simplicity is always the most powerful way of teaching and of thinking both.

So.

What happens when to a world economy when its life savings are in Donald Trump’s hands?

The Tragedy That Will Unfold in America Now

I’ve been sort of speaking in code for the last few months, well, at least very thinly veiled code. That is because I wanted your unconscious mind to process something that many people’s conscious minds would not be able to. I understood that to reach you, if I spoke purely rationally, no purpose would be served at all, and my purpose was to shake you into action.

I warned you about Sinking With the Ship, etcetera. Now you understand what I mean. At least the beginning of it.

What will happen next in America is that millions of people are going to lose their life savings, to a lesser or greater degree. When I say that, I’m not talking about 5% bumps in markets, I am talking about the real thing. 

In Europe, that isn’t always existential, because generous safety nets exist. But in America, without money, you die. The calculus is that brutal and simple. 

So a great tragedy will now unfold. History will remember this tragedy, and I’ll give it a name in coming days and weeks. But for now I want you to fully grasp the scale of what is happening. Many of you ask: how bad will it get? This is not an abstract question anymore. It isn’t about politics or culture or social norms. It is now about existence.

America will enter something very much like a depression, as a result of what has happened over the last 48 hours. That much is now all but inevitable. But this anodyne word doesn’t capture the terrible reality that is already making me feel ill. People will suffer in horrendous ways. See how your money managers aren't even doing the obvious things right now? That's going to make the pain much, much worse, in the end.

When I write things like this, I feel a sense of dread. These are terrible things to have to write. Obscene and ugly. Please understand why I write them. It is to try and avert whatever level of this catastrophe that can still be undone. I wonder, always, whether or not people understand that. To me, economics isn’t a dry intellectual exercise. It is about our lives.

And in the future I see coming, millions of people will lose a very great deal. The last few days have been just a brief beginning.

America’s life savings are now in the hands of a figure like Trump. 

How do you think that story ends?

Why Donald Trump Wants America’s Life Savings

We need to discuss all this well, and it’s not just about my battered, bruised feelings. It is about reality, and in this awful reality, there are three possible reasons that the madman wants America’s life savings. 

Let’s take them one by one, but first understand, whatever guardrails existed to protect people’s life savings from the abuse of power are now gone.

The first is to be used as a bargaining chip. Trump and crew’s theory is what I’ve called Kamikazenomics. If they threaten to blow up your life savings, then somehow, the world will come begging them to stop. It won’t work. The world is horrified, true, but it’s also repelled.

Do you know what Emanuel Macron is doing in response? Not capitulating. Far from it. He called, and this didn’t make headlines in America, but it should have, because he’s Europe’s leader—he called for the suspension of investment in America.

Nobody is coming to rescue Americans now. The world will perhaps not avert its gaze as this tragedy unfolds, but its hands are also tied. Nobody sane wants to play chicken with a madman. America will be made a pariah state, like Russia, a bad faith actor that nobody much can trust, except others like it. Americans, millions of them, will be trapped in that.

The second possible reason Trump wants America’s life savings is perhaps psychological. A figure like this has always felt rejected and scorned and hated by Wall St, and here is a malignant narcissist’s way to exact a petty revenge. Never mind if it takes the nation down with it. I don’t want to dwell on this one, just to raise it.

And there is a third possible reason, too. This is the one that we might call cynical, but…is it? It’s that once Americans’ life savings have been ground into dust, of course, the pieces can be picked up for pennies. And so what Americans once owned by the millions—little pieces of famous and storied enterprises, government debt itself—can then be bought for nothing by barons and tycoons.

That is how you become an oligarchy. This is an old playbook. Crash an economy, wait for desperate, immiserate people to sell, and pick up the pieces on the cheap. The very pieces you use to control them. That way lies a neofeudal society.

I want you to take a moment to understand just how startlingly destructive all three of these reasons are. The question’s often asked: why is he doing this? As if there’s a single, unitary answer. There is probably a confluence of them, psychological, economic, financial. But all dovetail into a perfect storm of malignancy that the world probably hasn’t seensince the 1930s.

The Basic Principle To Use Now

This is about the point where you’re probably going to ask, in exasperation, so what the hell do I do about all this? Just watch my life savings go up in smoke?

Of course not. 

As I always try to teach you, don’t overthink it.

If a madman is on the loose, what should you do? Get the hell out of the way.

Now, I shouldn’t have to make it clear what that means, by this point, alarm bells should have already been ringing in your mind. 

The point right now is to get your life savings out of the reach of Donald Trump.

That’s it. That’s the strategy. The more you overcomplicate it, the less effective you’ll be at it. And as I’m going to explain, it’s not just you who’s going to have to use it, it’s the entire world.

Notice how your money managers aren’t just not good at it, they’re terrible at it. That’s why the market crashed. They were “stunned” and “surprised.” At what? At Donald Trump blowing up everyone’s life savings.

Come on, now. Give me a break. 

Literally everyone on planet earth by now should be able to answer the question: what happens if you give Donald Trump control of your life savings?

Go ahead and chuckle. We all know the answer to that question. It goes like this.

Pretty soon you won’t have any.

When I put it that way, it’s maybe funny, if you can get past the nausea of it actually happening today.

So the point is not to overthink it. It is just to do it.

Rational Decision-Making or, What Would You Expect Donald Trump to do With…Your Life Savings?

Let’s go back to all those money managers. Wall St. Why can’t it do this one simple job? 

After all, if we all know—all of us!—that the answer to “what happens if I give Donald Trump my life savings?” is “pretty soon you won’t have any,” then what on earth are these fools thinking?

There’s a range of answers, there, too. They’re deer in the headlights. They haven’t been educated about this scenario, which isn’t just a mere workaday “stock market crash.” You guys aren’t chewing their asses off enough, and are way too nice to them. And also this is what greed and fear do: they wreck any form of rational decision making.

That is all we are talking about here.

Making rational decisions. 

What is the most rational decision in the world today? Is it what to eat for lunch? How about kind of spring outfit to wear?

Not even close. 

It’s simply: Oh my God, my life savings are effectively in Donald Trump’s hands. What do I do now?

We all are confronted by this decision now.

Because that is where they are, our savings and assets, not just as in you and me, but as in, the whole world. Please take a moment to understand this with me. From gigantic corporate bonds, to US government bonds, right down to the life savings of millions of Americans, all of that’s now effectively in Donald Trump’s hands. That is the correct way to think about this situation. Not “the stock market is crashing” or what have you, which it is, but only as a consequence of the first part.

Stock market crashes happen for all kinds of reasons, and some, in fact many, are pretty normal and legitimate. But what isn’t one of those is: Donald Trump wants my life savings.

See my point a little bit?

Let me say it again, because first you need to understand it, then you need to shudder at it when you really take it in. The whole economy’s assets, money, savings, are now effectively in Donald Trump’s hands. Go ahead and chuckle, because if there’s a worse possible place for an economy to be in 2025, I have yet to imagine it.

And people and leaders both must now race to get them out, at least if they are rational.

It’s not just you. It’s not even a million people like you and me. It is way, way bigger than that. Emanuel Macron has to make this decision for Europe. Every President or Prime Minister is having to make this decision. Make no mistake, at this very moment, every sane corporation in America is having this conversation, urgently, too. Every single head of every major investment fund on earth is going to have to have this discussion, too, very shortly, if they’re not having it already.

Americans, not you dear reader, just as a society, made a very, very foolish decision. They gave Donald Trump their life savings. And over the years, the world has come to place a very great deal of its savings, assets, in America, too. And so the question before everyone now is this.

What the hell do we do when a madman who wants to take all of that and burn it all down is loose? 

You don’t have to do anything except stop overthinking it, stop second guessing it, stop overcomplicating it, and just make the rational decision.

Get the hell out of the way.

Making Rational Decisions, or, Being the Adult in the Room

Now. We are just talking about a certain decision that has been made rational for us, because there is a madman on the loose. And that decision is exiting America, because as far as I can see, there’s very little way otherwise to get your life savings out of Donald Trump’s hands. 

I don’t mean necessarily physically, but financially, at the very least. And even then, I’m not suggesting anything absolute or irrevocable. But let’s just say, if you’re only holding American assets now? You’re probably going to get burned, not because I say so, because, again, what do you think Donald Trump is going to do with them?

Everyone’s decisions along this pathway will be different. Not everyone will chose to exit in the same form, way, or manner. I’m not saying get all the way out, or stay all the way in. I’m not “saying” anything at all. I am simply observingwhat is already happening. 

As trust and confidence erode, the world is beginning to step away from the dollar, from American stock markets, from American bond markets, even. This is no everyday stock market crash, but something far, far more deadly and serious. And those who remain entangled in it will soon find themselves suffocated by it. Now we must liberate ourselves, one by one, from this mess.

That trend, if you ask me, is likely to continue, because, again, would you trust Donald Trump with your savings, investments, and assets? Maybe there are 25% of people in America who would. That’s fine. But is the rest of the worldthat crazy? That deluded? Like I said, don’t we all know the answer to the question?

I’m not saying panic sell. I am just asking you to think. I am trying to teach you how economies really work, and what this “stock market crash” is really about. Do that well, and the decisions will become naturally clearer to you. They will be different for everyone.

The rational decision now is what we call technically to “exit.” Don’t think of that in black or white. It’s not. But it is about, at least, let's say, making sure 100% of your wealth isn’t in Donald Trump’s hands.

Let me say that again, because right now, that part’s still true for a whole lot of people. Millions upon millions. 80-100% of your assets are effectively in Donald Trump’s hands. Do you think that’s smart? Wise? What do you think the rational course of action is here?

If 80-100% of your assets are effectively in Donald Trump’s hands, I can tell you right now who’s probably going to end up owning what’s left of them, and it isn’t you. 

That's what your gut is trying to tell you, and in that sense, it's the most rational part of you right now. I've read a hundred articles about how all this will "be fine." Really? I've had a hundred conversations with you guys about how your money guys think this is "just a blip." Really? This has never happened before, and certainly not in modern history.

A President nuking the world economy? Including America's? Just because? Let's get real. Never happened before.

Again, this isn’t about me or you. It is much, much bigger.

I can guarantee you this is also precisely the question that leaders around the world are asking, and the conclusion they are reaching, too. They, too, will have to make the rational to get whatever they can out of Donald Trump’s hands. And that spells out a prolonged period of economic contraction for America, as the world isolates and rejects it now.

So exit plans, which I also call Liberation Thinking, come in many forms. For this particular problem, on the simplest level, they simply mean exposure to assets from around the world, particularly stable economies, for now, which are going to be far safer, as America goes from collapse to implosion. Right now the point is to minimize what we economics call “macro risk,” but in Plain old English, let’s simply call it something everyone should understand and remember.

Whatever percentage of what you have, which for most people is still 80-100%, that’s effectively in Donald Trump’s hands, is the risk that you’ll end up getting severely burned. Maybe right down to pennies on the dollar. I mean, isn't that the whole decades-long story here? Only now, it’s happening to a country, and to a world. Don’t play games of self-deceit or it-can’t-happen-here with this. This is your life. 

And I think it’s even more interesting that he’s asking everyday Americans to take that risk. After all, he’s not bargaining with his life savings. He’s not burning down his life savings. He’s not playing games with his money. He’s doing it with yours.

I don’t know if enough Americans understand that. Or if they understand that it’s wrong. Nobody should play games with anyone else’s life savings, and especially not politicians, but double especially not crackpots, lunatics, and ideologues. We know all too well from history where that road ends, and it’s the one America’s on now. It’s where Weimar Germany went, and it’s where the Soviet Union went, too.

I feel that too many Americans still sort of see this the way they’re being told to see it, which is that “the stock market is cratering.” That isn’t what’s happening here. The stock market’s cratering, sure, but only because Donald Trump is burning down your life savings. It’s not cratering for any other, vaguely normal, usually acceptable, and often legitimate reason. It is cratering because people’s life savings are disappearing for the sake of suicidal ideologies of mass destruction, and that should scare the hell out of all of us.

Maybe that is the point at which America wakes up from its dreamless slumber. I don’t know. I wouldn’t count on it. But what I would advise you to do is to think very, very carefully about what’s going to happen to anything you leave in Donald Trump’s hands.

As always, please just reach out if you need advice.

Lots of love,

Umair (and Snowy!)

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