If someone appears to be repeatedly personal, lean towards patience as they might not mean offense. If you are sure, however, then do not deepen the problem by being negative; instead, simply place them on ignore by clicking the unhappy yellow face to the right of their name.
- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 7
some other threads discuss trump's civil fines of ~$0.5B, and the drama around that connection to DWAC is interesting.
the speculation is that if trump can pull this off, it could be his largest single financial grift to date, and there could be ~$2B (very rough estimates based on volatile DWAC ticker) he could monetize, more than enough to cover his fines.
for those not following, here is my view\summary :
A. if the trump.org case loses on appeal, the civil fine is hefty cash and unclear how trump will cover.
B. among the 'more legitimate' pathway is that trump will monetize his stake in the completion of a SPAC designed to bring a trump-founded version (TS='Truth Social') of twitter, to standard public equity markets.
C1. so far, TS is the typical trump business disaster : burning cash (~ -$20M quarterly), bigly undershooting its subscriber and ad revenue goals, and sporadically not paying its invoices.
C2. the only means for the largest insider groups to make money is to get minority (MAGA) shareholders to buy (and hold!) equity.
D1. THIS IS THE BEST PART : 3 insider groups are infighting via multiple lawsuits and countersuits to screw each other over on stakes, despite that none of them can monetize without C2 above...meaning the completion of the SPAC process late March (delayed multiple times already)
Group 1: Trump, TS, and a new CEO are wanting to increase their ~90% to ~99% stake via share dilution, new shares going to trump family&friends.
Group 2: Arc (a Chinese venture fund that provided initial cash) + former CEO P.Orlando
Group 3: UAV (2 original founders that were Apprentice contestants, and gave Trump a 90% for 'participating')
D2. major insiders have to hold restricted shares for 6 months after the SPAC completion BEFORE SALES ALLOWED.
insiders will try to find a workaround, a high priority after the SPAC completion vote. but the SEC is watching because, of course, prior irregularities.
very simply, the typical shareholder of DWAC will get ~$10 held aside if the SPAC completion is formally deemed dead, but can sell anytime afterwards. the general MAGA investing strategy here is that if they hold and trump wins re-election, a worthless social media business will have shares that are somehow going to be worth a lot.
THE INSIDERS NEED TO KEEP THIS FICTION GOING FOR 6 MONTHS FOR A RACE TO THEN DUMP AS MANY SHARES AS POSSIBLE.
E. there seems warrants in the ~10% range of total dilution that can be sold (practically) anytime, and it is not public who owns these. safest to make the worst case assumption that these groups will dump immediately after SPAC closing.
F. trump has put minimal effort (and zero capital) in TS. he can not risk going exclusive TS because MAGA is too lazy to sign up. the TS platform cannot compete against free 24\7 publicity from the entirety of mainstream media, needed for his more important goal to avoid jail via the oval office.
G. well into the world of rumors, it is speculated that trump may be trying to entice a bond lender against some putative future value of his TS stake here. (as if he would relinquish his hard assets first !)
disclosure: in 20+ years of investing, i have never seen a more obvious fraud to short, including NFTs. fortunately for my sanity, the mechanisms and costs to short are huge, and my broker outright disallows this kind of entertainment. thus, all is by proxy.
and its going to make a much better movie than gamestop.
No. of Recommendations: 1
How much time does he have left to cover appeal $?
No. of Recommendations: 3
at the least, the nonrefundable part (fees) for the trump.org appeal bond has to enter&exit through trump's hands in march.
no one knows how much this will be, nor the source. trump is probably not yet out-of-pocket a dime.
unconfirmed is that trump has readied (or already) unloaded some physical assets such as personal real estate in prep. not much found on if this has happened and who were the buyer(s), but MBS and putin always eyeing trump branded property. orban doing an in-person inspection this week for his realtor side gig.
if the appeal bond source and\or payment of fines arises from:
campaign funds, it may be unlawful use.
'gifts' (e.g., no appeal bond fees or far below mkt rates, or the entire amount), then it probably should be subject to gift taxes.
if any disputes arise on sources, these would all be litigated far into the future, or never.
also on trump tv in march :
hush money court opens.
votes on DWAC completion of SPAC.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Keep us posted. I'm switching to completing my State taxes mode and I may spend too much time waiting on the phone figuring out why intuit does what it does. :) Finally got both bathrooms working 100%.
No. of Recommendations: 3
as expected, all parties have come together this weekend to put disputed shares into escrow so the vote for SPAC completion can happen on 22 march.
if there is no delay and the vote passes, the major fleecing clock begins.
first, the $10/share for the retail SPAC stake will be gone from trust somewhere into company accounts.
next, unrestricted shares from a large (~10%) convertible stake are expected to be dumped by unknown holders within hours of some bureaucratic processing.
as the dispute over dilution continues, the insiders have ~6 months to figure out a way to start selling undisputed shares ASAP.
general consensus is this is the hard part, as there is no legal way to do this.
the Investor Relation arm is unresponsive, and not replying to specific questions clarifying insider terms and timelines.
in summary, if the shares have any value by september, don can dump them pre-election. but dumping anywhere close to ~90% stake itself will drive the price down near $0. its a long way until this is civil fine capable, as trump is competing with hundreds of groups\people far better at this kind of financial play.
DISRUPTIVE EVENT ; musk or other friend-of-MAGA decides to buy the entire business, or a private transaction for trump's stake.
No. of Recommendations: 2
so trump claims he is unable to get the big $0.5B appeal bail after being unable to come to an agreement (i.e., massively rejected with no callbacks) from 30 surety parties.
this not being the final hour of the last day, i smell a delay tactic in seizure of his assets.
am a bit surprised a friend-of-MAGA has not stepped up...yet.
No. of Recommendations: 2
am a bit surprised a friend-of-MAGA has not stepped up...yet.
I suppose he could start a "Go-Fund-Me". But anyone with serious money won't touch anything like that. It's one thing to support his xenophobic, hateful, factually-inaccurate rants. It's another to put down your own money to help him. Even someone as rich as Musk (who wouldn't miss $500M) isn't going to do that. You don't get rich if you have a give-away attitude like that, and Musk is very rich.
No. of Recommendations: 6
We start by seizing his plane, Trump Tower, and Mar a Lago. We give the plane to Ukraine to auction, take TRUMP off the tower and put USA! USA! USA! up and house asylees waiting for interviews, and change Mar a Lago to Mar y Taco and put up a Taco Stand- even better a taco truck and a miniature golf place.
No. of Recommendations: 3
And you wonder why half of the country thinks you are small minded unhappy people..
No. of Recommendations: 1
I suppose he could start a "Go-Fund-Me". But anyone with serious money won't touch anything like that. It's one thing to support his xenophobic, hateful, factually-inaccurate rants. It's another to put down your own money to help him. Even someone as rich as Musk (who wouldn't miss $500M) isn't going to do that. You don't get rich if you have a give-away attitude like that, and Musk is very rich. - 1pg
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Perhaps his puppet master and BFF, Putin, will step up. Putin surely would do anything to avoid another four years of being out maneuvered in the international power structure by the Biden Admin.
No. of Recommendations: 6
"And you wonder why half of the country thinks you are small minded unhappy people.." - Boater
Indeed, you never were very good with facts (1.2 the country LOL). Yet you do show once again that you do not believe in law and order.
Sad. Stop screwing up what made our country great (law and order) with your ignorance and cult worship.
No. of Recommendations: 0
I know that was at least somewhat facetious. But I suspect that the Russian oligarchs (including Putin) realize they have gotten about all they are going to get from Trump. Plus, such support would raise lots of red flags today. I don't think the ROI would be there for them. Probably better to covertly support a few congress-critters to obstruct Ukraine aid. (Note: I'm not saying that is actually happening. I'm just saying there would probably be better ROI using that approach.)
No. of Recommendations: 3
And you wonder why half of the country thinks you are small minded unhappy people."
No, 'we' don't wonder. Not at all. The shared psychosis of Trump and his base is well understood.
".....two major emotional drives: narcissistic symbiosis and shared psychosis. Narcissistic symbiosis refers to the developmental wounds that make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive. The leader, hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotence—while the followers, rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury, yearn for a parental figure. When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a “lock and key” relationship....When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person’s symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia and propensity for violence—even in previously healthy individuals. The treatment is removal of exposure."
Conceptualizing the conversion of Mag a Lago into a Taqueria/ MiniPutt amusement center is a manifestation of a forward looking individual with a healthy sense of humor.
I can envision a miniputt course on which each hole would memorialize Trump's greatest hits... a bankrupt casino hole... a Stormy Daniels hole ... a border wall hole that Mexico never paid for... a Obamahealthcarerepeal hole that doesn't actually exist anywhere but on the score card.... an all-my ex-wives hole with a bump in the middle of the fairway where the first one is planted...a Bannon/Roger Stone hole.... etc etc etc... culminating in the attempted insurrection hole where a mob of holographic protesters will threaten to hang you if you attempt to complete a legitimate round on the course.
