The Billionaires' War | Hacker News Reader

The Billionaires' War

paulkrugman.substack.com

24 pointsxqcgrek26 comments

The general themes here are correct. There is, at a minimum, a derth of intelligence and responsibility both in the white house and across the country's leadership. There are no guards rails, no one looking out for anyone but their billionaire backers.

The idolization of billionaires as paragons of leadership has led to average men with above average income convincing themselves they're an inch short of god.

We'll need a correction, many corrections even, to put this fad to bed.

What makes you think this is a fad? (unless you are using a bit of sarcasm)

When have any elite not thought they were the smartest, most virtuous, anointed by god, etc? I don't think you can just point to Rand or something -- That's just the modern context we view it through.

This is true. But there's also an overwhelming instinct for people to think the problems they face today are completely new and have no historical precedents

I like to read Krugman on economics, but this ties things together that don't match.

While donations from the wealthy to Trump were significant, Kamala Harris still outraised him by a huge margin. It's a misconception that billionaires 'bought' Trump. Many of them detest him and are opportunistic suppoters. Only a small minority supported him consistently, and GOP elites resisted his rise in 2016 as much as they possibly could. Trump won because he has massive grassroots support. At least 25% of the electorate are hardcore supporters.

Secondly, billionaires did not want this war. Trump's enables were Evangelical Christians and their sick theology connected to Israel. In Latin America it's Rubio.

Finally, billionaires don't pay for this war through direct taxation. They pay for it indirectly: as U.S. debt and interest rates rise, financial instability increases, causing their assets to depreciate.

I dont really buy the "this is all Evangelical Christians and their sick theology" angle

To me this is about power, religion is branding and the real decisions follow money, media control, and long‑term interests. Not every billionaire has to love trump and just enough of them have to be okay with him because he delivers tax cuts and deregulation

On the Middle East part: these aren't just random countries tied to some prophecy, theyre core US allies. If the US misplays this and loses them, thats a huge hit to US leverage

It's both. The Republican party (like all parties) is made up of groups that barely tolerate each other. In this case, you have a bunch of Evangelical theocrats and a bunch of atheist technocrats. They tolerate each other because they both really despise progressives, but once the progressives are completely defeated they'll turn on each other.

The theocrats want to bring about Armageddon. It's not clear if the technocrats are merely not objecting to it, or if they have some other goal in mind. Perhaps they want to funnel money to themselves via the defense sector, or perhaps they want to show off America's might. It may just be supporting one of our few remaining allies, who considers Iran a threat but hasn't risked an all-out war.

I'd like to think that, if this goes badly, then the theocrats and technocrats will blame each other for doing something costly. But I'm sure they'll just blame progressives, which always seems to suffice, regardless of how absurd the explanation is.

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