HAPPY NEW YEAR

His Highness calls any nation he doesn’t like a shithole. He is very busy turning our nation into one. Alas, we have 1,117 more days of the Trump regime, counting from January 1, 2026.

Not everything that went well, nor everything that didn’t, can be pinned on him. A narrow, feverish stock market — driven by half a dozen or so tech companies — did well. We can expect total philanthropy to increase markedly because history shows that the market and philanthropy are closely conjoined: grant-making foundations have to give away annually roughly 5% of net assets (less expenses). Fidelity, Vanguard and a few other large investment vehicles manage donor-advised funds. DAFs appeal to wealthy givers because they can book an immediate tax deduction but don’t have to actually give the money away immediately. Some do. Many don’t. A few, never.

There is stubborn 3% annual inflation accompanied by lots of noise about the affordability crisis that brought us NYC Mayor Mamdani. It hangs there like smog. How is "affordability" defined? Fear not, the rich will still be here. Some threaten to leave. But few go. Nowhere is the food better nor the zeitgeist more compelling and more exciting. Plus, the economy over all has done well and continued to survive the doomsayers’ warning of a turndown, or  worse, a recession — so far.

The poor rich — e.g., $10 million net worth not counting real estate; then the very rich up to a billion and the mega-rich — got even richer, aided by beneficial tax cuts that advantaged them the most, trickled down for many of us and disadvantaged the poor the most. Trump’s role in protecting the needy wealthy is his only significant economic “achievement”. He was one of them before becoming president; he has turned the presidency into a spigot pouring money to him and his family as millions of us face unaffordable health care premiums. The future of Obama’s Affordable Care Act is uncertain. Congress is MIA. But there are signs of growing impatience with The Don  and around the beginnings of spring, or even sooner, we could see his base fracture even more than it has already. But it will take more than Marjorie Taylor Greene leaving and maybe getting a life.

The blight on the new year is still masked goons grabbing non-white people off the streets; extorting and attempting diktats on what can be be taught in higher education; eradicating DEI; pulling books off library shelves; denying evolution; silly stuff like putting Trump’s name atop the Kennedy Center; the tasteless, unneeded East Wing construction — which will look like a Queens catering hall for weddings and bar mitzvahs, except no piles of chopped chicken liver or swans carved in ice; environmental depredation that could take a generation or longer to repair — some harm may be irreparable; restoring first amendment protections — all just a sampling. There’s so much more but only so much space. And it is nearly midnight. Somewhere.

An undeclared but potent war in Venezuela is all about seizing the oil. Maduro may be a bad guy pushing drugs but he’s collateral damage, dead or alive. Trump is correct in asserting that the US enabled oil exploration and petroleum exports in Venezuela by backing American companies’ extractions over several administrations; now though, Trump has determined that the oil always belonged to us and he wants it all back. Opposition leader Marina Corina Machado, 2025 Nobel Prize laureate, is the front-runner who might replace him. She has been described as a Trump supporter in the media. If so, we need to be careful what we wish for.

Oops! Bye. Bye. ’25.