The art of the steal; How Trump financialised the US Presidency.

Now I really don’t like social media much at all.

In fact, I’ve found it improves my mood and state of mind whenever I stay away from it even for a day. Perhaps you feel the same?

Inevitably, though, something will go viral enough for me to be dragged back in.

And here’s the X post that did it this time.

You’d think a world leader would have many more important matters to attend to than trading the markets.

But this is Donald Trump we’re talking about. He’s not a man to miss any chance at self-enrichment. And so, it begged the question: just how much money is President Trump making in his second term?

The truth absolutely shocked me. I think you need to hear and read about it.

Is someone really supposed to profit from the presidency of the United States? Why is no one screaming blue murder over the potential conflicts of interest between state affairs and personal ones?

Perhaps because it’s a true art to, in effect, ‘steal’ for yourself what properly belongs to all of us?

This is why Trump really is the one person who can teach you the ultimate power of capturing the economic rent, the same rent that drives the real estate cycle?

Yes, you can be angry at the man and his family for all this, but there’s also an important lesson for your own family here too.

Now, you’d not be surprised to learn that most of the large American media outlets are not reporting much on what is going on. You’re getting NPR (National Public Radio) or PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) instead.

So, you need to dig a fair bit to get the true picture.

From the above article:

Over the course of 927 pages, Donald Trump’s official 2025 financial disclosure lays bare his more than $1bn in earnings from interests ranging from cryptocurrencies and golf courses to Bibles and perfumes.

The record, published late on Tuesday by the US Office of Government Ethics, shows the US president last year earned $526mn from token sales linked to his family’s main crypto venture — up from $57mn in 2024 — and $635mn in royalties from a licence agreement with a company associated with the $TRUMP memecoin.

The FT previously reported the president’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr had invested in industries championed by the White House.

In other words, US policymaking has become a true family affair. The mind boggles. The father’s administration creates the policy; the sons take advantage. The Art of the Steal.

And here’s the thing: it’s one thing to read from me about the real estate cycle and the behaviour you expect to see once we hit such a late stage, which is where we are now.

It is quite another when I can simply point to one individual, one family, and categorically state: if you want examples of the hedonistic, greedy, and downright outrageous speculative behaviour we see in every late stage of a cycle, look at this guy.

I cannot give you a better example than the US President. He literally epitomises everything that’s ever reflected in the speculative end of a real estate cycle. And so, it is informative to be watching what he does, rather than what he says.

He will teach you more about what happens as we approach a peak of a cycle far better than I could manage.

It isn’t solely the World Liberty Financial crypto group that’s creating all this cashflow. Trump made more than $58m in licensing fees associated with foreign real estate projects (naming buildings ‘Trump’) and received $350,000 worth of ‘gifts’.

Including a statue named ‘The Defiance monument’ which you can see in the image below. It is of Trump’s triumphant and defiant fist in the air after a botched and narrow assassination attempt that failed back in July 2024 at Butler, Pennsylvania.

This has all been done in the public eye, trumpeted via his Truth social media account, and yet, what has Congress done about any of it?

Witness the recent United States Supreme Court landmark ruling, deciding that former presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts taken under their constitutional authority, and at least presumptive immunity for all other official acts.

It seems the simple fact is that Congress ‘can’t’ do anything about this, even if they wanted to. It appears Trump is allowed to take what he wants under the auspice of a sitting president.

This, people, is The Art of The Steal!

The sheer breadth of investments, dialogue, influence, and windfall this one family has made in a few short years defies belief. The level of potential grift and corruption is breathtaking.

Between Trump and his sons, we are talking about stakes in prediction market start-up Kalshi, his family media group Truth Social, to an official stake in a western government-owned company!

The Trump Media Group has invested into TAE Technologies to build the world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant. The twist in the deal is that TAE Technologies this month struck a joint venture with the UK government’s atomic laboratory, which is state-owned.

Of course, being a self-styled real estate mogul, you know there are land deals being done.

From the above article.

Donald Trump’s family business and its Saudi Arabian partner are to build a luxury Maldives resort that uses blockchain technology to attract investment, in plans unveiled on the eve of a visit to Washington by the kingdom’s de facto ruler.

There’s the tie-in with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s proposed resort development on Sazan, a Mediterranean island near the coast of Albania.

Then there’s the news of Yorkville Advisors, a financial group with ties to US President Donald Trump’s family, setting up a SPAC or a special-purpose vehicle, set up to raise $200m to buy a business in Venezuela which is now firmly aligned to the US after the US government seized its elected leader and installed someone closer to its interests.

It is, no doubt, one of many more business deals that await Venezuela soon.

Trust me, I could go on and on and on.

The US Presidency has now become a systemic family entrepreneurial business, incredibly brazen, and in your face. They really are the first family to inhabit the White House to have done so at such global scale.

They have become the new Kennedy’s.

But regardless of such shameless activity, what I instead want you to focus on is the behaviour at this precise time, when the current real estate cycle is about to peak. And that behaviour is always the same at such times.

The never-ending search for the unearned gains.

It’s the exact thing that drives every real estate cycle in history. From crypto and stock trading, developing real estate projects to licensing your surname for royalties, it’s all in the name of benefiting from something you didn’t have to earn yourself.

We have a name for it: the economic rent.

It’s the surplus that naturally occurs from productive activity once all capital costs involved in production are considered.

So, you can shake your head at an already-rich family getting even richer. But what you must do is appreciate the inherent gem of wisdom for your family here.

Understanding, and I mean truly understanding, what the economic rent is and why and how it drives the 18.6-year Real Estate Cycle is fundamental to interpreting the world you see today, and how you can profit from the knowledge.

And that’s precisely what a membership to the Boom Bust Bulletin (BBB) can give you.

Every month the BBB will guide and teach you on what the real estate cycle is, why it repeats like clockwork in the US, and how it can repeat for over 220 years now. Plus, bi-weekly videos keep you right up to date with the cycle as it turns.

By placing land at the centre of your financial and economic research you’ll uncover, much the same as Trump has done, the innate secrets of the economic rent and how the few always end up owning almost everything.

Someone once said, “to create an extraordinary result, we can’t make the same ordinary choices that everyone else does.”

I’m not advocating to you that extraordinary powers can be obtained by knowing the history of the real estate cycle. But I know that doing, thinking, and acting like everybody else won’t be enough when the upcoming peak of the cycle turns to bust.

Make your motto ‘profit and protect’ from now on.

Believe me, the Trump clan will not see what’s coming for the US. How would you like to be more prepared for it than a sitting US president?

Sign up now.