The Usual Suspects (1995) famously coined the phrase: “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”. US president Donald Trump has a great trick of his own, and it’s convincing working class voters he’s a man of the people. Once again, however, reality has come calling:
NEWS: The Fed has quietly delivered nearly HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS of no-strings-attached bank bailouts in the last few months, according to documents & data reviewed by @LeverNews.
In all, the new bailouts are already 60% of the amount of the financial crisis TARP bailout. pic.twitter.com/gHbVWY3eSm
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) January 14, 2026
While the above may arguably have been done to stabilise the financial markets, Trump’s other proposed handouts have no justification besides greed.
Trump: socialism for the rich
As reported by the Lever, the US Federal Reserve has delivered around half a trillion dollars to Wall Street. The money has changed hands “through an obscure government financial program intended for banks struggling to make cash payments”. Additionally:
The infusions began with an $11 billion transfer on June 30. In October, the transfers became much more frequent, culminating in a massive $50 billion infusion on Halloween, as first reported by investigative news outlet DCReport. In total, after doling out little to no money since July 2020, the New York Federal Reserve has transferred more than $420 billion to Wall Street in the past seven months — a record amount from the program.
It’s probably not a good sign that the banks require a bailout as large as 2008.
As the Lever report says, it’s currently unclear precisely why this is all happening. Either something very bad is about to occur, or financial institutions and politicians are treating the US economy like a piggy bank:
The cash infusions are intended to provide additional liquidity to banks that are short on cash, so they can continue extending lines of credit to the public and businesses.
These infusions, called repurchase agreements, are a form of short-term lending in which the Federal Reserve trades cash in exchange for assets, usually Treasury bills and mortgage-backed securities, as collateral from the banks. But according to critics, the money has instead frequently ended up in the hands of hedge funds and other financial firms, which often use it to make risky bets on various securities and derivatives that can be more profitable than ordinary loans.
It’s speculated that banks could be using these loans to cover their losses from risky financial moves. In the UK, meanwhile:
Student loans interest is now rising so fast that it will be impossible for most people to escape this Tory & Labour created debt prison
By @willem_moore_uk https://t.co/OxzazUcb8b
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) January 13, 2026
You see how it’s one rule for them and another for us?
And it doesn’t end there:
The GOP bill to abolish the estate tax would cost more than $281 billion. That's just over 10 years.
If passed it would give:
$3.3 trillion to 935 billionaire families
$291 billion to Musk's family
$190 billion to the Walton family
$0 to family farms
$0 to the 99.9%Trickle not https://t.co/46UeDnoQrd
— Warren Gunnels (@GunnelsWarren) January 13, 2026
Every year the rich have more and more, and every year the rest of us have less and less.
Decline
There is no good reason for anyone to have a billion dollars.
It doesn’t benefit the majority of society to have a minority of individuals with the power of kings. And if you think otherwise, we’ve got bad news: it looks like you have the brain of a medieval peasant.
Featured image via Carlos Delgado (Wikipedia)
By Willem Moore
This post was originally published on Canary.