The Biggest Heist in America Is Being Sold as a Gift to Kids

Friday, December 05, 2025

Sean Carlton: America loves a good illusion. It loves the performance of generosity from people who built their fortunes on systems that leave everyone else scrambling. That's why the country is celebrating Michael and Susan Dell dropping $6.25 billion into "Trump Accounts."

Posted by qcp at 06:30 PM | 14 COMMENTS | permalink | Comment on This Entry |

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Next year, Michael and Susan Dell of Dell Technologies plan to move $250 into the new Trump accounts of millions of children under 10. You'll need to live in the right ZIP code. Here's how to know if you're eligible.

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-- The New York Times (@nytimes.com) Dec 2, 2025 at 4:10 PM

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More: The trick here is simple and old. You starve the public systems until they're so weak that anything looks like relief. Then you let a billionaire deliver a drop of water and call it a miracle. Americans have been trained to applaud the spectacle. They forget to ask why one of the richest men in the country gets to decide how twenty-five million children experience their first introduction to money. They forget to ask why the richest people get public praise for giving back pennies compared to what they extract. They forget to ask why children need investment accounts instead of stable housing, food, medical care, and schools that aren't falling apart.

The applause is the point. When billionaires are cast as heroes, no one has to admit that the system has collapsed so thoroughly that private charity is now doing the work of the state. This is how the social contract dies without anyone calling it what it is. People look at the $250 and say at least it's something. They say maybe it'll grow. They say maybe it'll help someday. They don't say what's obvious. They don't say the quiet part. They don't say that America now expects the financial markets to raise children because the country has decided it won't.

There's also the quiet financialization happening underneath. These accounts invest in index funds. That means millions of new dollars flowing into the same corporate structures that already dominate the economy. Kids become passive capital generators before they can read. Their "gift" enriches the very companies that helped create the inequality this program is pretending to solve. It's a perfect loop. The wealthy get to look generous while reinforcing the machine that made them wealthy. The public gets a story about hope. The corporations get the money.

#1 | Posted by qcp at 2025-12-04 11:45 AM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

They forget to ask why children need investment accounts instead of stable housing, food, medical care, and schools that aren't falling apart.

The goal has always been to destroy the public infrastructure so that private corporations can skim off the top and provide a fraction of the services for twice the price.

Kill public education so teachers that were making $75000 per year can be replaced with ones making $40000 per year and the $35000 can flow upwards to the owners of the school. At the same time they are killing off services that give disabled children a small sense of normalcy because we all know it is only the healthy kids that deserve to learn.

There is no profit to be made off of government spending so naturally the billionaires and their puppets in Washington hate it.

Children didn't need government savings accounts before the capitalist greed of outsourcing, turning pensions into 401k accounts and shifting the burden of health care insurance onto the backs of workers became popular.

#2 | Posted by Nixon at 2025-12-04 12:08 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

Here's the-------------------'s gift to kids:

For First Time in Decades, Child Deaths Will Rise This Year
Almost a quarter of a million more children are projected to die in 2025 than in 2024

www.wsj.com

#3 | Posted by reinheitsgebot at 2025-12-04 12:17 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 5

Here's the-------------------'s gift to kids:
For First Time in Decades, Child Deaths Will Rise This Year
Almost a quarter of a million more children are projected to die in 2025 than in 2024

"Pro Life"

#4 | Posted by Nixon at 2025-12-04 01:19 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 3

Here's the original report: www.gatesfoundation.org

Thanks for dismantling USAID and destroying millions of dollars of food, medicine, and contraceptives, Marco Rubella and Dummkopf Trumpf!

#5 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-12-04 02:11 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

I've had good luck with Dell computers.
When somebody asks me what kind of computer they should buy, I answer "What the hell. Get a Dell."

#6 | Posted by sit_goodboy at 2025-12-05 09:34 PM | Reply

Why Tommy Chong 'loves' Trump"

www.youtube.com

#7 | Posted by Corky at 2025-12-05 10:33 PM | Reply

@#6 ... I've had good luck with Dell computers. ...

I bought one a couple months ago to replace my Windows 10 desktop.

Since then, I have been subject to Dell Support hell.

My support request being tossed for one rep to another and then back to the original rep, each one saying ~not my job.~ Problem sytill has not been resolved.

This will be The Last Dell Computer I buy.

#8 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-12-06 02:51 PM | Reply

I spoke to Mike Dell on the phone in the mid-80's in Austin when his business was called PCs Limited.

He was like 20 years old and a sophomore at UT, and he wasn't paying my recruiting fees, lol. In hindsight, perhaps I should have given him a freebie, as he did almost unheard of $6 million in sales of custom PCs that first year.

But hey, I did see Stevie Ray Vaughn at a tiny venue bar downtown, so that was almost as good!

#9 | Posted by Corky at 2025-12-06 03:16 PM | Reply

"In hindsight, perhaps I should have given him a freebie, as he did almost unheard of $6 million in sales of custom PCs that first year."

My older brother was one of the first classes raised on early personal computers. He invested in Dell because, he reasoned, they were really just a box maker, and their box was superior. After splits and splits and splits, his average price per share was 25 cents. He sold for $65. Some of his other early investments were Microsoft and Oracle. He thought these "computer things" were here to stay! (Full disclosure: he also bought and recommended RedHat, which was at $125, and soared all the way up to...three bucks!)

Cool story: He was on the Dean's List in engineering at Purdue, when McDonnell Douglas tapped him on the shoulder for re-entry work on the current Apollo project. They assigned he and five others the task, and said they expected it to take 4-6 months to complete.

My brother went to the supervisor with an idea: he thought he could write a computer program with an equation which would solve the problem in three days. His supervisor leaned in to him, looked him squarely in the eye, and said "Son, around here, we use a slide rule. Now get to work."

He worked on it for a few days, and then went back to the supervisor, more convinced than ever. "All right," the guy finally said, "you've got three days." Three days later, he returned with an enormous stack of cards. His fellow engineers were stunned. "The kid did this in three days?!?" they asked. "No...he did it in two days. On the third day he checked his math."

The supervisor then tore off the top third, and handed the cards to a team of two. "Check his math". Same with the other pair of teams. Two months later, without finding a single error, they called off the search.

#10 | Posted by Danforth at 2025-12-06 03:50 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

Cool story, Dan.

Before I talked to Dell, while I was still in the Silicon Valley, I talked to a start-up in Belleview, WA that offered us stock rather than a fee; our policy at the time was Cash Only, and I later regretted that.

You can guess who they were, formerly of Albuquerque, NM.

Similar thing happened with a secretive operation in San Fran... Industrial Light and Magic; they had our applicant meet them somewhere and then driven to their location.

#11 | Posted by Corky at 2025-12-06 04:04 PM | Reply

I used to recommend Dell; that ended about 25 years ago.

Today I say, get a Mac.

#12 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-12-06 04:37 PM | Reply

Ye Olde Silicon Valley joke:

"Who is this Dot Matrix, and what does she want anyway?".

#13 | Posted by Corky at 2025-12-06 04:44 PM | Reply

@#9 ... I spoke to Mike Dell on the phone in the mid-80's in Austin when his business was called PCs Limited. ...

Yeah, he started the business out of his dorm room.

Back then (later-1980's) I was buying many Dell PCs for the company (dozens ...).

The PCs and the service were excellent.

Something has changed, though.

Dell service now seems to be Dell ~not my job.~

#14 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-12-06 07:24 PM | Reply