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cover of episode Trump Math & Techno-Fascism

Trump Math & Techno-Fascism

2025/3/1
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Slate Money
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The podcast discusses Trump's proposal of selling 'gold cards' for US citizenship at $5 million each to pay off the national debt. The hosts critique the arithmetic and feasibility of the plan while comparing it to existing immigration programs.
  • Trump proposed selling 'gold cards' for $5 million each, claiming it could pay off the national debt.
  • The arithmetic is correct, but the number of potential buyers is highly exaggerated.
  • Existing programs like the EB-5 visa have much lower costs and fewer applicants.
  • The unrealistic proposal highlights a pattern of truth distortion in political statements.
  • There is a general skepticism about the believability of statements from political figures like Trump.

Shownotes Transcript

This week: Trump has proposed a $5 million “gold card” for US citizenship, suggesting that the US could sell 10 million of them to pay off the national debt. Felix Salmon), Emily Peck), and Elizabeth Spiers) discuss the logic behind this considering the similar programs that already exist and the possible pool of candidates. Then, they discuss guest Kyle Chayka)’s recent piece in the New Yorker comparing Silicon Valley invasion of the government, led by Elon Musk, to the “techno-fasiscts” of 1930s Japan). And finally, the danger of black plastic kitchen utensils was debunked after the discovery of a simple math error. But the “zombie fact” is still affecting sales). 

In the Slate Plus episode: The $19 Strawberry and Rise of Luxury Food

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Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth.

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