I am no good at math. I have flunks to prove it. I made Phi Bete in college because there was no math requirement. Years of recreational gambling brought me up to speed. These days I am content with the games I play on my PC. The point is that math, for all its reputed beauty, is a utility. A helpful abstraction. A means to an end. And Donald Trump manages to turn math itself into an ugly and harmful con.

In fact, our entire economy is mainly bad math. How so. The main thing about money is to win. Winning means you have more than you need. Even Jesus saw this, rewarding people who made out with what they were given.

But Donald Trump is a champion of horrendous math. This is because our economy rewards it. It takes a devilish individual to do what Trump has done.

Dig it

He has made a science of ferreting out every advantage you can get if you throw ethics out the window and have no care for your effect on others. Winning, winning, winning. So if we take our sickly, debt-laden selves into the next year with even more debt, it's all dumb math. An abstraction. Until it isn't.

Losers

We are a nation of losers because we honor debt. We honor usury. We honor deals. If you have some false polish and a foot in the door, you can borrow until you are too big to fail. That's what Donald did. But there is an existential limit to all this talk of abstraction.

The rubber hits the road. You realize you are a slave to debt. We have nearly an entire nation in Debt Slavery.

Those who avoid this fate are anything but sympathetic. The bulk owes on their cards or owes the student loan hawkers or spends their days fending off humiliating phone harassment. Into this mix comes Trump, the debt-ridden billionaire who is too big to fail.

His buildings have all the tasteless glitter we generally associate with hell. We like it that he is bad.

Mnuchin's atrocious math

Math is only good if it tells you the result will be good. Good is not owing anyone anything. It engenders freedom. Mnuchin cannot even add.

The premise of Trump is that with his plan we will grow double time and that corporations given a break will pay it out to new workers.

Yeah, right. No way.

Double growth is a con. A labor-intensive tax break is a violation of Esteban's Law of the Rich. This law says, "Thou shalt hoard until you die and then the cost basis will change. You then pass it on to your kids with minimal tax."

Gatsby world

Fitzgerald flagged Trump with his noxious fictional character Jay Gatsby, a criminal American rich guy. Mr. Mnuchin over at Treasury does Trump's bidding. Kochs understand. Federalist Society pats itself on the back. And peons in debt slavery and the righteous debt-free tweet their support for our con artist president.

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