As financial markets were rattled and panic spread early this week, the architect of the panic – one Donald J. Trump – literally told everyone to ‘BE COOL!’.
Which was legitimately funny – and a perfect example of why I find Trump entertaining.
But it also struck me because I remembered that someone else issued the exact same statement to the American people over a century ago, during another major financial upheaval.
That person was a certain Mr J.P Morgan – and it was in the midst of the ‘Great Panic’ of 1907.
We’re going to come back to that: because the J.P Morgan story (or conspiracy, as it happens) has been embedded into my brain now that Trump used those specific words this week.
But really, this article is trying to answer the question that is being asked everywhere at the moment: What is Trump Playing At?
‘What is he playing at?’ could be a recurring question in respect to Donald J. Trump, of course.
But his single-minded obsession with tariffs has left commentators and experts across the board scrambling to try to make sense of the President’s economic policy.
Frantic talk of looming recessions and possible economic collapse abound.
Predictably, Trump loyalists cling to the idea that we’re all simply too dumb to comprehend his genius: more stuff about ‘4D chess’, etc, I imagine.
Others of course just think this is all lunacy.
However, might some less surface-level thinking better help understand the method to the supposed madness?
I find it difficult to believe that Trump himself, and more importantly all the various nefarious minds around him (including those of financial elites), would pursue a path that was broadly expected to be disastrous.
Someone has to be benefitting from this apparently bonkers strategy.
If, as every expert seems to agree, it’s not going to be the average American people benefiting, then who?
The news feeds at present are filled with items telling us how banks and financial institutions are deeply ‘worried’ about Trump’s actions.
But could this all be just smoke and mirrors for public consumption?
In fact, two days ago the stock market apparently experienced a massive surge. Did someone profit off of that?
Yes, as it happens.
The International Business Times reports as follows: ‘On 9 April 2025, President Donald Trump unleashed a seismic shockwave across global markets by announcing a 90-day pause on his fiercely aggressive trade tariffs, a jaw-dropping reversal that flipped a week of paralysing economic turmoil into an extraordinary windfall for America’s wealthiest tycoons…’
Trump had actually posted on social media hours before his tariff pause, saying it a ‘great time to buy’.
While it may take time to zero in on exactly who profited from the chaos, IBT informs us that ‘Hedge funds… raked in £3 billion ($3.9 billion), but the real winners were billionaires with massive stakes in rallying firms.’
Three billionaires specifically named are Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg: who’s respective companies, Tesla, Amazon and Meta, all made billions off of the sudden pause in Trump’s programme.
There were doubtless others too, but these are the three highest profile. And all three were also famously stood there at Trump’s presidential inauguration in January.
The Dow Jones also experienced the largest single-day gain in recorded history.
Clearly, while small businesses and ordinary people are panicking and slated to lose big, the big-money elites are having a good time.
Are there going to be any investigations into possible market manipulation and insider trading?
I’m not an economic expert at all. In fact, finance and math does my head in. It’s not my thing.
But there has to be some sense in what’s going on, doesn’t there?
In terms of the broader strategy with Trump’s trade war and tariff mania, there’s also the strong possibility that Trump is deliberately trying to diminish the US dollar.
This actually isn’t a very controversial thought at this point.
This is an idea forwarded for example in a January Rothschild and Co article, which told us, ‘The incoming US President has often said that he would like a weaker dollar. In his view, that will help ‘Make America Great Again‘…’
It says elsewhere, ‘Of course, what Trump has in mind in this context is one specific element of economic performance only, namely America’s trade deficit and associated loss of manufacturing market share… Get the over-valued dollar to fall, and the trade deficit will go away.’
This seems to be openly admitted that a weaker dollar is desired: and could be beneficial to the economy in the long run. And analysts are now saying Trump’s policies are set to achieve that result.
It is also suggested that he is trying to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.
However, there could be more conspiratorial agendas in play too.
It seems to be the accepted consensus that historic imposition of high tariffs in the US had entirely negative outcomes, both in the US and abroad.
The 1930 Tariff Act was intended to shield American farmers and manufacturers from foreign competition: but made goods more expensive at home, triggered retaliatory tariffs abroad, destabilised global trade, and helped contribute to the Great Depression.
Trump and his people surely have access to that information. But appear untroubled by it.
Which invites more questions.
For example, is Trump actually trying to tank the US economy?
Is he trying even to trigger a worldwide economic crisis?
Maybe even trying to trigger a modern Great Depression?
Is this a case of manufactured Disaster Capitalism?
And is all of this hyper aggressive trade war entirely his initiative – or is he being guided behind-the-scenes by his various friends in finance and banking, and the Wall Street types?
If there’s one certainty, it’s that bankers and financial elites are a bunch of tricky bastards.
Masters at creating distractions and illusions and profiting off of apparent disasters while everyone else is still scratching their heads and trying to work out what’s going on.
Of course, that’s the definition of ‘Vulture Capitalism’: where corporate and political elites exploit vulnerabilities and manipulate the economy for their own benefit, typically at the expense of workers and communities.
And there’s nothing new under the sun. These great swindles have been going on for generations.
The story of how a previous figure in New York’s financial elite seized control of vast financial power comes to mind.
An article by finance author Richard A. Naclerio from 2021, titled ‘The Panic of 1907: How J.P Morgan Took Over Wall Street‘ does a great job of laying out the history of the largely forgotten ‘1907 Panic’ – an event that isn’t talked about as much as the Stock Market Crash of 1922 or the Great Depression.
It notes of J.P Morgan, who many lauded as having helped rescue the American economy, ‘to those who rigidly examined his actions, he was a monster who fed off the demise of economic destruction.’
The article details the sequence of events that led to the sudden financial collapse, and forwards the possibility that Morgan and his cabal manufactured the events in order to establish a total monopoly.
As noted, by the end of the crisis, Morgan and his co-conspirators ‘had gained control of major manufacturing, transportation, mining, telecommunications, and financial markets throughout the United States.’
Though it completely ruined numerous people’s lives, and destroyed a number of businesses, it was essentially a vast scam to enrich J.P Morgan and a few of his allies.
It’s a fascinating story. Which really exemplifies a cancer that has existed in the heart of American economics, politics and society for a very long time.
And again, the funny part is that Morgan, the same as Trump just did, literally issued a public statement in the midst of the crisis telling Americans to ‘Be cool’ (“keep cool heads” was his wording).
I’m not necessarily saying the same thing is happening now. Just that such conspiracies are always a possibility – especially when the surface-level policy or actions don’t seem to make sense.
If the surface-level scenario doesn’t add up, then logically there must be something else in play beneath the surface. And someone stands to benefit.
And Donald Trump is and always has been a con artist and a master grifter.
Interestingly enough, the current J.P Morgan Chase appears to be sounding caution over Trump’s tariffs: though again, this could all be smoke and mirrors. And J.P Morgan Chase actually previously expressed support for the tariffs.
I have no conclusion here. I still can’t say for certain what Trump is really playing at.
But the explanation given by many commentators right now – essentially that we’re just witnessing the folly of a deluded megalomaniac – is too easy and simplistic.
Something else must be going on.
Since we’ve already glanced back at some historical reference points in this article, let’s finish with another one.
President Harry Truman, in his farewell address in 1953, addressed some of the perceived mistakes the US had made that he believed might’ve helped create World War II. Said Truman, ‘…we withdrew from world affairs. We failed to act in concert with other peoples against aggression. We helped to kill a League of Nations, and we built up tariff barriers that strangled world trade.’
Sounds worryingly similar to what the current US President is doing, doesn’t it?
Still as the Great Man says, ”BE COOL!’
