 |
|
|
|||||
Winning the 2024 election came with lots of benefits for Donald Trump: more Cabinet secretaries to fire via tweet, more grimacing sit-downs with foreign heads of state, and more time beyond the reach of the criminal legal system, thanks to a generous assist from the conservative justices on the Supreme Court. It also bought him (and his family) four additional years to fulfill the primary goal of the presidential campaign he launched a decade ago this month: extract as much money as possible from his adoring followers, for as long as they are willing to part with it. Trump and his eldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric, wasted little time getting back to work, unveiling a dizzying array of cryptocurrency ventures that have netted hundreds of millions of dollars and counting, according to The Washington Post. (Another benefit of being the president: the power to set the regulatory agenda for the speculative assets in which you happen to be investing heavily.) But they are also working hard on what might be an even more ambitious project: creating an alternative Trump-themed economy full of shoddy, overpriced consumer goods, betting that his acolytes will happily pay a premium for anything with his name slapped across the packaging. The latest offering is Trump Mobile, a wireless plan priced at $47.45 per month. (Do you get it? 47 and 45? You get it.) The Trump Organization says Trump Mobiles unlimited talk-and-text planthe 47 Plan, in case the price was too subtle a referencewill come bundled with roadside assistance and device protection, as well as virtual medical care and prescription medication benefits at no additional cost. Sure enough, a graphic posted on the Trump Mobile website promised subscribers 27/7 [sic] access to doctors from the comfort of their own homw” [sic]. The copy has since been corrected, but still, there is no better encapsulation of the modern Republican Party ethos than its leader promoting scammy-looking, typo-ridden healthcare via smartphone app while GOP lawmakers strip Medicaid for parts. The Trump Organization is not actually operating a wireless networklike most Trump-branded products, Trump Mobile is a licensing deal with a business partnerbut Don Jr. and Eric both featured prominently during the rollout. For prospective users uninterested in using the 47 Plan with their regular smartphones, Trump Mobile is also offering (of course) a gold Trump-branded smartphone, the T1, for $499. The website says the T1 is Proudly Made in America, but after enough annoyed supply chain experts noted its similarities to an existing Chinese-made smartphoneand explained in detail why domestic production of a smartphone at that price point is more or less impossibleEric Trump backed off this promise a bit: The phones, now available for preorder, can be built in the U.S. eventually, he said. [Screenshot: Trump Mobile] As detailed in Trumps financial disclosures released earlier this week, Trump Mobiles products are only the beginning of what you can purchase if, in your estimation, the markets usual offerings are simply too woke. You can buy Trump-branded watches, some of which allegedly feature a baseball card-style snippet of the suit Trump wore for his mugshot in 2023, for as little as $499 or as much as $100,000 (not a typo). You can buy Trump fragrances, which the website advertises as Your Rallying Cry In A Bottle. There are Trump-branded guitars, Bibles, and sneakers. There is an entire publishing house, Winning Team, which is most famous for printing a Marjorie Taylor Greene book in Canada. These deals are nowhere near as valuable as Trumps crypto holdings, but still, in 2024, they earned him around $10 million in royaltiesa pretty nice annuity, in the event that the market for his meme coin collapses overnight. These ventures have been successful enough that others are eager to get in on the action. Instant Pot reportedly has a collection of Trump-branded kitchen appliances in the works; Lenox has pitched a line of Trump dinnerware, flatware, drinking glasses, snow globes, and Christmas ornaments; and a pair of home goods companies have proposed to sell Mar-a-Lago and White House sheet sets. (A spokesperson told Semafor that proceeds from sales of these products would go to Trump’s presidential library, a maneuver often employed by people who want to give presidents money but would prefer to avoid doing so directly.) [Screenshot: Trump Fragrance] A February trademark filing by the LLC that manages Trumps licensing agreements illustrates the potential breadth of his burgeoning consumer goods empire. Among many other things, the application mentions virtual training services in the field of hotel and real estate management; virtual personal coaching services in the field of public speaking and fundraising; and virtual reality-based virtual worlds in which users can exchange digital goods and crypto currencies using only those images, texts, videos, and sound files authorized by the 45th and 47th President of the United States. (Authenticated by NFTs, naturally.) Trademark applications are often drafted broadly, so the filing is not necessarily evidence that a MAGA-branded metaverse is about to launch. But it does suggest that there is basically no type of deal Trump wont make to squeeze more money from his followers. If people like Mike Lindell can cash in on grievance politics by linking it to a bedding brand, Trump and his sons figure they might as well take over the market while the market is hot. Trump has spent most of his life as a freewheeling branding guy, as aficionados of Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, and Trump Ice Natural Spring Water can attest. But the market for stuff with his name on it is considerably more robust today than it was back when he was a tabloid-fodder reality TV host. These newer ventures are also not luxury-golf-resort tee times or penthouse hotel suites or condominiums in midtown residential towers; they are low-risk, low-effort deals seeking to capitalize not just on his celebrity, but also on the political movement he represents. A discounted USA-themed phone plan is the exact sort of thing that might appeal to his supporters, and especially to the lower-income people and seniors among them. What better way to celebrate the triumphs of a candidate you voted for three times than paying for the privilege of seeing his logo every time you take your phone out of your pocket? [Screenshot: Trump Watches] Perhaps the grimmest throughline of the emerging Trump economys offerings is just how much contempt they evince for prospective buyers. As The Verge points out, Trump Mobile is a straightforwardly bad product relative to the major carriers prepaid brands, and even worse when compared with smaller alternatives. A Wired analysis found that Trump Mobiles baffling privacy policywhich claims that the just-announced company has somehow already collected consumers mail, email, or text message contentsappears to have been lifted from the Trump Organizations privacy policy. At 404 Media, Joseph Cox called attempting to preorder a T1 the worst experience Ive ever faced buying a consumer electronic product. A Washington Post columnist who tried to sign up for Trump Mobile discovered that the plans $47.45 monthly cost tag does not include a $17.25 plan telecom tax, which sort of defeats the purpose of setting a novelty price point in the first place. Even if Trump Mobile is not about to make the sitting president into the worlds next telecom mogul, his willingness to enter the market is part of a quantity-over-quality strategy designed to turn political supporters into loyal customers. And, as his approval ratings slide, the sooner the better: If he spends the next three-plus years tanking the economy, waging a wildly unpopular war in the Middle East, and/or deploying the military on U.S. soil, even his target audience might decide that, come to think of it, their current phone plan isnt so bad after all.
Category:
E-Commerce
We were supposed to be finished with files by now. For years, tech companies (well, certain tech companies) tooted their horns about a future in which files didnt matter. You dont even need a file manager of any sort, they told usand, in fact, we wont even let you see the file system on your devices at all. Just tap-a-tap-tap, dont worry, be happy. Right? Yeahnot so much. Here in the year o 2025, files absolutely still matter. Whether youre saving a PDF or document, wrangling an audio or video file, or trying to get that weird image format your iPhone-totin friend sent you into some reasonably standard state, files are an inevitable part of our digital lives. And dealing with em, suffice it to say, can be a real pain in the patootieespecially when it comes to the timeless act of converting something from one format to another. With the tool Ive found for you today, though, that tired tech task wont be a groan-worthy chore anymore. Get ready for the quality-of-life upgrade you never knew you needed. Unearth all sorts of little-known tech treasures with my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. A spiffy new discovery in your inbox every Wednesday! File conversion, minus the headache Ordinarily, when I find myself facing a daunting file conversion taskbe it moving an image file from one format to another, converting some awkward audio file into a more standard MP3 setup, or even freeing a document someone sent me from its silly DOCX shacklesI end up searching for a free online conversion tool. And the site I stumble onto is inevitably slow, overloaded with ads, and at least slightly questionable when it comes to security. Oh, and it also usually has some sort of arbitrary-seeming limit on the size or number of files I can process before it starts trying to charge me some exorbitant fee. No more. My fellow frustrated file wrangler, allow me to introduce you to a nifty new site called Vert. Vert is a completely free and open-source online file conversion tool. It processes most files locally in your browser, almost shockingly fast and efficientlyand without any limits or any ads. Itll take you 20 seconds to start using: Just pull up the Vert site in any browser, on any device youre using. Click the big Drop or click to convert box to select a file from your deviceor drag and drop a file from the device into that area of the page, if youd rather. One click or a drag-and-drop is all it takes to get going with Vert. Vert will then show you a confirmation screen where you can see your file, select your end format, and consider a few other simple options. Select your desired file type, and Vert will handle the rest. And thats pretty much it: Just click or tap the Convert all button, and within a split secondyes, really that fast!youll see the downward-arrow download button turn into a solid color. Your converted file will be ready to download in a matter of seconds. Thats your indication that the file conversion is finished. And all thats left is to click or tap that button to download the final result. Told ya it was easy, right?! Vert runs entirely in your browserno downloads or installations whatsoever. Its completely free to use, with optional donations to aid the development. And the app performs almost all of its processing locally on your own device, without any data ever being seen by anyone else. The one exception is a video file, which does get uploaded to a server. But Vert promises that video files always are deleted after exactly one hour. (And since the entire tool is open source, anyone with the right know-how can see exactly what it isand isntdoing to confirm.) Ready for more productivity-boosting goodness? Check out my free Cool Tools newsletter for an instant introduction to an exceptional audio appand another off-the-beaten-path gem every Wednesday!
Category:
E-Commerce
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow economists use an economic model known as the Zillow Market Heat Index to gauge the competitiveness of housing markets across the country. This model looks at key indicatorsincluding home price changes, inventory levels, and days on marketto generate a score showing whether a market favors sellers or buyers. Higher scores point to hotter, seller-friendly metro housing markets. Lower scores signal cooler markets where buyers hold more negotiating power. According to Zillow: Score of 70 or above = strong seller’s market Score from 55 to 69 = seller’s market Score from 44 to 55 = neutral market Score from 28 to 44 = buyer’s market Score of 27 or below = strong buyer’s market Nationally, Zillow rates the U.S. housing market at 55 in its May 2025 reading, published this week. That said, Zillows reading varies significantly across the country. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}(); Among the 250 largest metro area housing markets, these 10 are the HOTTEST markets, where sellers have the most power: Rochester, NY 145 Buffalo, NY 110 Syracuse, NY 100 Charleston, WV 99 Albany, NY 97 Hartford, CT 89 Lansing, MI 85 Anchorage, AK 83 Springfield, MA 82 Manchester, NH 81 Among the 250 largest metro area housing markets, these 10 are the COLDEST markets, where buyers have the most power: Macon, GA 23 Jackson, TN 24 Brownsville, TX 27 Gulfport, MS 27 Naples, FL 27 Longview, TX 27 Daphne, AL 29 Punta Gorda, FL 29 Beaumont, TX 30 Cape Coral, FL 31 Does ResiClub agree with Zillows assessment? Directionally, I believe Zillow has correctly identified many regional housing markets where buyers have gained the most powerparticularly around the Gulfas well as markets where sellers have maintained (relatively speaking) somewhat of a grip, including large portions of the Northeast and Midwest. Based on my personal housing analysis, I consider Southwest Florida the weakest/softest chunk of the U.S. housing market. Not too far behind are pockets of Texas, Colorado, and Arizona markets where theres built up unsold spec inventory. In my view, many West Coast markets are softer right now than Zillows analysis suggestsin particular, the areas that have recently seen big jumps in active inventory for sale. What did this Zillow analysis look like back in spring 2021 during the Pandemic Housing Boom? Below is Zillows May 2021 readingpublished in June 2021.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||