Money, Values, and Economic Equivalence

In Trump’s “Hush Money” trial, the judge is expected to make a decision today about Trump’s evident contempt of the court. “Contempt of Court” is usually just a name for a certain category of misdemeanor. In this case, it’s a real thing. Trump really does have contempt for courts, laws, judges … actually, anything that disturbs his ability to do whatever he damn well pleases at any time.

The problem is that the “contempt of court” laws were created for the rest of us.  Trump has figured out how to nullify them. Millions of MAGA people send him money and he simply passes it along to lawyers who are skilled in twisting rules originally created to help the rest of us live together more peaceably. Then he gets to do whatever he damn well pleases at any time. I’m guessing that the decision by the judge will be to simply fine him repeatedly throughout the trial at about $1,000 for each violation. There are currently about a dozen violations outstanding. I’m guessing that the current total will be between $10,000 and $15,000. This time. To be repeated when he accumulates another batch.

He has to pay the fine. Failure to do that will result in the courts taking truly significant chunks of his property – as nearly happened when he looked like he might fail to pay the half a billion judgement in his rape trial recently. Excuse me … “sexual abuse”. The court said it wasn’t actual rape. I’m not sure why not. Perhaps Trump couldn’t get it up.

This appears to me to be a sort of “economic equivalence”. Those marble palaces where they hold trials cost quite a bit to build. And the salaries of the people in them ain’t cheap either. Ten or fifteen large every few weeks might almost balance out the cost of that one courtroom where news junkies like me will get our daily entertainment fix for a while.

Which brings me to the topic of the subtitle, “Money, Values, and Economic Equivalence”.

When I was an engineering undergraduate, I took just about every economics class the university offered. I was trying to stay out of the draft at the time, and econ classes were fun and easy. Nobody pays any real attention to what economists say. The real hard science happens over in the classes where they teach future advertising executives how to manipulate people and pick their pockets. Trump, by the way, graduated from one of those other schools.

One of the economic theories that they write books about is “economic equivalence”. Marx and Engles wrote a lot about it about two centuries ago. The idea is that the price of something is a way to measure economic value. So, if we pay Elon Musk $14,000,000,000 in a year (and we do), then his work product is 100,000 times more valuable than someone making $140,000 a year.

(By the way, US members of the House in Congress make $174,000 a year. Hmmmmm … That theory might have some truth in it after all.)

So, if I’m a typical MAGA enthusiast, and I send Trump a contribution to help pay for his legal bills, then that means I value listening to ten minutes of Trump’s bombast outside the courtroom about the same as a nice dinner at a good restaurant with my significant other.

Before tip, of course.