I read a fascinating story a few days ago about an interaction between Donald Trump and Anthony Fauci during Trump’s first administration.
It happened well into the covid era. The first vaccines were being released, and the country was ready to get back to business.
Fauci then made a public statement about the possible need for booster shots in order for the vaccines to be effective.
Here’s what happened next, in Fauci’s own words:
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The president was irate, saying that I could not keep doing this to him. He said he loved me, but the country was in trouble, and I was making it worse. He added that the stock market went up only six hundred points in response to the positive phase 1 vaccine news and it should have gone up a thousand points and so I cost the country “one trillion fucking dollars.”
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Stories like this make my head spin. If Trump was right, and it’s very possible he was, then where did that “one trillion fucking dollars” go?
Had Fauci not said anything, would that trillion really be there in the world in any meaningful way?
How can a trillion dollars of actual “value” just appear and disappear, on command, with a few words by the right person in the right place at the right time?
I’ve long been fascinated by the topic of money. Not in the sense of getting my hands on as much of it as I can, but simply understanding what it is.
I have never found a good explanation. Whenever somebody gives me their own explanation, it always seems inadequate.
From what little I understand, money is so confusing because it’s a mix of different things. Hope about the future… willingness to cooperate… built-up knowledge… information about the physical world… information about personal values and preferences, as in, “Do you value this beautiful house? Or do you value the plot of land underneath it more, and you’d be willing to pay to have the house demolished?”
If you have a comprehensive theory of what money is, or a good analogy, or you can point me to some insightful book on the matter, I will be grateful to you.
Meanwhile, one thing is clear to me:
We live in a world of ideas and feelings, which have tremendous real-world influence, even when the physical reality remains almost entirely unchanged, as in the Trump-Fauci story above.
It might be worth thinking about, learning about, getting informed about how to influence those ideas and feelings, including for your own money-getting ambitions.
And on that note, I’d like to remind you I’m making one final, desperate, almost-certain-to-fail-but-possibly-will-succeed push to finish my new 10 Commandments book, full title:
10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters
As the very long title suggests, this book will be about 10 techniques or “commandments” used by some of the most effective communicators and influencers in the world, across all history and space, both for good and evil, in their quest to change feelings, plant ideas, and motivate action.
My goal is to finish and publish this book by March 24.
Until then, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.
If you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:
Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book