Meanwhile, in North Korea…
Trump to sign US currency.
Via NBC News: Trump’s signature to appear on paper currency in a first for a sitting president.
Trump’s signature will go on the bills in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary, the Treasury said. Historically, paper currency carries the signatures of the treasury secretary and the treasurer.
[…]
U.S. paper currency has featured the treasurer’s along with the treasury secretary’s or the register of the treasurer’s signatures since it was first printed in 1861.
The above is problematic for at least two reasons. First is the general personalization of a basic government function to the president. Second is the association of the sitting president with a national celebration.
I would note that having the Treasury Secretary sign the currency is a simple reflection of a bureaucratic process properly linked to the function of the office. Having the president sign the currency is him identifying personally with a function of government that otherwise does not require his participation.
It is all part of Trump’s egomania in putting his name on anything and everything he can. If we saw this in another country, we would easily see it for what it is. Heck, if we saw it in a movie, we might well think that the script is going overboard in beating us over the head as to how self-centered the president character was.
And if the above isn’t bad enough, the obsequious praise that Bessent feels the need to laud on Trump is nauseating.
“The President’s mark on history as the architect of America’s Golden Age economic revival is undeniable,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Printing his signature on the American currency is not only appropriate, but also well deserved.”
So the difference between engraving a printing plate with a signature and the autopen is…
[audible eye roll]
Bessent has a reported net worth of half a billion dollars. That’s whats so crazy about this scene around Trump! — all these mega-million mega-billionaires’ fawning supplication to Trump’s ego and power! Certainly Bessent or Lutnick or Bezos or Musk et. al, didn’t make their fortunes by grovelling their way to a billion dollars. These guys had to have a fair measure of sterner stuff, and big egos themselves. Wiki does note that Scott Bessent had a summer job as a “busboy” as a kid, so there’s some early training in a servile skill set. But all this cringeworthy supplication may come down to unresolved “daddy issues.” These guys get some form of self validation from sucking up to Trump. And THAT is deeply disturbing — so much money, so much power, and so much inner conflict.
True, if you change “Golden” to “Gilded”.
@gVOR10:
Or perhaps even, Gelded Age.