The secret deal bringing in Thiel all about money

While Donald Trump is a selfconfessed genius, and he forgot to add, also REALLY HANDSOME it is not exactly comforting that one of his great supporters is a New Zealand resident we bent the rules to welcome here.

It is even possible that Peter Thiel could help Trump achieve another term as president, which is scary.

The Thiel controversy passed me by when his citizenship was revealed. Just another rich person buying a bolthole, I thought. We like rich people from overseas.

We imagine lots of trickle-down happening with them around, as in locals getting to clean their shoes and dunnies, as well as, mouths gaping in wonder, glimpse them drive by with a regal wave and a generous splash through a puddle.

Only what happens next is, the locals can no longer afford to live near them, so they get sidelined to less pretty places to become inbred and rather strange, like The League of Gentlemen TV series.

There are discontented rumblings about this around Wanaka, where half the costly properties are empty most of the year.

Thiel previously owned a house in Auckland and another in Wanaka, but had still managed to spend only 12 days in this country before an enchanted National government let him be a citizen.

He now owns a NZ$13.5 million holding on the lake’s edge, just a few kilometres from Shania Twain’s. The singer and her now ex-husband bought four stations and merged them into one 44,500-hectare station six years ago, where her ex lives since she bolted.

We didn’t find out about Thiel’s citizenship till a year ago, though it had been granted/bought six years earlier. Why so quiet? Perhaps then internal affairs minister Nathan Guy thought people would not understand his special treatment. But I think we do. It’s because he is estimated to be worth US$3.7 billion.

His biggest single investment is reportedly in Palantir, backed by the CIA and said to be used by intelligence agencies like our own Defence Force, Security Intelligence Service and Government Communications and Security Bureau. I gather it involves detecting patterns in mega data, i.e. big-picture surveillance.

Thiel is now believed to be considering setting up a new conservative news outlet, with backing from the powerful US Mercer family and Fox News celebrities.

My fear is that the awful Fox, long the home of mini-skirted women made to look dumb, wasn’t far enough to the right for Thiel, founder of Paypal among other clever investments, and fan of Trump, less clever.

According to the new book Fire and Fury: Inside the White House, he could back Steve Bannon, too, in an attempt at the presidency.

If even remotely true, that is a worry, and not because Trump says Bannon cried when Trump ‘‘dumped’’ him. That would have been a bout of hay fever, provoked by Trump’s thatch.

There are other clues to Thiel’s political leanings. In 2009 he was

We didn't find out about Thiel's citizenship till a year ago, though it had been granted/ bought six years earlier.

quoted as remarking, ‘‘Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women, two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians, have rendered the notion of a ‘capitalist democracy’ an oxymoron.’’

Of course he didn’t mean women should not have the vote – that would be silly, eh – in which case why mention them at all?

And then there are those awful welfare people, breeding away. I’m not seeing a Jacinda fan here.

Economist Eric Crampton, writing in The Spinoff, defended the decision to welcome Thiel on account of his being, among other things, an early fan of Seasteading, ‘‘the radical idea that communities of like-minded people might set up governance arrangements among themselves that suit how they want to live, on the high seas where they wouldn’t bother, or be bothered by, anyone else’’.

He added, ‘‘It’s a beautiful proposal.’’ Oh, like extending people’s – rich people’s ,I guess – life spans with transfusions of young people’s blood. Thiel is reported as finding that ghoulish idea intriguing.

And there’s where the poor would come in handy. They’d do it for peanuts.