patrick.net

He's already been nipping at her heels on twitter. After this, Megyn Kelley might be able to take a breather.

Dan8267 says

Let’s be honest – Donald Trump is a loser. Count all his failed businesses.

Spoken like a person who has no clue how to succeed in the private business. Can't expect much out of clueless Elizabeth.

Dan8267 says

Listen to the experts who’ve concluded he’s so bad at business that he might have more money today if he’d put his entire inheritance into an index fund and just left it alone.

That piqued my interest, but it turns out to be false or at least misleading. Trump inherited reportedly $40 million in 1974. Published reports estimate his net worth around $4 billion, a 100x increase. To do significantly better using an index fund, he would have had to know precisely when to dump the buildings his dad and grandmother built, e.g. in 1982 or 1988, and btw the comparison to the S&P 500 requires him to "reinvest all dividends, not cash out and have to pay capital gains, and pay nothing in investment fees" or buy an ETF that didn't exist at that time. Aside from those impossible requirements, it would also have required him to live solely on some other income source, e.g. working at a job, where he would probably not have had the same lifestyle including private helicopters and jets and divorces, all of which cost money. He seems also to have provided more of this own net worth to his children and ex-wives than would have been possible within the constraints of a normal salary, even for a smart guy with an M.B.A.

I am surprised that Senator Warren would choose this Rovian angle, trying to attack Trump's strength with false or misleading assertions. Her case would be much stronger if she limited it to facts, e.g. how much of his fortune results from having fooled creditors and shareholders and students. Even the real estate success results partly from the Obama administration favoring landlords and other real estate owners over tenants and savers; the favoritism is multiplied to the extent the owners use leverage, as Donald Trump does. It would be very interesting to calculate how much of Donald Trump's net worth results from Obama administration policies, and I would guess the amount is quite substantial. I suppose the commercial news airwar benefits from partisanship, and partisans tend to stretch some facts and ignore others.

FortWayne says

Dan8267 says

Let’s be honest – Donald Trump is a loser. Count all his failed businesses.

Spoken like a person who has no clue how to succeed in the private business. Can't expect much out of clueless Elizabeth.

You know who does know how to succeed in private business. The people at Money Talks News magazine, and this is what they have to say about Trump's incompetence in business.

Trump Worth $10 Billion Less Than If He’d Simply Invested in Index Funds

Imagine Trump had retired in 1982, sold his real estate holdings and invested his $500 million in the S&P 500 — that is, 500 stocks representing the American stock market.

From 1982 through the end of 2014, the S&P 500 index had an annualized return, including reinvested dividends, of 11.86 percent, according to MoneyChimp’s S&P 500 Compound Annual Growth Rate calculator.

Per this calculator, every dollar invested in January 1982 would have been worth $40 by December of 2014. That means Trump’s initial $500 million would have grown to $20 billion. That’s twice what Trump says he’s worth today.

This comparison is notable for two reasons. First, it reveals that Trump may not always be as shrewd as he’d have you believe, especially considering he’s filed four corporate bankruptcies since 1982.

More relevant to your life, however, is that you can do what he didn’t: harness the twin tools of stocks and compound interest.

The fact that you didn't realize that everyone buying an S&P500 Index fund is better than Trump at finances demonstrates that YOU don't know how to run a business.

curious2 says

it would also have required him to live solely on some other income source, e.g. working at a job,

I'm sure it's not hard to live on a single million dollars of inheritance while investing the rest.

curious2 says

btw the comparison to the S&P 500 requires him to "reinvest all dividends, not cash out and have to pay capital gains, and pay nothing in investment fees"

I reinvest my gains and dividends any pay basically nothing in investment fees using Vanguard. It's quite possible. I've beaten Trump's performance personally and it took zero effort on my part.

Dan8267 says

Imagine Trump had retired in 1982, sold his real estate holdings and invested his $500 million in the S&P 500....

How did he have $500 million in 1982, after reportedly inheriting $40 million in 1974? Also, if he had sold his real estate holdings, wouldn't he have had to pay taxes on the gains, and other transaction costs? Also, unless he has a crystal ball to see the future, how do you expect him to know that precisely 1982 is the moment to dump his family business and bet everything on Wall Street?

Dan, I lived in NYC, and learned a lot about NYC culture. The leading real estate families tend not to sell, and they tend to view Wall Street with skepticism. For example, Eliot Spitzer came from a real estate family, and prosecuted Wall Street. I can understand you would prefer Elizabeth Warren over Donald Trump, but honestly on this particular topic you seem to be underestimating Donald Trump.

I gave up on Democrats who insisted on arguing Obamneycare all the time, because they couldn't get it through their heads that they were simply wrong and never going to persuade anyone; it continues to poll around -10 even now. If Democrats get it into their heads to campaign against Donald Trump on the basis of ETFs that didn't even exist in 1982, let alone 1974, they'll look idiotic.

Dan8267 says

I've beaten Trump's performance personally and it took zero effort on my part.

You've been investing since 1974?

This facebook thing is untrue; almost all of Trump's signature properties and much of his other ones were not inherited from his Father. Nor his water, clothing, television program, magazine, branding/licensing agreements and foreign resort lines.

Turner inherited a reasonably well-off billboard and UHF business from his father, but Turner created a Media/Advertising Empire that dwarfed what he inherited-Trump is similar.

Trump Responds To Elizabeth Warren’s Criticism By Calling Her ‘The Indian’

During a Monday press conference, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump responded to criticism from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) by calling her “the Indian.”
----
Those comments echo remarks made in a New York Times interview published over the weekend. Asked about Warren’s criticism, Trump said, “I think it’s wonderful because the Indians can now partake in the future of the country.”

“She’s got about as much Indian blood as I have,” Trump added. “Her whole life was based on a fraud. She got into Harvard and all that because she said she was a minority.”

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/03/21/3762100/trump-warren-indian/

Thank God someone is exposing the minority career advancement strategy. I don't blame white folk for going for it, but they must realize that the rest of use know they are pitiful scumbags for doing so.

Up this away, PBS is featuring a white woman who has used her Cuban ancestry to milk her way to become the president of UW. She is interviewed touting her many accomplishments, which would apparently include using an unethical but profitable pathway to career advancement. The fact is, that that fine English woman Warren's ancestors fucked over the Indians as much as the UW president's ancestors, and Warren likely has as much claim to Indian blood as does the UW president. So why is Warren mocked, and the president admired?

curious2 says

You've been investing since 1974?

Not that long, but long enough so that comparing yearly returns are meaningful.

As for your other questions, you'd have to research that. I'm going off the Forbes and other articles reporting the story.

Did a search for how good of a businessman is trump. Almost all of the top ten results paint a not-so-lovely picture.

Donald Trump Is A Mediocre Businessman, And His Record Proves It.
http://opinion.injo.com/2015/09/247749-donald-trump-is-a-mediocre-businessman-and-his-record-proves-it/

The real reason Donald Trump is so rich
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/03/if-donald-trump-followed-this-really-basic-advice-hed-be-a-lot-richer/

Criticism Of Donald Trump, The Businessman: 'You Didn't Build That', Right Wing Edition
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2015/11/01/criticism-of-donald-trump-the-businessman-you-didnt-build-that-right-wing-edition/#478107d36f50

What made Donald Trump a good businessman? (This is a Quora answer, which is basically like Yahoo Answers, pure opinion.)
https://www.quora.com/What-made-Donald-Trump-a-good-businessman

Donald Trump: just how good a businessman is he?
http://theconversation.com/donald-trump-just-how-good-a-businessman-is-he-53713

Businessmen Against Trump
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/are-we-all-part-of-trump-nation-some-readers-say-no/398462/

Top 10 Donald Trump Failures
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2068227,00.html

Donald Trump Is a Mediocre Businessman
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/01/donald-trump-mediocre-businessman

Here's how Donald Trump's net worth since 1988 stacks up against other successful businessmen
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-vs-other-billionaires-2015-8

The obligatory Wikipedia page that has a high page rank because every conformist links to Wikipedia to convince others of their expertises.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump

Yeah, I just don't get how Trump is touted as a good businessman even if your only criteria is making money. And if your criteria is running successful businesses that benefit society, which is the whole basis of the argument that being good at business would make one good at being president, then all the evidence is that Trump is a lousy businessman who is rich only because he's a crook who has impoverished so many other people.

How Much Is Trump Worth? Depends on How He Feels

Evaluating Donald’s riches was like trying to bottle smoke. At one point, when Forbes magazine posited that the Trump coffers were brimming with $2.6 billion, he told me the actual figure was $4 billion to $5 billion. Later the same day, he called and amended his own assessment-to $1.7 billion.

While I was doing research for TrumpNation later on, he said he had $5 billion to $6 billion stashed away, but when I spent the night at his Palm Beach estate, a glossy little pamphlet found its way into my room stating he had amassed $9.5 billion. And on and on and on.

Three executives with intimate knowledge of Donald’s finances and track record told me at the time that they thought he was worth $150 million to $250 million. Grousing, said Donald.

“My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, but I try.”

“Let me just understand that a little bit,” my lawyer said. “Let’s talk about net worth for a second. You said that the net worth goes up and down based upon your own feelings?”

“Yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day. Then you have a September 11th, and you don’t feel so good about yourself and you don’t feel so good about the world and you don’t feel so good about New York City. Then you have a year later, and the city is as hot as a pistol. Even months after that it was a different feeling. So yeah, even my own feelings affect my value to myself.”

“When you publicly state what you’re worth, what do you base that number on?”

“I would say it’s my general attitude at the time that the question may be asked,” Donald responded. “And as I say, it varies.”

How is assessing your net worth based on your feelings at a particular moment a sound basis for running businesses?