Why doesn't Trump's business record get more attention?

[lucas80]

Fascinating discussion on NPR's On Point this morning about Donald Trump's business career. One of the guests was Michael D'antonio who wrote Never Enough, a biography released last year about Trump. The other guest was writer Timothy O'Brien who has been sued by Trump for writing unflattering things about him.
It was a wide ranging discussion about the actual size of Trump's fortune and his business holdings. Hint, they aren't as big as they are made out to be. Trump has truly been masterful at marketing and licensing himself, but he does not have much skin in the game in his developments. He lets others invest then capitalize off the Trump name while he collects fees of licensing and for managing projects.
Very interesting to hear that Trump was a protégé of Roy Cohn, one of America's biggest scumbags. Also fascinating to hear that Trump's grandfather ran brothels in Alaska after immigrating from Germany to get his portion of the gold rush. Grandpa tried to return to Germany but was refused due to his unsavory character.
Here is a link to the NYTimes review of D'antonio's book.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/b...suit-of-success-by-michael-dantonio.html?_r=0

 

[Titanhawk2]

Fascinating discussion on NPR's On Point this morning about Donald Trump's business career. One of the guests was Michael D'antonio who wrote Never Enough, a biography released last year about Trump. The other guest was writer Timothy O'Brien who has been sued by Trump for writing unflattering things about him.
It was a wide ranging discussion about the actual size of Trump's fortune and his business holdings. Hint, they aren't as big as they are made out to be. Trump has truly been masterful at marketing and licensing himself, but he does not have much skin in the game in his developments. He lets others invest then capitalize off the Trump name while he collects fees of licensing and for managing projects.
Very interesting to hear that Trump was a protégé of Roy Cohn, one of America's biggest scumbags. Also fascinating to hear that Trump's grandfather ran brothels in Alaska after immigrating from Germany to get his portion of the gold rush. Grandpa tried to return to Germany but was refused due to his unsavory character.
Here is a link to the NYTimes review of D'antonio's book.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/b...suit-of-success-by-michael-dantonio.html?_r=0

Sounds like a politician

 

[INXS83]

Fascinating discussion on NPR's On Point this morning about Donald Trump's business career. One of the guests was Michael D'antonio who wrote Never Enough, a biography released last year about Trump. The other guest was writer Timothy O'Brien who has been sued by Trump for writing unflattering things about him.
It was a wide ranging discussion about the actual size of Trump's fortune and his business holdings. Hint, they aren't as big as they are made out to be. Trump has truly been masterful at marketing and licensing himself, but he does not have much skin in the game in his developments. He lets others invest then capitalize off the Trump name while he collects fees of licensing and for managing projects.
Very interesting to hear that Trump was a protégé of Roy Cohn, one of America's biggest scumbags. Also fascinating to hear that Trump's grandfather ran brothels in Alaska after immigrating from Germany to get his portion of the gold rush. Grandpa tried to return to Germany but was refused due to his unsavory character.
Here is a link to the NYTimes review of D'antonio's book.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/b...suit-of-success-by-michael-dantonio.html?_r=0

Your first mistake was listening to NPR.

 

[BrianNole09]

He's also driven 4 businesses into bankruptcy and scammed millions of dollars with his phony "Trump University."

 

[lucas80]

I was just about to mention Trump University. It was a scam, and he's trying to perpetrate a similar scam on all of America. Super, tremendous, huge success!!!
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-university-classic-fraud-prosecutor-article-1.2399230

 

[thewop]

He's also driven 4 businesses into bankruptcy and scammed millions of dollars with his phony "Trump University."

I'm always torn on the bankruptcies, because I understand why businesses do it, but don't agree with it. In one sense, it's the right decision, and in another, it's crooked.

Also, I wouldn't trust any report on a republican candidate from NPR. It isn't as if that's an objective source.

 

[lucas80]

I'm always torn on the bankruptcies, because I understand why businesses do it, but don't agree with it. In one sense, it's the right decision, and in another, it's crooked.

Also, I wouldn't trust any report on a republican candidate from NPR. It isn't as if that's an objective source.

Well, you seem open minded.

 

[lucas80]

I am searching for the link, but one caller mentioned a report in the Washington Post that questioned Trump's wealth, and that if he'd simply invested his wealth in the 90's he'd be far richer than trying to build more wealth. It highlighted the spectacular growth in wealth of people like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates from the same time frame to today. The point being that Trump has not generated the wealth he claims to have made in business.

 

[ICWestfan]

Did you know that old Joe Kennedy made his fortune running illegal liquor and was an unsavory character, and a CATHOLIC to boot! Oh NOES!

 

[cigaretteman]

I am searching for the link, but one caller mentioned a report in the Washington Post that questioned Trump's wealth, and that if he'd simply invested his wealth in the 90's he'd be far richer than trying to build more wealth. It highlighted the spectacular growth in wealth of people like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates from the same time frame to today. The point being that Trump has not generated the wealth he claims to have made in business.

Donald Trump traveled an old-fashioned route to fortune.

As he explained when he announced his bid for the 2016 Republican nomination for president:

“I made it the old-fashioned way. It’s real estate. You know, it’s real estate.”

While Trump did have a big head start — his father, Fred, was a multimillionaire New York real estate developer — there’s no doubt The Donald has created a fortune of his own. But if he’d stopped working 30 years ago, he could have done much better.

All he had to do was shift away from real estate and park his money in the same place that you can: an unmanaged stock index fund.

The background
To compare Trump’s performance to that of an unmanaged index fund, we need to know two things: his beginning net worth and his current net worth.

There’s considerable debate about Trump’s net worth. It’s estimated at $4.1 billion in the latest “Forbes 400” list, which puts him in the No. 133 spot of the richest folks in America. However, in July, he issued a press release announcing his net worth at $10 billion.

Fine. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his net worth is $10 billion.

Now we need to establish his net worth at some point in the past.

Trump was on the Forbes 400 in 1982, when the magazine published its first annual list of America’s wealthiest denizens.

That year, Forbes said Trump’s fortune was “estimated at over $200 million,” but also acknowledged that Trump claimed it was “$500 million,” according to Timothy L. O’Brien’s book “TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald.”

Again, let’s give Trump the benefit of the doubt and assume he was worth $500 million in 1982.

The math
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.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-probably-better-investing-donald-233020366.html

 

[thewop]

Well, you seem open minded.

LOL, well, when it comes to news sources, I've pretty well drawn the lines on who stands for what, and don't believe anything negative about the other side until it's confirmed elsewhere. NPR loves the D's and hates the R's, and as long as you know that going in, it's fine.