Posted on 10/24/2015 10:06:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
ARE YOU crazy about Barack Obama? Do you fervently hope the next president of the United States will be as similar to the current president as possible?
Then Donald Trump may be the candidate for you.
Of all the candidates running for president, the one who most resembles the incumbent is not Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley. To be sure, the Democrats' policy views largely overlap with Obama's. But when it comes to attitude and self-image, it's Obama and Trump who are birds of a feather.
Everyone knows about Donald Trump's bottomless narcissism; this is a man who has affixed the name "Trump" to everything from hotels to golf courses to cologne. Asked the other day which world leaders he would reach out to upon being elected, Trump replied that he wouldn't need to call anyone: "I think I'd probably have them call me."
But Obama's march to the White House also involved startling displays of self-glorification, from Greek-style columns to a triumphal foreign tour to his own official seal (complete with Latin motto). From the earliest days of his presidency, it was clear that Obama was deeply enamored of himself, and had no doubt that the rest of the planet was just as smitten. "I am well aware," he told the UN General Assembly, "of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world." He gifted the queen of England with an iPod that included his own speeches. Obama's addiction to the first-person singular pronoun — "I," "me," "my" — has been remarked on by many; he has even referred to "my military" and the troops "fighting on my behalf."
Anyone who finds such vanity attractive should relish the prospect of a Trump presidency. Trump, after all, never doubts his own brilliance. He's always the smartest person in the room; just ask him. Sound familiar?
"I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters," Obama told campaign aides in 2008. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."
When a presidential candidate talks that way, what could possibly go wrong?
Buffett’s wealth comprises a conglomerate of all sorts of investments in a range of companies, including real estate companies, insurance companies, healthcare companies, GE, Coca Cola, manufacturing companies, communications companies, etc. I would posit that his holdings are an order of magnitude or two more complicated than trump’s.
As Gates has diversified his holdings (mentored by Buffett), his wealth has also become more complicated to manage, as well.
This is not to say that trump has not done well. He has. But he is nowhere in the same league as Buffett, or Gates, or Ellison, or Zuckerberg.
It certainly took competence to grow daddy’s empire. But that’s not the same as what these others did.
I don’t buy it for a second.
Sure, but the absolutely critical problem in Washington is not new agencies, or even expanded agencies. It’s the steady, inexorable growth of entitlements, especially Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan and a few others have put forth detailed and plausible plans to deal with entitlements. Trump? I’m waiting.
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You just nullified all your arguments. You called Social Security an “Entitlement” which is the belief of far too many idiots. Social Security was a FORCED INVESTMENT or TAXATION, whichever way you want to look at it sucked from Workers and Employers alike. In other words the people HAD TO pay into Social Security as a “Plan for the Future.” Unfortunately it was used BY the GOVERNMENT as a GENERAL FUND and consequently is in trouble. IT IS NOT an ENTITLEMENT!
Trump does brag.
In a humbler country that would not go over as well. Face it, America is proud. And it hates the shame of the mess that its government has left it with.
In the end, we’ll see. I do not believe that — unlike the Kool Aid drinkers in Washington — Trump would believe in waste, that waste is a grandiose thing. If Trump can not-waste and if he calls that the Trump Midas touch, that’s for his soul to account for before God. We aren’t able to create any candidate from scratch here. We’re having to choose among them, and that doesn’t mean the others have no voice but that their voice would need to factor by different means into the picture. And I yet believe it could be “from their mouths to Trump’s ears.”
One has accomplished and built a great deal.
Zero has nothing to show but destruction and waste.
That is, had he resisted the temptation to waste it.
Some people need to keep pushing forward in order to keep from sliding backward.
>> How many, over what geographical region (size?) <<
I really don’t want to say, because I fear the Nigerian scammers and/or Putin-backed trolls lurking on FR might be able use the info against me in some nefarious way.
When will pou people stop insisting Fred Trump’s fortune went to Donald in its entirety. There were FIVE children who inherited EQUALLY!!!
Again, why is this germane. Explain.
Since you have your scorn on maximum for Trump, I am really not surprised.
The point is, managing a large network of property has its own requirements. When you can’t go visit all your tenants you need better management skills.
I’m saying that he took his share (and when he had blown it, his siblings’ share of that fortune), aND built on it.
He did well, and I admire that.
But he is hardly a “self-made billionaire.” He is a successful heir to a multimillionnaire. Good for him! But he is hardly an exceptional character. He is a crony capitalist real estate developer from New York who is the son and heir of a very successful multimillionaire real estate developer from New York. He learned the business from his dad, and learned it well.
The devil called, he has a job for you as undersecretary of accusation.
Social security is not an entitlement?
OK, have it your way. 'Nuff said.
But thanks anyway for enlightening us.
>> When you can’t go visit all your tenants you need better management skills <<
Not me. I’ve hired an excellent property management company. Not a big deal.
So what does it mean to BE the “excellent property management company”?
Nothing?
Yes, but you’re discounting all the work an expertise that goes into maintaining such large holdings.
Even if trump doesn’t own a single one of daddy’s original units, he has preserved the value, inflation-adjusted, and that’s a fair bit of businessmanship. Kudos to him.
>> When will you people stop insisting Fred Trump’s fortune went to Donald in its entirety. There were FIVE children who inherited EQUALLY!!! <<
Thanks. Gotta research it.
Far from it. I do NOT minimize the work and business acumen required to grow a large inherited fortune into an even larger fortune for 45 years.
But it is not at the same level as a fortune that is ten or twenty times larger, and actually built from scratch.
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