4 ms·
> It's odd that Trump is a businessman, yet his list of solutions includes all kinds of tariffs and trade restrictions to rein in business. There's a reason Wes
by japhyr 10y ago
> It's odd that Trump is a businessman, yet his list of solutions includes all kinds of tariffs and trade restrictions to rein in business. There's a reason Western countries don't use tariffs much anymore: they're counterproductive if you want to stimulate growth. But I guess that old economics lesson is about to be put to another test.
It's pretty clear he was never a good businessman. He was good at finding loopholes and exploiting people and policies. Now I imagine we'll start to see that kind of shoddy policy making at a national level. And "shoddy" is giving him a large benefit of the doubt. It feels like an intentional attempt to maximize short-term benefits with complete disregard for long-term consequences.
- usaphp 10y ago> "It's pretty clear he was never a good businessman." Don't you find it silly to call a person with a net worth of $4 billion "not a good businessman" keeping in mind that he made this money doing business
- japhyr 10y agoI don't find it silly for several reasons: - My definition of "good businessman" is more than just maximizing one person's profits over all other considerations. - It's clear that Trump has achieved a significant portion of his gains through legal threats. He has underpaid contractors, and his main response has been "Sue me if you want the rest of your money. But it will cost you more than it's worth to sue me." This is not my idea of a "good businessman". - I don't have any faith in his stated net worth. I wonder what his actual worth is, if you could get an accurate assessment of his assets. I also have no idea how his election affects his actual net worth.
- Frondo 10y agoHad he taken the money he was lent or given at the start of his business career, and invested it into an index fund instead of doing his attempts at business, he would now have a net worth of $12 billion instead of $4 billion. He did far, far worse as a businessman than he would have had he done nothing. Based on that alone, I can call him not a good businessman.
- shostack 10y agoInteresting... Hadn't heard that before, source?
- bhritchie 10y agoThe article I linked in a sibling to your comment sources several versions of this calculation in the footnotes, though I'm sure there are others as well: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-09-03/should-donald-trump-have-indexed- https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-09-03/should-do...
- bhritchie 10y ago> Had he taken the money he was lent or given at the start of his business career, and invested it into an index fund instead of doing his attempts at business, he would now have a net worth of $12 billion instead of $4 billion. Matt Levine wrote a great article on this idea: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-09-03/should-donald-trump-have-indexed- https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-09-03/should-do... Maybe the best line: "For one thing, if he put all his money in index funds and reinvested all the dividends for 41 years, he'd be dead, because you can't buy food with reinvested dividends."
- heartbreak 10y agoCrazy that I'm not dead yet. Somehow the rest of us manage to eat without spending dividends earned from money given to us by our parents.