20 ms·

"Lots of individuals who Trump "owes" through either money or support they provided to him; pure cronyism." Trump is the most 'free' President in modern histor

"Lots of individuals who Trump "owes" through either money or support they provided to him; pure cronyism." Trump is the most 'free' President in modern history. He 'owes' the least, to the fewest people. This is one thing even the center-left press were talking about. As for Thiel - $1M might seem like a lot - but Trump doesn't really 'owe' Thiel anything, because Thiel doesn't have direct future influence etc., and Trump doesn't need him in the future. For example: Bill Maher gave $1M to Obama. For that you get some friendly things, but Obama didn't need Maher after that. Hillary is not directly uber wealthy - and she accepted $57M from private individuals and businesses while she was Sec of State - for which she provided mostly small favours (introductions). Trump had the smallest team in Presidential history, the banks were mostly betting on Hillary etc.. I don't really like Trump, but he's largely unburdened by having to hand out appointments. He'll give them to those that 'stuck by him' i.e. Guliani etc. and scorn on the old Bush guard.

Rapzid 10y ago
> He'll give them to those that 'stuck by him' i.e. Guliani etc. and scorn on the old Bush guard. "owes" man. In quotes because he doesn't have any fiscal or otherwise legal obligation to pay them back. If he largely surrounds himself with those few who supported him(opportunistically dare I say?) then it's a huge red flag in my book he isn't really going for the best advisors. I'd like to see at least a couple old detractors on the list..
- leakybit 10y ago
  This is the case with just about every politician, the campaign staff essential becomes part of the administration. Remember that he only has 8 weeks to fill hundreds of jobs in his cabinet.
- Mathnerd314 10y ago
  My guess is that most of them will be "wildcards", people that have no political experience / ties whatsoever and were chosen because they were experts or at least moderately successful in their chosen field. Thiel kind of fits that profile, ignoring his recent antics.
  - Mathnerd314 10y ago
    The one I'm watching (and this guy: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/11/09/president-trump-the-important-thing-now-is-which-job-does-peter-navarro-get/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/11/09/president...) is Peter Navarro. Presumably Trump is going to find 2 more people and make up a council, like Obama's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Economic_Advisers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Economic_Advisers, but it's an interesting data point as to whether Navarro ends up as chairman.
threeseed 10y ago
This is just nonsense. Trump never provided his tax returns for scrutiny so unlike Hillary we don't know who exactly he is beholden to. What we know from his son, sources and leaks is that Russian ogligarchs with ties to Putin do hold significant amounts of his company's debt. It is this type of "pay to play" that is far, far beyond anything that has ever been seen before.
- Tycho 10y ago
  Why would we learn anything new about that from his tax return? Doesn't the financial disclosure filing cover that?
  - threeseed 10y ago
    Tax returns provide additional information. For example they describe in detail the tax mix e.g. income versus capital gains, as well as the nature of liquid assets, deduction types etc.
    - Tycho 10y ago
      But why would that be relevant to him being beholden to Russian investors? What sort of connection/conclusion would it forseeably allow us to make?
      - edblarney 10y ago
        I guess if Russians were giving him very sweet terms on financing, he might be inclined to 'repay' them by loosening some foreign investment policy. Also - the US currently has a gang of Russians under severe financial control, i.e. they are not able to move a dollar out of Russia. If those guys are connected with 'Russian investors' they might try to lobby to get out of 'money jail'.
        Tycho 10y ago
        But why would his tax return shed new light on this, that his previous financial disclosure did not? Are you saying that the tax return would include detail on things like financing rates that were not mentioned in the financial disclosure? I thought it would just tell us what deductions he was taking / loopholes he was exploiting with respect to his taxes.
serge2k 10y ago
> "Lots of individuals who Trump "owes" through either money or support they provided to him; pure cronyism." Trump is the most 'free' President in modern history. He 'owes' the least, to the fewest people. No, the people he owes just aren't other politicians.
analog31 10y ago
Trump is the most 'free' President in modern history. He has to buy the support of Congress. He'll give appointments to people who can stand to keep agreeing with him. At least Thiel is loyal to a persistent Republican theme, which is attacking higher education.
- taurath 10y ago
  Does he go to congress though? His #1 item on his list was term limits. What if he goes directly to the people?
  - analog31 10y ago
    At some point he has to. He can't just impose term limits, and as I mentioned in another thread, term limits don't restore power to the voters unless gerrymandering and voter suppression are eliminated. I don't see how he takes power away from the tea party, and the tea party is very much a bought party.
  - walshemj 10y ago
    Which requires a constitutional amendment which will take decades to get the states to agree to it.
    - taurath 10y ago
      Its possible with a state ratifying convention, though the only amendment using that was the 21st for prohibition of alcohol.
tptacek 10y ago
Why exactly am I meant to be comforted by the fact that the craven opportunists --- the lowest of the low of the Republican party, discredited outsiders like Newt Gingrich and John Bolton --- are getting the most important positions in the United States government for kowtowing to Trump? There are important thinkers in the Republican Party. People with ideas and a moral core, people who have given years of service to the country (and, for that matter, the party). They're nowhere in the discussion --- most of them opposed Trump, who campaigned in large part in repudiation of conservative foreign policy and conservative fiscal policy. There's Robert Gates. And then there's Newt Gingrich, who has demonstrated nothing but an ability to personally profit off the chaos he's sown in the party for decades. Gingrich is a Trump winner; Gates, a loser. You just described the literal definition of cronyism as if it was a good thing.
- fooey 10y ago
  America didn't elect a technocrat. We elected a bigmouth reality TV star. Should probably think of the Trump cabinet as something more like a Breitbart sitcom than a functional administration.
  - oldmanjay 10y ago
    As there is no Trump cabinet as yet, this would only be something one should do if one were prejudging, i.e. engaging in bigotry. How poetic!
    - fenx 10y ago
      He will be the least politically experienced president in modern times, if not ever. I think people are right to be cautious.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      That is not what the word "bigotry" means.
      - oldmanjay 10y ago
billiam 10y ago
This is some kind of creepy Randian thinking. The idea that playing developer-type leverage games make you "free" is a laughable fiction. Trump always called himself the King of Debt, and he owes many people, bigly. The banks were betting on Hillary because familiarity breeds contempt--they had already lost billions lending to him since the 80s. Just like the Trump Foundation, he hasn't put anything except his gold-painted name into s business for many years. Who does he owe: Putin, Russian oligarchs, Thiel, Mnuchin, 2nd and 3rd rate hucksters that bankroll his schemes (and pay him through his Foundation), and...who knows? He won't release his taxes. We just elected President the world's poorest billionaire, so you can bet everything will be for sale.
- ethbro 10y ago
  Isn't the first rule of a startup "Don't invest your own money when someone else is willing to invest theirs?"
- mschuster91 10y ago
  > We just elected President the world's poorest billionaire, so you can bet everything will be for sale. I have the feeling that Trump will be a worse copy of Berlusconi. Both have a fetish for young girls (Trump even said he 'd date his daughter, if she weren't related to him), both are extremely focused on PR, both do not really like politics based on facts, Berlusconi abused and manipulated the Italian court system in his years as president to avoid punishments - and I bet my ... that Trump will do the same.
  - tomp 10y ago
    > Both have a fetish for young girls What's wrong with being attracted to young women (his daughter is no longer a "girl" in any sense of the word)?
    - peterclary 10y ago
      Do you not see that there's something inherently creepy about talking about your own daughter as a sexual object?
gone35 10y ago
Trump is the most 'free' President in modern history. He 'owes' the least, to the fewest people. How do you know? Have you actually operationalized it with a quantifiable measure? Can you actually back up your claim with actual, verifiable data? No? Then get the fuck out.
- edblarney 10y ago
  Donald Trump does not have a 'Global Pac' wherein he was accepting money from thousands of foreign business people, and governments. Donald Trump was not on the speaking circuit for the last few years, taking cheques from hedge funds and large banks. Donald Trump received no endorsements from newspapers, and most of his party failed to endorse him. Donald Trump own party apparatus worked against him. Campaign contributions from Banks and Hedge Funds massively favoured Hillary: http://www.wsj.com/articles/hedge-fund-money-has-vastly-favored-clinton-over-trump-1469784601?tesla=y http://www.wsj.com/articles/hedge-fund-money-has-vastly-favo... Listen - I don't like Trump, if you ask me, he's kind of a douche. But he's basically beholden to almost nobody, it's a totally unique idea in modern politics.
  - infinite8s 10y ago
    Except no one knows who he's beholden to in his personal dealings, and he has effectively said that he will not place Trump Enterprises into a blind trust.
- StreamBright 10y ago
  This is not really acceptable style on HN. This information is known based on the campaign contributions. http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/ http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential... http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/trump-spent-about-half-of-what-clinton-did-on-his-way-to-the-presidency.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/trump-spent-about-half-of-wha... https://www.wired.com/2016/09/clinton-trump-get-campaign-funds-250-neighborhoods/ https://www.wired.com/2016/09/clinton-trump-get-campaign-fun... http://fortune.com/2016/08/22/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-fundraising-cash/ http://fortune.com/2016/08/22/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-f... http://www.fec.gov/disclosurep/pnational.do http://www.fec.gov/disclosurep/pnational.do https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00023864 https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N0002386...
pg314 10y ago
Since he never released his taxes we have no idea about his financial situation. We have no clear idea who he owns what to. After a string of business debacles his US financing sources all but dried up. He definitely owes money to Deutsche Bank. (It's going to be fun when he will have to negotiate their 14 billion fine.) It is likely that he owes money to Russian banks. He also owns real estate across the world. I would not call him a free president, on the contrary. He is more beholden to foreign interests than any other president in recent history.
- pg314 10y ago
  He also doesn't seem to have a real plan to disentangle himself from his business interests as a president. He said he will let his kids run the Trump foundation, but that's still a huge conflict of interest. The traditional way to avoid conflicts of interests is to put your assets into a blind trust (i.e. liquidate your assets and let an independent person administer them without you knowing about how your money is allocated). I don't see Trump ever doing that.
  - ooqr 10y ago
    Based on probability alone, they'd do a better job at it and make him look bad.
- adolph 10y ago
  The balance of financial and socio-political arrangements are an interesting topic. At what point is a debt large enough for the lender to exert influence over the borrower and what point it is so great that the lender is totally invested in the borrowers success?
  - pg314 10y ago
    The borrower's (Trump's) success is not necessarily aligned with the nation's success. This is exactly why it represents a potential conflict of interests. E.g. Trump can halve DB's fine in return for future loans. Win-win for both of them, a loss for the US.
jackmott 10y ago
he is handing the epa to the oil industry.

Rapzid 10y ago

> He'll give them to those that 'stuck by him' i.e. Guliani etc. and scorn on the old Bush guard. "owes" man. In quotes because he doesn't have any fiscal or otherwise legal obligation to pay them back. If he largely surrounds himself with those few who supported him(opportunistically dare I say?) then it's a huge red flag in my book he isn't really going for the best advisors. I'd like to see at least a couple old detractors on the list..

leakybit 10y ago
This is the case with just about every politician, the campaign staff essential becomes part of the administration. Remember that he only has 8 weeks to fill hundreds of jobs in his cabinet.
Mathnerd314 10y ago
My guess is that most of them will be "wildcards", people that have no political experience / ties whatsoever and were chosen because they were experts or at least moderately successful in their chosen field. Thiel kind of fits that profile, ignoring his recent antics.
- Mathnerd314 10y ago
  The one I'm watching (and this guy: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/11/09/president-trump-the-important-thing-now-is-which-job-does-peter-navarro-get/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/11/09/president...) is Peter Navarro. Presumably Trump is going to find 2 more people and make up a council, like Obama's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Economic_Advisers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Economic_Advisers, but it's an interesting data point as to whether Navarro ends up as chairman.

threeseed 10y ago

This is just nonsense. Trump never provided his tax returns for scrutiny so unlike Hillary we don't know who exactly he is beholden to. What we know from his son, sources and leaks is that Russian ogligarchs with ties to Putin do hold significant amounts of his company's debt. It is this type of "pay to play" that is far, far beyond anything that has ever been seen before.

Tycho 10y ago
Why would we learn anything new about that from his tax return? Doesn't the financial disclosure filing cover that?
- threeseed 10y ago
  Tax returns provide additional information. For example they describe in detail the tax mix e.g. income versus capital gains, as well as the nature of liquid assets, deduction types etc.
  - Tycho 10y ago
    But why would that be relevant to him being beholden to Russian investors? What sort of connection/conclusion would it forseeably allow us to make?
    - edblarney 10y ago
      I guess if Russians were giving him very sweet terms on financing, he might be inclined to 'repay' them by loosening some foreign investment policy. Also - the US currently has a gang of Russians under severe financial control, i.e. they are not able to move a dollar out of Russia. If those guys are connected with 'Russian investors' they might try to lobby to get out of 'money jail'.
      - Tycho 10y ago
        But why would his tax return shed new light on this, that his previous financial disclosure did not? Are you saying that the tax return would include detail on things like financing rates that were not mentioned in the financial disclosure? I thought it would just tell us what deductions he was taking / loopholes he was exploiting with respect to his taxes.

serge2k 10y ago

> "Lots of individuals who Trump "owes" through either money or support they provided to him; pure cronyism." Trump is the most 'free' President in modern history. He 'owes' the least, to the fewest people. No, the people he owes just aren't other politicians.

analog31 10y ago

Trump is the most 'free' President in modern history. He has to buy the support of Congress. He'll give appointments to people who can stand to keep agreeing with him. At least Thiel is loyal to a persistent Republican theme, which is attacking higher education.

taurath 10y ago
Does he go to congress though? His #1 item on his list was term limits. What if he goes directly to the people?
- analog31 10y ago
  At some point he has to. He can't just impose term limits, and as I mentioned in another thread, term limits don't restore power to the voters unless gerrymandering and voter suppression are eliminated. I don't see how he takes power away from the tea party, and the tea party is very much a bought party.
- walshemj 10y ago
  Which requires a constitutional amendment which will take decades to get the states to agree to it.
  - taurath 10y ago
    Its possible with a state ratifying convention, though the only amendment using that was the 21st for prohibition of alcohol.

tptacek 10y ago

Why exactly am I meant to be comforted by the fact that the craven opportunists --- the lowest of the low of the Republican party, discredited outsiders like Newt Gingrich and John Bolton --- are getting the most important positions in the United States government for kowtowing to Trump? There are important thinkers in the Republican Party. People with ideas and a moral core, people who have given years of service to the country (and, for that matter, the party). They're nowhere in the discussion --- most of them opposed Trump, who campaigned in large part in repudiation of conservative foreign policy and conservative fiscal policy. There's Robert Gates. And then there's Newt Gingrich, who has demonstrated nothing but an ability to personally profit off the chaos he's sown in the party for decades. Gingrich is a Trump winner; Gates, a loser. You just described the literal definition of cronyism as if it was a good thing.

fooey 10y ago
America didn't elect a technocrat. We elected a bigmouth reality TV star. Should probably think of the Trump cabinet as something more like a Breitbart sitcom than a functional administration.
- oldmanjay 10y ago
  As there is no Trump cabinet as yet, this would only be something one should do if one were prejudging, i.e. engaging in bigotry. How poetic!
  - fenx 10y ago
    He will be the least politically experienced president in modern times, if not ever. I think people are right to be cautious.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    That is not what the word "bigotry" means.
    - oldmanjay 10y ago

billiam 10y ago

This is some kind of creepy Randian thinking. The idea that playing developer-type leverage games make you "free" is a laughable fiction. Trump always called himself the King of Debt, and he owes many people, bigly. The banks were betting on Hillary because familiarity breeds contempt--they had already lost billions lending to him since the 80s. Just like the Trump Foundation, he hasn't put anything except his gold-painted name into s business for many years. Who does he owe: Putin, Russian oligarchs, Thiel, Mnuchin, 2nd and 3rd rate hucksters that bankroll his schemes (and pay him through his Foundation), and...who knows? He won't release his taxes. We just elected President the world's poorest billionaire, so you can bet everything will be for sale.

ethbro 10y ago
Isn't the first rule of a startup "Don't invest your own money when someone else is willing to invest theirs?"
mschuster91 10y ago
> We just elected President the world's poorest billionaire, so you can bet everything will be for sale. I have the feeling that Trump will be a worse copy of Berlusconi. Both have a fetish for young girls (Trump even said he 'd date his daughter, if she weren't related to him), both are extremely focused on PR, both do not really like politics based on facts, Berlusconi abused and manipulated the Italian court system in his years as president to avoid punishments - and I bet my ... that Trump will do the same.
- tomp 10y ago
  > Both have a fetish for young girls What's wrong with being attracted to young women (his daughter is no longer a "girl" in any sense of the word)?
  - peterclary 10y ago
    Do you not see that there's something inherently creepy about talking about your own daughter as a sexual object?

gone35 10y ago

Trump is the most 'free' President in modern history. He 'owes' the least, to the fewest people. How do you know? Have you actually operationalized it with a quantifiable measure? Can you actually back up your claim with actual, verifiable data? No? Then get the fuck out.

edblarney 10y ago
Donald Trump does not have a 'Global Pac' wherein he was accepting money from thousands of foreign business people, and governments. Donald Trump was not on the speaking circuit for the last few years, taking cheques from hedge funds and large banks. Donald Trump received no endorsements from newspapers, and most of his party failed to endorse him. Donald Trump own party apparatus worked against him. Campaign contributions from Banks and Hedge Funds massively favoured Hillary: http://www.wsj.com/articles/hedge-fund-money-has-vastly-favored-clinton-over-trump-1469784601?tesla=y http://www.wsj.com/articles/hedge-fund-money-has-vastly-favo... Listen - I don't like Trump, if you ask me, he's kind of a douche. But he's basically beholden to almost nobody, it's a totally unique idea in modern politics.
- infinite8s 10y ago
  Except no one knows who he's beholden to in his personal dealings, and he has effectively said that he will not place Trump Enterprises into a blind trust.
StreamBright 10y ago
This is not really acceptable style on HN. This information is known based on the campaign contributions. http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/ http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential... http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/trump-spent-about-half-of-what-clinton-did-on-his-way-to-the-presidency.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/trump-spent-about-half-of-wha... https://www.wired.com/2016/09/clinton-trump-get-campaign-funds-250-neighborhoods/ https://www.wired.com/2016/09/clinton-trump-get-campaign-fun... http://fortune.com/2016/08/22/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-fundraising-cash/ http://fortune.com/2016/08/22/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-f... http://www.fec.gov/disclosurep/pnational.do http://www.fec.gov/disclosurep/pnational.do https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00023864 https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N0002386...

pg314 10y ago

Since he never released his taxes we have no idea about his financial situation. We have no clear idea who he owns what to. After a string of business debacles his US financing sources all but dried up. He definitely owes money to Deutsche Bank. (It's going to be fun when he will have to negotiate their 14 billion fine.) It is likely that he owes money to Russian banks. He also owns real estate across the world. I would not call him a free president, on the contrary. He is more beholden to foreign interests than any other president in recent history.

pg314 10y ago
He also doesn't seem to have a real plan to disentangle himself from his business interests as a president. He said he will let his kids run the Trump foundation, but that's still a huge conflict of interest. The traditional way to avoid conflicts of interests is to put your assets into a blind trust (i.e. liquidate your assets and let an independent person administer them without you knowing about how your money is allocated). I don't see Trump ever doing that.
- ooqr 10y ago
  Based on probability alone, they'd do a better job at it and make him look bad.
adolph 10y ago
The balance of financial and socio-political arrangements are an interesting topic. At what point is a debt large enough for the lender to exert influence over the borrower and what point it is so great that the lender is totally invested in the borrowers success?
- pg314 10y ago
  The borrower's (Trump's) success is not necessarily aligned with the nation's success. This is exactly why it represents a potential conflict of interests. E.g. Trump can halve DB's fine in return for future loans. Win-win for both of them, a loss for the US.

jackmott 10y ago

he is handing the epa to the oil industry.