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Donald Trump. He is literally off the charts both. He builds very large, impressive buildings for a living. He is enough of a charismatic individual that thro

Donald Trump. He is literally off the charts both. He builds very large, impressive buildings for a living. He is enough of a charismatic individual that through force of personality won the presidency.

peteretep 10y ago
My understanding is that he's generated less returns off his inheritance than he would have done by investing in index funds. If true, isn't he just a rich kid spending his inheritance?
- adventured 10y ago
  He didn't inherit any large sum, that was a fraudulent story pushed by the left to attack Trump. It's not an exaggeration to say that there was zero evidence presented to support that claim. Trump has said he received a million dollar loan to get started (circa early 1970s?). The return he generated, to say the least, was extraordinary. Further, even going by that bogus story, not all sectors of the economy generate the same returns. A person is not to be shamed for making less money in retail or dog food than in tech or oil. One has to consider the results they generated in the field they chose to focus in. It's disingenuous, and then some, to hold all business people up to the standard of: well if you had just put all your money, at some arbitrary high point, into an index fund for N years, you'd be richer - that would discredit nearly all successful business people. Hey Sam Walton, if you had just liquidated all of your Walmart shares in 1992 before you died and put the wealth into an index fund, your family would be richer. That's mathematically correct and ridiculous. Off the top of my head I can list dozens of examples like this among the Forbes 400 past or present.
  - peteretep 10y ago
    I was reasonably sure there were well cited stories in the NYT showing his effective inheritance was huge, and that he'd massively underperformed compared to other NY property developers. Are those fake news because they're from NYT? edit: also I'm not entirely sure Marco Rubio counts as "liberal media", but I'm not up to date with the latest lingo. Politifact seems to think $1m is fairly unlikely though: http://www.politifact.com/florida/article/2016/mar/07/did-donald-trump-inherit-100-million/ http://www.politifact.com/florida/article/2016/mar/07/did-do...
    - adventured 10y ago
      No, there was never any evidence provided to support the claim. Trump publicly stated over, and over, and over again that it wasn't correct. The liberal media never gave evidence post any of those statements by Trump about the million dollar loan, to refute him. Then they entirely dropped the attack as a vector, obviously because they couldn't support it. edit: I never said Marco Rubio was part of the liberal media. You're inventing that false setup. I said the liberal media, that doesn't mean Marco Rubio must belong to the liberal media if he also said x y z about Trump. Given how very heated the race was, why would it be surprising for any of the Republican competitors to latch on to the same attacks? So in other words, there's zero evidence to support Trump inheriting a vast fortune, exactly as I said.
      - peteretep 10y ago
        According to this article, Trump said in a deposition that he borrowed $9m against future inheritance, making claims it was only worth $1m suspect. Seems hard to get decent figures, other than those that show he consistently lies about the situation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/03/03/trumps-false-claim-he-built-his-empire-with-a-small-loan-from-his-father/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/fact-checker/wp/...

peteretep 10y ago

My understanding is that he's generated less returns off his inheritance than he would have done by investing in index funds. If true, isn't he just a rich kid spending his inheritance?

adventured 10y ago
He didn't inherit any large sum, that was a fraudulent story pushed by the left to attack Trump. It's not an exaggeration to say that there was zero evidence presented to support that claim. Trump has said he received a million dollar loan to get started (circa early 1970s?). The return he generated, to say the least, was extraordinary. Further, even going by that bogus story, not all sectors of the economy generate the same returns. A person is not to be shamed for making less money in retail or dog food than in tech or oil. One has to consider the results they generated in the field they chose to focus in. It's disingenuous, and then some, to hold all business people up to the standard of: well if you had just put all your money, at some arbitrary high point, into an index fund for N years, you'd be richer - that would discredit nearly all successful business people. Hey Sam Walton, if you had just liquidated all of your Walmart shares in 1992 before you died and put the wealth into an index fund, your family would be richer. That's mathematically correct and ridiculous. Off the top of my head I can list dozens of examples like this among the Forbes 400 past or present.
- peteretep 10y ago
  I was reasonably sure there were well cited stories in the NYT showing his effective inheritance was huge, and that he'd massively underperformed compared to other NY property developers. Are those fake news because they're from NYT? edit: also I'm not entirely sure Marco Rubio counts as "liberal media", but I'm not up to date with the latest lingo. Politifact seems to think $1m is fairly unlikely though: http://www.politifact.com/florida/article/2016/mar/07/did-donald-trump-inherit-100-million/ http://www.politifact.com/florida/article/2016/mar/07/did-do...
  - adventured 10y ago
    No, there was never any evidence provided to support the claim. Trump publicly stated over, and over, and over again that it wasn't correct. The liberal media never gave evidence post any of those statements by Trump about the million dollar loan, to refute him. Then they entirely dropped the attack as a vector, obviously because they couldn't support it. edit: I never said Marco Rubio was part of the liberal media. You're inventing that false setup. I said the liberal media, that doesn't mean Marco Rubio must belong to the liberal media if he also said x y z about Trump. Given how very heated the race was, why would it be surprising for any of the Republican competitors to latch on to the same attacks? So in other words, there's zero evidence to support Trump inheriting a vast fortune, exactly as I said.
    - peteretep 10y ago
      According to this article, Trump said in a deposition that he borrowed $9m against future inheritance, making claims it was only worth $1m suspect. Seems hard to get decent figures, other than those that show he consistently lies about the situation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/03/03/trumps-false-claim-he-built-his-empire-with-a-small-loan-from-his-father/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/fact-checker/wp/...