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Why should the number of bankruptcies matter if the person is still rich? It shows that they are using it as a tool, which might inform us we need to consider
by SkyBelow 7y ago
Why should the number of bankruptcies matter if the person is still rich? It shows that they are using it as a tool, which might inform us we need to consider how bankruptcies work, but that doesn't make someone incompetent. If you want to see someone who is incompetent with money, look at lottery winners who within 5 years end up worse than before they won.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tempguy9999 7y agoI presume he became less rich by becoming bankrupt rather than more? If he could have been richer by not being bankrupt then that would indicate competence to me. Also daddy gave him $435 million IIRC. If everyone on HN had got that I suspect most of us would have done better.
- jimmaswell 7y agoIt's a bit different when someone is repeatedly bailed out by a richer parent.
- ethbro 7y agoHow's that different than being repeatedly bailed out with VC money?
- yourbandsucks 7y agoI don't think anyone's claiming that's something to aspire to either.
- bduerst 7y agoNepotism vs. Meritocracy (or at least a rationalized investment)
- pesmhey 7y agoThe Russians bailed him out and he’s been in their pocket ever since. In this particular case, that’s why the number of bankruptcies matter. In general, I agree with you.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bduerst 7y agoNot sure why you're being downvoted, because you are correct. The president's repeated bankruptcies and inability to get a bank loan forced him to get funding from Russian oligarchs through Deutsche bank's private equity arm: https://www.wsj.com/articles/banks-give-documents-possibly-linked-to-trump-to-investigators-11565256601 https://www.wsj.com/articles/banks-give-documents-possibly-l... There's a good Planet Money podcast on it as well: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/22/725893104/episode-914-trump-and-deutsche-a-long-affair https://www.npr.org/2019/05/22/725893104/episode-914-trump-a... It is also why the Trump family has preemptively sued Deutsche bank in an attempt to seal records and obstruct any investigation.
- xiphias2 7y agoHe used it as a tool, the companies became bankrupt, he got rich. I imagine he will get rich even if U.S. goes through a bankrupcy.
- hedora 7y agoHe didn’t “get” rich. He was born rich. He would have much more money today if he had passively invested it. The man is a managerial train wreck that’s been consistently burning untold wealth for 30+ years. Much of what he has left was gotten by repeatedly breaking the law, and somehow only ending up with civil liability instead of criminal convictions. Now he is actively wrecking the US economy and has somehow bullied the GOP into going along with it.
- xiphias2 7y agoI agree with you that passive investment would have got the same gains, but it's much easier to see in hindsight, it was not that easy to see beforehand. He made money by burning other people and companies, but he came out quite well from it.
- throw0101a 7y agoNot being able to actively beat the market has been known since about 1973: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Random_Walk_Down_Wall_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Random_Walk_Down_Wall_Street Bogle started Vanguard in 1975: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vanguard_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vanguard_Group * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_fund#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_fund#Origins
- usefulcat 7y ago"Known", yes, though probably not widely so. As I understand it, passive investing was generally considered a bad or at least risky idea at the time Vanguard was created.
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- jacobolus 7y agoIf a career grifter manages to skate free while leaving a heap of rubble behind, we should surely praise them for their ingenuity at extracting money from their workers, suppliers, investors, or customers. What mastery!
- starlust2 7y agoCitation needed, and by that I mean his tax returns and financial statements. The public at large does not know how much Trump is worth because he won't disclose much of anything.
- SkyBelow 7y agoIf you want to play that game, then citation needed that he went bankrupt and I only take his tax returns and financial statements. See how this level of discussion of not just demanding a citation, but then limiting what citations you accept to an extremely small set of documents isn't constructive?
- tempguy9999 7y ago> If you want to play that game, then citation needed that he went bankrupt It's a reasonable question, but 1 minute googling got this report https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kendalltaggart/here-are-donald-trumps-full-bankruptcy-filings https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kendalltaggart/here-are... with 3 of them viz. The Trump Taj Mahal Casino Trump’s Plaza The Trump Castle Are these at least sufficient to convince you?
- SkyBelow 7y agoYou missed the part where I was (sarcastically) demanding the proof in a specific form that I know the reader doesn't have. It is one thing to say [citation needed]. It is quite another to say [citiation needed and by that I mean his tax returns and financial statements].
- tempguy9999 7y agoHere's the original question "The public at large does not know how much Trump is worth because he won't disclose much of anything" What evidence in your view, other than his his tax returns and financial statements, is there to show his wealth? Because that's fundamentally what's being requested. I don't think those exact documents are needed if there are good alternatives. Suggest some alternatives.
- tzakrajs 7y agoBecause he's a grifter who profits from other peoples losses.
- munificent 7y ago> Why should the number of bankruptcies matter if the person is still rich? If. Did Trump ever put more effort into anything in his campaign and Presidency than he put into preventing his tax returns from getting out?
- SkyBelow 7y agoEven if he is a lot poorer than he claims, he is still rich compared to what we normally consider rich vs poor. I'm not sure why we would suddenly change the baseline in this particular case. If you want to claim he isn't as rich as he claims, then then I'm not disputing that at all (I haven't a clue), but to claim he isn't rich does not align with existing evidence without fiddling with how we define rich and poor in ways we don't otherwise fiddle with such definitions.
- munificent 7y agoWhether or not he is rich tells you little unless you subtract out the effect of all of his inherited wealth. Having, say $300 million sounds like a lot. But if you inherited $700 million (as Trump likely did), having only $300 left today is a catastrophic failure.
- DocSavage 7y agoThe whole thread follows from a comment that the number of bankruptcies doesn't matter if he's rich. The point is not that he's rich. It's whether he's increased or decreased the fortune he was given. If he's given $413 million and now has less than that, he's not a good business man. Since we are blocked from all his finances, we don't know where he stands now, but the multiple bankruptcies and NYTimes investigation suggests he's not accumulated wealth more than spent it. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-wealth-fred-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-...
- fredophile 7y agoHow rich is he really? There is a lot of evidence that he has a long history of inflating his wealth and achievements. Combine this with his refusal to disclose financial info and I think that provides plenty of reason to doubt his current claims. Other tools he's used include hiring undocumented immigrants for construction and then not paying them and refusing to pay contractors that worked on his buildings. He maintains his wealth by making deals and then refusing to pay when the bill comes. The bankruptcies are just a part of this pattern of behaviour.
- blaser-waffle 7y agoIs he still rich? The fact that he still hasn't released his taxes raises a lot of questions. Mark Cuban speculated that he wasn't a billionaire, and maybe not even a 500-millionaire. He talked big and pushed the brand, because that's all he had. His main claim to fame, nearest I can tell, is a mix of poorly run real estate, reality TV, schlepping shit tier steaks, and his online university that got sued out of existence.
- hodder 7y agoI mean, 500 million is still pretty damn rich in my books. Sure he inherited it all, and has poorly managed the rest, but he is still rich by any normal person's metrics.
- duderific 7y agoHe was all but done for before The Apprentice success. That allowed him to parlay his name into a few successful licensing agreements, which salvaged what would have otherwise been a complete collapse.
- kelnos 7y agoAssuming Trump still is fairly rich (even if it's a much smaller rich than Trump would like to project), the fact remains that he is just not a very good businessman, and that he has held onto whatever money he does have in spite of his business acumen, not because of it. Put another way, if I were given $100M by my dad back in the 40+ years ago, and managed to grow it to, say, $500M by today, that would be nice, but I wouldn't consider myself "good with money". And it looks like the real figure for Trump may be north of $400M[0], which makes even $1B -- if he has that today -- look not all that impressive. We're talking about the US President here, someone we should feel comfortable with influencing/managing the fate of trillions of dollars. Trump is not that guy. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/d...
- WhompingWindows 7y ago1) There's little proof he was rich when he was running for President, he may well have been indebted to foreign powers at the time. The "under audit" story is clearly BS, what was he hiding? 2) His wealth was not created by himself, at any rate. He lied and said he inherited a small loan of a million, when in fact it was at least 2 orders of magnitude more than that. His father was the real smart businessman and his career has largely been failure upon failure. 3) He basically did win the lottery of being born to a wealthy father and squandered it all. How much did he squander is very hard to say when he himself covers up the details. So yes, he is incompetent with money and business. He is competent with power, intimidation, and getting his way. That may have worked in the small pond of the 2016 election, but that is about the only place the man's been successful.
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- CamperBob2 7y agoWhy should the number of bankruptcies matter if the person is still rich? Because money laundering is illegal?
- mraudiobook_com 7y agoTrump won the genetic lottery and ended up with less than he started, so what was your point?