591–600 of 671 posts
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He made billions of dollars in real estate and other industries, then when on to become POTUS. HOW CAN ONE MAN BE SO INCOMPETENT!?!
If your enemy is incompetent and he eludes you are every turn, what does that make you?
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The "real" N-word is also similar to or identical to today's equivalents in Germanic languages (e.g. German, Dutch).
Also in Dutch you can't use the equivalent anymore. People of color take offense by it.
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He made billions of dollars in real estate and other industries, then when on to become POTUS. HOW CAN ONE MAN BE SO INCOMPETENT!?!
WRT making billions of dollars, clearly he didn't. WRT getting elected, he got 3mil fewer votes than his opponent, so you can thank the dysfunction of the EC. WRT to the votes he did get, it's pretty obvious- people dumber than he is, who are apparently blind to seeing his completely obvious con artist act and voting for him, that's how. By completely obvious I mean, the-sky-is-blue, 1+1=2 obvious. That's how obvious…
I'm not sure we should be delving into politics on hacker news. But if it's okay for the goose, allow the gander to retort.
I hear you expressing your frustration and believe me I am fully aware that many Americans are very frustrated. Especially people on the left who have suffered a series of depressing defeats. On an emotional level, I'm worried and empathetic.
I think you are correctly recognizing certain behavioral characteristics of Trump that are unpleasant and possibly harmful such as lies, bragging, and narcissistic behavior. Many (probably most) people on the right who voted for him also see those characteristics. They are as you say "completely obvious." It is not that people on the right are "blind." So the question is why did they vote for him anyway? Why wouldn't these characteristics rule him out?
Your conclusion is that they are (if not blind) dumb. That might be true for some people, but it cannot possibly explain it for everybody. Take myself for example. I have had my IQ tested three times, and the lowest value was 147. I would say that objectively speaking I am not dumb. I must qualify this with the fact that I was a child all three times so there was a correction factor involved which would not apply now, so my IQ is probably lower today. I hate to put this paragraph in because it sounds like bragging, but I need evidence to demonstrate my point.
Here is part of the answer to the mystery we are presented with:
1) Trump did in fact do very well in business, contrary to various articles that argue he would have done better in the S&P500.
Their calculations are off because they don't value his business as a going concern, did not apply top tax rates to the
dividends, and often picked the market bottom which is unfair as nobody can time the market. The methodology was flawed
because it is a sector comparison (stocks to real estate). The conclusion is flawed because it presumes being on par with
the S&P500 is what "any idiot could do in an index fund" but the proper conclusion is "being on par with the very best
companies" because it's not sharing in someone else's created wealth, it's actually creating the wealth.
EDIT: I forgot to add, they completely ignored expenses.
2) Trump's lies are mostly inconsequential bragging. Everyone can see through them. Successful deception would actually be
damaging, but unsuccessful "first grader stuff" isn't damaging because we can all see through it. We know full well why
he lies in most cases (narcissism or negotiation, in both cases we are okay with it). Also, we like that he just says what
he thinks openly rather than being careful with his words which makes us suspicious of dececptions that we might not be able
to detect.
3) He has openly promised things that right-wingers want and have been pounding the table about for generations. And we believed
he was serious about it and wouldn't let politics or being politically correctness get in the way. We were right, he didn't.
He just storms ahead damn-the-torpedoes, ignoring the news, ignoring the 'game'. Most republicans would have restrained
themselves based on political chicanery. Right-wingers love it and left wingers hate it because he is "unmitigated."
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>I guess if his base can't put 2 and 2 together that prices are rising due to his tariffs it almost makes sense. His base really can't put 2 and 2 together. You seem to think it's obvious that tariffs will cause prices to rise, but you seriously underestimate just how stupid these people are.
They're not stupid, for the most part. They just have a different set of priorities. Many of the individuals supporting the trade war and tariffs know that it's causing them problems, but as far as they're concerned it's worth it to stop China from "screwing them over" or "taking advantage of them". This is not, in fact, an unusual thing- people are are frequently willing to take some personal pain to punish what the…
I would even go as far to say, it might be a case of them believing that they are taking short-term losses to come out ahead of this in the long-term. Whether it will turn out this way in reality, we will see, but that line of thinking actually does make sense.
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> His base really can't put 2 and 2 together. You seem to think it's obvious that tariffs will cause prices to rise, but you seriously underestimate just how stupid these people are. I don't think they are stupid. But they are gullible and have been brainwashed. Their world view has been warped into something that just is not based in reality anymore ("invasions", "climate change doesn't exist", etc). This is not unl…
>I don't think they are stupid. But they are gullible and have been brainwashed. Isn't that just another way of saying someone is stupid? I'd say a serious lack of critical thinking skills qualifies as "stupidity".
Kinda reminds me of the people who say that they aren't susceptible to advertisement.
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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 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.
1) 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…
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> Inflation is a consequence of money spent foolishly No, it's a consequence of printing money as soon as the newly printed money gets out into the economy. The only reason the previous rounds of QE in the last decade didn't cause inflation was that practically all of it stayed in the banks' accounts at the Fed and never got loaned out, so it never actually got into the economy. > The same arguments were made against…
The New Deal allowed labor to capture the majority of surplus value created by the rapid wartime industrialization of America. We would not have our modern understanding of a middle class lifestyle had it not been for New Deal policy and the blood of organized labor shortly before and during wartime.
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Nicely put, but a real drunken master doesn't get repeatedly decked. Look at trump's financial record, that should have been quite enough (6 bankruptcies was it?) Those who were fooled, were fooled because they chose to be.
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.
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Nicely put, but a real drunken master doesn't get repeatedly decked. Look at trump's financial record, that should have been quite enough (6 bankruptcies was it?) Those who were fooled, were fooled because they chose to be.
just 6 bankruptcies? that is pretty good rate for the number of businesses he started.
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It takes $100 and thirty minutes to start a business so that metric is useless. If anything, that many shell corps is suspect for money laundering, not business prowess.
Money laundering? Creating a corporation or LLC for each property is standard practice in the real estate business. > ... usually, every investment property should be owned by a separate limited liability company that owns only one property and that is not engaged in any other business activity. The reason is simple: to maximize asset protection. https://www.keytlaw.com/azllclaw/asset-protection/how-many-l... And you…
So which is it? He started 500 businesses, or he has a few businesses that are made up of multiple properties.
I have friends with a few dozen rental properties, all in separate LLCs. I wouldn't say they "started 50 businesses".