The Mad World of Donald Trump

Malthusian

It was an eye-opener that you could even do a course in Trade Union Studies. Politics with a focus on the history of trade unions, fine - it's still worthless but at least it has a veneer of academics. But Trade Union Studies? And to not even be able to finish it, to not even complete the first year when your marks don't even count? I struggle to imagine that a lecturer who chooses to teach Trade Union Studies is going to be some hard-nosed, intolerate Tory who kept giving the young Corbyn zero marks for his fearless essays on behalf of the proletariat.

Anyway, I much enjoyed finding out that little fact about Trump. He's no different from any other career politician like Cameron, Milliband or Obama, he's never had a proper job in his life - if you define "proper job" as one that creates something of value. Inheriting a property empire and just about avoiding running it into the ground does not count. Never mind the stockmarket, he could almost have stuck his money in the bank and made more money than he does now. (One estimate has his 1982 wealth as $400 million - multiply that by the 668% you would have made in UK banks over that period and you get $2.67 billion, just under the $2.9 billion Bloomberg reckons he's worth.)

kinger101

antrobus wrote: »

And more specifically the provisions of Chapter 11 of the US code of bankruptcy, which "violate every "common sense" notion of the free market and contract law".:)

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2903_chapter_11.html

Personally, I'm not that bothered about how many times Trump has invoked the protection of Chapter 11 for one of his business ventures. I'd be more concerned about the fact that he is a racist bigot.

You're not worried about an excessive risk take having access to red buttons?

cepheus

Generali wrote: »

Limited liability.

I'm no apologist for Mr Trump but he is allowed to follow the same business rules as everyone else.

Yes but no major U.S. company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy more than Trump's casinos. Also only 20% of public companies with assets of $1 billion or more have filed for bankruptcy in the last 30 years. It's a dire record which doesn't support his claim to be a business genius.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/31/news/companies/donald-trump-bankruptcy/

Generali

cepheus wrote: »

Yes but no major U.S. company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy more than Trump's casinos. Also only 20% of public companies with assets of $1 billion or more have filed for bankruptcy in the last 30 years. It's a dire record which doesn't support his claim to be a business genius.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/31/news/companies/donald-trump-bankruptcy/

I don't think that he is a business genius. I do think that he's an excellent self-promoter.

Check out antrobus's link to Scott Adams' blog. He's been consistently calling it for Trump. I'm just gutted I didn't have a bet earlier.

cepheus

Generali wrote: »

I don't think that he is a business genius. I do think that he's an excellent self-promoter.

Check out antrobus's link to Scott Adams' blog. He's been consistently calling it for Trump. I'm just gutted I didn't have a bet earlier.

You might be out of the money, Trump only just scraped second place! Perhaps Americans have more sense than we assume. Edit - Not least because it's too close to call between Bernie Saunders and Clinton



I don't think we can read too much into Iowa though. It seems to have been chosen by being near the geographical centre of the US, but it's not representative of the wider electorate. The Republicans are more left wing and The Democrats are more right wing than average. Of course it's a farming community with six times more pigs than people, excluding the politicians!

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

That he is a pr!!! doesn't mean he should be personally bankrupted where others wouldn't have been.

I'm not even convinced that he believes what he says.

Take a look at what the writer of Dilbert says about Mr Trump and then have a bet.

Thanks for the pointer to Dilbert. It was an interesting article (thanks also to antrobus for the link). I had forgotten that he wrote a book on negotiating.

Separately, this week I had heard rumour that he doesn't actually believe his own hype either and would actually be quite a sensible President. That sounds a very high risk voting strategy to me. Plus no matter how good a win at all costs negotiator he is, I'm not sure I'd want to see him negotiating something like the Northern Ireland Peace Treaty.

vivatifosi

cepheus wrote: »

You might be out of the money, Trump only just scraped second place! Perhaps Americans have more sense than we assume. Not least because Bernie Saunders came within a whisker of beating Clinton for the Democrats. I suspect that's were the momentum and action is.

Correction, it's too close to call!



I don't think we can read too much into Iowa though. It seems to have been chosen by being near the geographical centre of the US, but it's not representative of the wider electorate. The Republicans are more left wing and The Democrats are more right wing than average. Of course it's a farming community with six times more pigs than people, excluding the politicians!

Slightly off topic so apologies...

I find the US system for selecting the candidates for the president interesting. It always now starts with Iowa and then New Hampshire. Some are Caucuses, others are primaries (Iowa is the first, New Hampshire is the second type), some a mix of both. Some candidates do better in a caucus scenario than a primary and vice versa.

Then you have the state primaries in order, by Super Tuesday in March we will have a good idea who the candidates will be, yet many populous states still won't have voted.

It's an interesting subject to read about imo.

Generali

cepheus wrote: »

You might be out of the money, Trump only just scraped second place! Perhaps Americans have more sense than we assume. Edit - Not least because it's too close to call between Bernie Saunders and Clinton



I don't think we can read too much into Iowa though. It seems to have been chosen by being near the geographical centre of the US, but it's not representative of the wider electorate. The Republicans are more left wing and The Democrats are more right wing than average. Of course it's a farming community with six times more pigs than people, excluding the politicians!

Yup, too early to write off Trump I agree. I reckon the GOP nomination is a genuine three horse race now. Three dreadful old nags that should've been shot years ago.

The Democratic race is getting interesting as it's not so long ago that it was being presented as an extended coronation for Ms Clinton.

I can't say that there's a single candidate I'd vote for or even restrain myself from swearing gratuitously at should I have the misfortune to meet them. What a shower.

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

I can't say that there's a single candidate I'd vote for or even restrain myself from swearing gratuitously at should I have the misfortune to meet them. What a shower.

The crazy thing is that there are good candidates on both sides who haven't stood, or are being knocked out early by dint of being too establishment.

I would have loved a Bloomberg vs Trump debate, he's about the only person who could say "seriously, only $10bn?"

cepheus

I think their electorate is even more polarised than here. The real alternative candidate isn't Trump.