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To date, Donald Trump is wealthiest American President ever. He has now surpassed George Washington as the richest POTUS ever. Of course GW was a terrible president and totally corrupted by all of his wealth ... right?
Here's a list of the US Presidents who were worth more than $100 million (adjusting their net worth for inflation). These are the richest presidents ever:
Donald Trump - estimated $4.5 billion
George Washington - $580 million
Thomas Jefferson - $234 million
Theodore Roosevelt - $138 million
Andrew Jackson - $131 million
James Madison - $112 million
Lyndon B Johnson - $108 million
John F Kennedy - $100 million
Okay there's a couple of lemons in there, but overall that's pretty awesome company. So where's the correlation that wealth makes you a bad president?
I didn't want Trump. I didn't want Romney either. But I do not comprehend all this, "Beware the evil billionaire!!" schtick. Being poor doesn't turn you into a saint. Being rich doesn't turn you into a monster. We're all just people.
It isn't that we are afraid of Billionaires, we are just afraid of THIS BILLIONAIRE !
It isn't that we are afraid of Billionaires, we are just afraid of THIS BILLIONAIRE !
And that's fair. I didn't vote for him because I don't trust him. My point was that many of our richest presidents have been among our best presidents. If you have something against Trump, I think you should do better than, "Well he's just so rich! Clearly he's a terrible human being!"
And that's fair. I didn't vote for him because I don't trust him. My point was that many of our richest presidents have been among our best presidents. If you have something against Trump, I think you should do better than, "Well he's just so rich! Clearly he's a terrible human being!"
Agree with all that. All presidents are rich by average American standards. This particular president elect has a clear track record of screwing people- turning blacks away from his properties, outsourcing good paying jobs to sweat shops abroad (Trump clothing line), running a completely worthless for-profit university, hiring illegal immigrants to clean his mansions then saying they all need to be deported - the list of examples (which, by the way, all Trump supporters here will deny as fact because it is generated by the scary mainstream media) go on and on.
I'm just not sure why folks can't see why that is a problem.
Trump is full of himself. That's not in question. He wants to finish off a legacy where people are making monuments and statues of him 100 years from now. He's already rich. He's already famous. He will now have power. His legacy hinges upon him doing a first-rate job with that power.
He will now have power. His legacy hinges upon him doing a first-rate job with that power.
Trump is a small boy in the billionaire world. He begged Wall Street for money to fund his campaign. He rewarded Goldman Sachs with the two most powerful economic positions in his cabinet. Trump wants to be the richest man in the world. That can only be achieved by using his newfound government power to enrich himself and his cronies. Thats what he will do. Not fix the system to benefit that served him well in order to benefit the working class.
Trump is a small boy in the billionaire world. He begged Wall Street for money to fund his campaign. He rewarded Goldman Sachs with the two most powerful economic positions in his cabinet. Trump wants to be the richest man in the world. That can only be achieved by using his newfound government power to enrich himself and his cronies. That's what he will do. Not fix the system to benefit that served him well in order to benefit the working class.
Trump is 70 years old! His time to make a run at "richest man in the world" is long gone. He is stupidly rich and I think he's quite content with that piece of his legacy. $4.5 billion net worth. He owns the second tallest building in Chicago, the sixth tallest in New York City and has his name plastered on other buildings all over the world. I'm not convinced. I think he's full of crap. But I'm willing to accept that he just might be what he claims to be: A donor class member turned traitor in his old age in order to finalize his lifetime legacy. One that will have people singing songs about him and building statues of him 100 years from now. The man's a pompous ass without a doubt, but think about it. Being a bad president absolutely will not do. Being a mediocre president is unacceptable. He needs to be a truly great president just to meet the standards set by his own arrogance. The man is no Republican and he's no Democrat. He is beholden to neither, which frees him up tremendously. Ironically, his massive ego might just force him to be a pretty good president.
Now if he's complete crap as POTUS then you and I will have been proven right and another four years will have been wasted on yet another terrible president. But now that we're stuck with him, I'm seeing some glimmers of hope that the man won't totally suck.
Trump is 70 years old! His time to make a run at "richest man in the world" is long gone. He is stupidly rich and I think he's quite content with that piece of his legacy.
He absolutely is not. He doesnt even want to release his tax returns. He has great inferiority complexes regarding his wealth. He is far, far from the richest man in the world. He might not even be a billionaire, who knows. He certainly didnt put up a lot of his own money to run for president. When he mingles with people worth tens of billions of dollars, Trump feels inferior. I think he will use government power to enrich himself and the establishment GOP will look the other way in exchange for Trump tacitly approving the establishment GOP agenda (cuts to Medicare, SS, gifts to Wall Street, Big Oil etc) as a deal they have struck together.
The billionaire class is the big money donor class. If you vote for the billionaire class, you get the preferred policies of the big money donor class. And that means elimination of SS, Medicare and Medicaid. Programs the billionaire class have no use for. Its certainly not the policies that would strengthen rural America, thats for sure!
Missed the logic in that conclusion?
Thought only the people you elected can pass laws?
Nowhere does it say, a person upon reaching 1 billion dollars in wealth, can then pass a law.
So what shall we say about the other end of the economic spectrum?
Is there a linear relationship between wealth and ethics. the less money the more ethical??
The dems and some repubs have been so entrenched in a stumbling and failed process they think that is good and want to contiue the pattern because of its predictability and guaranteeed political careers, free medical and a hefty pension all onthe taxpayer's back.
Never in their wild imagination can tthey conceive of a strategy different than the tried and true failed philosophy that diminishes our QOL, stifles creativity and thus improvement in how our government works.
He absolutely is not. He doesn't even want to release his tax returns. He has great inferiority complexes regarding his wealth. He is far, far from the richest man in the world. He might not even be a billionaire, who knows. He certainly didn't put up a lot of his own money to run for president. When he mingles with people worth tens of billions of dollars, Trump feels inferior. I think he will use government power to enrich himself and the establishment GOP will look the other way in exchange for Trump tacitly approving the establishment GOP agenda (cuts to Medicare, SS, gifts to Wall Street, Big Oil etc) as a deal they have struck together.
Neither you or I have any clue what goes on in the mind of Donald Trump. We don't know if he's feeling superior or inferior or neither when he walks into a room of billionaires. Do such rooms actually exist? You might think he has an inferiority complex about his wealth, but you don't actually know that. While he is far from the richest man on earth, he is vastly better known than most of the others. Everyone knows his name. Everyone knows his face. Can Amancia Ortega, Jeff Bezos, Charles & David Koch, Carlos Slim, Larry Ellison and Ingvar Kamprad say the same thing? No the certainly can't. He might be less rich that these men, but he's a lot more famous.
Now there is a lot of power that has been quite recklessly vested in the presidential office, thanks to W and BO and countless others before them using and abusing the crap out of executive orders and the war powers act (which is still in effect for some reason.) Like those before him, the man has way more power than the Constitution ever intended. Still, if he goes on a "mad and drunk with power" spree, Congress and the Supreme Court will shut him down. He can't just do whatever the hell he wants.
What he does or doesn't do to SS, MC, big oil, Wall Street, etc will sort itself out. Four years from now, the question will be asked, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" If the majority of Americans can say "Yes" then he's a success. If they say "No" then he isn't. I suspect it'll be much like our last two presidents. The overwhelming answer will be, "Absolutely not!" So ... we'll have wasted four years on another failed president. Would have been no different if it'd been Hillary. I doubt he can be much worse than BO and W. But I kinda hope the man proves me wrong.
As to his tax returns, I don't care if nobody ever releases them ever. Why are people so obsessed with the idea? The IRS has every tax return he has ever filed on hand. If he did something wrong then they'd have come after him -- especially considering how much money he's worth. If he has something to hide, he sure as hell isn't hiding it from the IRS. Why do you care so much about his tax returns or anybody else's? I kinda like the fact that he didn't release them and won anyways. Maybe that kills the over-obsession with tax returns going forward.
More than anything, I'd say wait for the man to actually take office before declaring him corrupt or a failure or anything else. More than anybody to hold the office in the last 85 years, we have no clue what the man is going to do. We do know that he's got a huge ego. I suspect that his ego will drive him to want to be the greatest president our nations has ever seen -- and being thus driven he'll end up being at least above average. But my money is still on abject failure. We'll just have to wait and see.
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