Monday 1 August 2016

Trump is a great businessman. Yeah sure....

It's amazing the number of people who think Trump would make a great president because he's a "great businessman".
Actually the skill sets are very different. Business is largely top-down. The president's job is partly top-down, but also in large part bottom-up (the electorate) and sideways (congress).
In any case all the evidence shows that Trump is a pretty crap businessman.
He got a lump of money from his father, invested it in various enterprises, went bankrupt multiple times, did a lot of whirlygigging, the result of which was that he would have been better off if he'd just invested his dad's money in the S&P index. In the same time Warren Buffet crushed the S&P.
But what else? He has started many companies almost all of which have gone belly up.
Here's just a selection I've put together of the Trump businesses that have failed.
Trump Shuttle airlines. Crashed
Trump Vodka. Nyet
Trump Magazine and World Magazine. Folded
Trump University. Shuttered (in litigation)
GoTrump.com. No go
Trump Steaks. Burnt
Trump Mortgage. Bankrupt
Trump Ocean Resort (Mexico). Closed

ADDED (3 August): Warren Buffet points out that Trump lost money the only time he went to the American people and asked them to invest. In 1995 Trump listed his Trump hotels and resorts. It lost money every year for the next decade. "A monkey would have outperformed Trump's  company"
Buffet said.

What a list!! Yet he's widely regarded as a successful businessman. Mainly because that's what he tells people, and they believe him.
It's simply not true. The man is a fraud from his nebulous "hair" to his tiny feet.