Count all his failed businesses
Elizabeth Warren on Trump, the guy who loves to call people “Loser!”:
Let’s be honest – Donald Trump is a loser. Count all his failed businesses. See how he kept his father’s empire afloat by cheating people with scams like Trump University and by using strategic corporate bankruptcy (excuse me, bankruptcies) to skip out on debt. Listen to the experts who’ve concluded he’s so bad at business that he might have more money today if he’d put his entire inheritance into an index fund and just left it alone.
Trump seems to know he’s a loser. His embarrassing insecurities are on parade: petty bullying, attacks on women, cheap racism, and flagrant narcissism. But just because Trump is a loser everywhere else doesn’t mean he’ll lose this election. People have been underestimating his campaign for nearly a year – and it’s time to wake up.
People talk about how “this is the most important election” in our lifetime every four years, and it gets stale. But consider what hangs in the balance. Affordable college. Accountability for Wall Street. Healthcare for millions of Americans. The Supreme Court. Big corporations and billionaires paying their fair share of taxes. Expanded Social Security. Investments in infrastructure and medical research and jobs right here in America. The chance to turn our back on the ugliness of hatred, sexism, racism and xenophobia. The chance to be a better people.
More than anyone we’ve seen before come within reach of the presidency, Donald Trump stands ready to tear apart an America that was built on values like decency, community, and concern for our neighbors. Many of history’s worst authoritarians started out as losers – and Trump is a serious threat. The way I see it, it’s our job to make sure he ends this campaign every bit the loser that he started it.
So she’s a Berniebro? Because in Hillary’s recent speech to AIPAC, hailed as “disgusting” even by (progressive) Israelis, she promised the world that she will provide none of those things. She made it clear she will continue Bush/Obama’s policies, and is to the right of Trump in several areas, notably Middle-East policy.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/pb.144310995587370.-2207520000.1458639762./1127716070580186/?type=3&theater
I think Trump’s an ass, but I don’t get the people who rail against Trump for having had businesses that failed and went bankrupt, without going bankrupt himself, and starting up new businesses. (“using strategic corporate bankruptry to skip out on debt”)
Are these people against the idea of Limited Liability Companies/Corporations in general? Do they think that everyone who starts, owns, or runs a business should be personally liable for the debts of that business?
It’s not like other companies don’t know about the idea of limited liability when they do business with each other, and end up being owed money by each other. It’s not like banks who lend new businesses money to start up don’t know that they won’t be able to after the founders if the business fails. Everyone involved here is a consenting adult who is in the same boat of being part of a limited liability entity, who should be doing whatever due diligence or risk assessment is necessary when dealing with other limited liability entities.
Yes, you might argue that only an idiot would risk investing in Trump’s new businesses, given his record of failures (or his slimy used-car-salesman personality). But they’d probably argue otherwise, and it’s their money to risk.
Karellen,
Should a person that repeatedly relies on the limited liability part of a limited liability company to avoid personal loss on multiple occasions be hailed as a good business leader? What about the fact that he was the one to lead these companies into failure in the first place? Arguments such as the quoted article are not anti-LLC, they are anti-‘Trump is a good businessman.’
If he is good at one thing in business, it is that he is good at fucking everyone’s money except his own. Though as noted in the first paragraph, he’s not good at building his own money, he’s just good at preventing catastrophic losses. Which is not much of a bragging point.
I wish Senator Warren was running. I think it would be much harder for the Democratic Party to undercut her like they are Sanders. Plus then I could vote for a woman too which I would prefer to do, at least until women are more fairly represented in politics.
Should a person who repeatedly fails in business be hailed as a good business leader? Absolutely not. No argument there.
OTOH, should a person who uses the same laws as thousands of other people do to protect themselves, in exactly the manner those laws were intended to be used, be vilified for protecting themselves with those laws? To me, that makes no sense.
Some of those articles are anti-“Trump is a good businessman”, sure. But many others I’ve seen – and particularly the wording of the line about “using strategic corporate bankruptcies to skip out on debt” are “Trump somehow cheated people by creating and running LLCs in exactly the manner they were designed for!”
If Trump is as bad a businessman as he seems to be, we should be able to make that case without exaggeration or hyperbole, without resorting to attacking a straw-man of his actual record.
Trump’s cheap racism are what fuels his success.
His comments on immigration, particularly his statements about a moratorium on Muslim immigration, are what keeps him ahead.
Republicans have always had to adopt a ‘Democrat Lite’ model in an effort to attract the minority vote.
Trump has flipped that on its head.
The Democrats are now constrained to adopt a ‘Trump Lite’ tone if they’re going to make headway with Whites.
Trump can always count on jihadists misbehaving to shore up support and to vindicate his outrageous views on immigration.
Brussels this morning ( death toll now at 36) is just the kind of thing Trump needs.
Gawd.
The problem is, I don’t think this is true. I think this could be said of any of the Republican candidates, but especially of Ted Cruz, the one man close enough to Trump to catch up to him, a man who is campaigning to lead a government so that he can dismantle it – but only those parts of it that help people. He would build up the military beyond the massive boondoggle it already is, and use it to attack anyone who makes him mad. Meanwhile, funding for laudatory programs such as Headstart, the NEA, science, welfare, medical care, or any other thing he doesn’t see any reason why he should pay for, are in his sights.
He is, remember, responsible at least in part for the shutting down of the government that got our credit rating reduced (though of course he blames Obama, since Obama wouldn’t compromise, by which he means, Obama agreed to give them nearly everything they wanted, at which they asked for more and shut down the government, which was his real goal anyway).
Both these men crave power, and neither has any clear sense that with power comes responsibility to those who gave you that power. They both believe the myth that they are self-made men (Cruz loves talking about his drunken father), not admitting that many of the things they despise actually helped them get and keep the power and money they now enjoy. They have theirs, but theirs loses meaning if others are able to get the same, and if assistance gives other people the opportunity to demonstrate that they, too, can succeed with a bit of help, that will destroy their image that they are a superior class because they have succeeded.
Both of them despise people who they perceive as inferior – the disabled, the LGBTQ, women, people of color, foreign countries, and the poor (there are probably some I’ve forgotten – feel free to fill in any blanks I’ve left)
I wish I could believe that Trump is the worst in this race, but I live daily with the horrifying realization that Cruz is even worse than Trump, even if his speeches are a bit more housebroken.