Is Trump a good businessman?

[Dangg]

Not sure.
Can't see it being that hard to make money if you start with 200M and his dad's real estate connections.

[bluzzfuzz]

of course he is. thats not even a question. a good president though? eh...

[Doctor Amadeus]

If that business is producing absolutely nothing, and fucking others over than yes. He is good provided he pays others far more talented than he is to make him look good until he fucks them over.

[Deleted]

if Trump had invested in an index fund in 1988, his net worth would be as much as $13 billion.

His wealth, in other words, isn't because of his brains. It's because he's a Trump.

You read these sentences and then conclude that he's a good businessman? Reading comprehension much? He's rich cause his daddy was rich. End of fucking story.

[schwarzkopf]

You know the phrase - the casino never loses.

Well Trump managed to bankrupt 3 casino businesses.

An impressive feat for anyone.

[Blysto]

Trump sold his name, that's what made him so rich, not the fact that he is a good businessman.

[Elim Garak]

Businesses don't deal in "would have". Captain Hindsight strikes again.

[Elim Garak]

Every good businessman has a failed business in their past

[skitzin]

Of course he is. Hence why he is a billionaire.

Most people that do the usual "DURR HURR HE WENT DA BANKRUPT DURRR" don't understand how bankruptcy actually works.

More likely he has surrounded himself with more competent people who are responsible for his apparent wealth. A tactic used by politions and business people all over the planet.

[Shelly]

Every good businessman has a failed business in their past

No.

Every good businessman or investor has a string of failures in their past and things that didn't pan out as well as they'd hoped.

They don't have massive bankruptcies that destroyed smaller companies around them.

Trump is the definition of too big too fail.

He did alright in his first venture when backed up by his father's money, but after that he was on a slow downward spiral until his daughter talked him into The Apprentice.

What's really funny to me is if he had done the index fund and then just gone into politics he might still be President now, he'd have a lot more power, a lot more respect, wouldn't be issuing unconstitutional autocratic executive orders and would have started a new family dynasty to rival the Kennedys, Bushs and Clintons.

[Kalis]

Usually net worth accounts for assets. Yachts are assets. Even if a yacht is a depreciating asset (which it usually is) its value will not drop to 0 in the space of the year. Value depreciates over time. The value of the yacht at that period of time will be included in net worth calculations.

Have you taken accounting at all?

We are not talking about the space of a year, we are talking about decades.

Unless you are claiming that a yacht bought in the early 70s would have a value now equal to what it would’ve if he’d put the money he’d spent on the yacht into index linked funds, which you acknowledge it wouldn’t, then your calculations about what his worth should be are well off.

You can’t even see that you have found the flaw in your own argument - not every asset would increase in value, not everything he has spent money on would still be an asset, e.g. consumables and charity donations.

Your claim is flawed, it is overly simplistic, it fails to take into account his non-business related spending.

You can see the problem with your argument by looking at your own bank balance. Are you as wealthy as you would have been if you’d invested all your earnings? No, because you’ve had to eat, had to pay for petrol/fares, had to buy clothes, maybe bought a couple of cars over the years that lost value, perhaps spent money on entertainment, etc.

[Deleted]

So besides all that do you think he's a good businessman

Depends how you evaluate "good business". Making money off index/shares is not business, it's just investing. Trump is a good businessman because he started and run businesses, employed and employs people. And his main business is his brand image, TRUMP. That's how he gottoo big to fail, because even if he had no money today, he is worth millions.

[Deleted]

I understand everyone hates trump and I don't really care as I'm not from the US.
But saying hes not a good business man when his literally worth billions is just stupid.

Every business man had business fail, even the richest of the richest.

Stop letting your hate for the cheeto overlord come in the way of critical thinking.

[Zaydin]

No. Next question?

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I understand everyone hates trump and I don't really care as I'm not from the US.
But saying hes not a good business man when his literally worth billions is just stupid.

Every business man had business fail, even the richest of the richest.

Stop letting your hate for the cheeto overlord come in the way of critical thinking.

He has had casinos go bankrupt. A place where the house is always supposed to win. A business where people literally walk in the front door to give you money with little hope of seeing it again.

Not to mention his numerous other failed ventures and bankruptcies. Western banks allegedly won't even lend to him anymore because of the reputation he has developed over the years of not paying back his debts.

Deutsche Bank took him to court to get him to pay what he owed years ago and he argued that the Force Majure Clause in the contract applied because of the Great Recession in 2008. When Deutsche Banks lawyers mentioned in court that Trump was no stranger to overdue debt, he sued them for harming his reputation.

[Deleted]

No. Next question?

- - - Updated - - -



He has had casinos go bankrupt. A place where the house is always supposed to win. A business where people literally walk in the front door to give you money with little hope of seeing it again.

Not to mention his numerous other failed ventures and bankruptcies. Western banks allegedly won't even lend to him anymore because of the reputation he has developed over the years of not paying back his debts.

Deutsche Bank took him to court to get him to pay what he owed years ago and he argued that the Force Majure Clause in the contract applied because of the Great Recession in 2008. When Deutsche Banks lawyers mentioned in court that Trump was no stranger to overdue debt, he sued them for harming his reputation.

And even with so many set backs he still managed to grow his net worth from the million is dad gave him to 3.1 billion USD in 2017.

Again. every business has had set backs and bankruptcies before they made it big.
Do you remember Steve jobs? Im sure you all love him as a business man?
He failed quite a few times, was even fired from his own company etc.

If you want to hate the guy do it for his tweetering bullshit instead of actually building a company worth billions which makes him by default a good business man.

https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/fail-t...-billionaires/
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/44278117/n.../#.Wg1myLJJZaR
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/cel...ccess-stories/
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...e-for-failure/

[Elim Garak]

He has had casinos go bankrupt. A place where the house is always supposed to win.

To anyone who mentiones casinos, and how it's impossible for them to go bankrupt...

You don't know what you are talking about. You are ignorant. Plenty of casinos go bankrupt. It's a business like any other.

[Draco-Onis]

And even with so many set backs he still managed to grow his net worth from the million is dad gave him to 3.1 billion USD in 2017.

There's no confirmation of his net worth, in a lawsuit he says his net worth is based on how much he feels his brand is worth. The estimate of his net worth ranges from 250 million to 2 billion, the Trump family has always been secretive no one even knows how much his father was worth only estimates. We only have his word that he is a billionaire and we all know how much that is worth, don't get me wrong he is rich but billionaire that is uncertain.

[Celista]

We are not talking about the space of a year, we are talking about decades.

Unless you are claiming that a yacht bought in the early 70s would have a value now equal to what it would’ve if he’d put the money he’d spent on the yacht into index linked funds, which you acknowledge it wouldn’t, then your calculations about what his worth should be are well off.

You can’t even see that you have found the flaw in your own argument - not every asset would increase in value, not everything he has spent money on would still be an asset, e.g. consumables and charity donations.

Your claim is flawed, it is overly simplistic, it fails to take into account his non-business related spending.

You can see the problem with your argument by looking at your own bank balance. Are you as wealthy as you would have been if you’d invested all your earnings? No, because you’ve had to eat, had to pay for petrol/fares, had to buy clothes, maybe bought a couple of cars over the years that lost value, perhaps spent money on entertainment, etc.

I'm sorry but the premise of your argument seems to be that we can't know whether or not Trump is a good buisnessman because he might have made shitty decisions by blowing money on expenses/liabilities rather than appreciating assets. And that Trump would have somehow blown more money on crap if he invested heavily in stocks versus his various buisness schemes. The latter has no evidence to support it, and both of which btw is fully indicative of poor business decision making.

On top of being logically inconsistent, you said some factually false stuff and I'd encourage you to read up on accounting/finance principles, because figuring out how someone spends their money and the value of an asset is not some sort of mysterious art that only the most brilliant accounting minds can decipher.

[Deleted]

There's no confirmation of his net worth, in a lawsuit he says his net worth is based on how much he feels his brand is worth. The estimate of his net worth ranges from 250 million to 2 billion, the Trump family has always been secretive no one even knows how much his father was worth only estimates. We only have his word that he is a billionaire and we all know how much that is worth, don't get me wrong he is rich but billionaire that is uncertain.

https://www.forbes.com/donald-trump/#717069ff2899

fuck you on about?

[Kalis]

I'm sorry but the premise of your argument seems to be that we can't know whether or not Trump is a good buisnessman because he might have made shitty decisions by blowing money on expenses/liabilities rather than appreciating assets. And that Trump would have somehow blown more money on crap if he invested heavily in stocks versus his various buisness schemes. The latter has no evidence to support it, and both of which btw is fully indicative of poor business decision making.

Spending money on crap would not indicate that he is bad at business, it would just show that he likes to spend money on crap.

And I didn’t say that he would have spent more money on crap if he’d invested in index linked funds, just that his cash flow would have been different and so his spending likely would change accordingly, he might have spent more, he might have spent less, it’s an unknown.

On top of being logically inconsistent, you said some factually false stuff and I'd encourage you to read up on accounting/finance principles, because figuring out how someone spends their money and the value of an asset is not some sort of mysterious art that only the most brilliant accounting minds can decipher.

Nothing I said was flawed, you would do well to not be so patronising as you are struggling with very basic concepts.

I will simplify the argument for you:

Man A and Man B each have £1 in 1967.

Man A puts the entire amount in index linked funds and in 2017 his net worth has increased to £50.

Man B spends 50p of his £1 on a yacht and the remaining 50p goes into property, by 2017 his yacht has been scrapped and his net worth is £25.

According to you, Man A is the better businessman, but Man B has increased his investments at the exact same rate as Man A, he just used his money for non-business related items. In business matters they are equals.

Your argument relies on comparing someone who never spends money on non-business items to someone that does, but doesn’t take into account that non-business spending. It is a fundamentally flawed argument, as you are not comparing like-for-like.

Unless you have full access to Trump’s spending details, which you don’t, and also do a year-by-year analysis of what his worth would be taking that spending into account, which you haven’t done, then you cannot confidently claim that he is good or bad at business. It is an unknown, you simply don’t have the data available to draw a conclusion either way.

What you do have is partisan bias, so you want the claim he is bad at business to be true, similarly an ardent Trump supporter would want it to be false and come to the conclusion he is a great businessman. I don’t give a shit about Trump, so I can look at it objectively and point out that both sides are talking out of their arses.