(04-05-2019 02:29 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(04-05-2019 01:52 PM)Rice93 Wrote:  

(04-05-2019 01:32 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(04-05-2019 01:19 PM)Rice93 Wrote:  

(04-05-2019 12:29 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  FDR and JFK -- the acknowledged saints of the Democratic Party -- fit exactly that description. Obama and Bill Clinton as well -- neither of them ever had a real working job before going into politics.

It would be great if all politicians had a real working job prior to serving their country. Seems pretty rare at the highest levels. I certainly wouldn't put Donald Trump in that category. GWB? Maybe? Hard to make that call with Daddy pulling the strings for him. GB41? Probably the most recent president that had a "real working job"?

Well, Trump took a small inheritance and worked it into a giant fortune. He had a job and performed it well. You don't get a 13,000% increase by luck.

There are those that would take issues with your numbers. And your reference to "small inheritance". He seemingly has made every effort to downplay/cover-up just how much he inherited however most believe it was yugely more than the $1M that he likes to tout as part of his "self-made-man" story.

Some will go to any length to deny him any credit for building his fortune. They act as though any old doofus who inherits a million will become a multi-billionaire just by sitting back and sipping wine. More of them end up broke than super-rich.

If you start with X and end with Y, I think you should get credit for Y-X.

Now if he actually started with 10M and is only worth 5B, what percentage of increase is that?

He has done much better with what he had to work with than any Kennedy since Joe, Sr., any Rockefeller, Nancy Pelosi, and John Kerry. He is not the nicest person, but it is a hell of a lot easier to blow a million (or 10 million) than it is build it into 13 Billion (or 5 billion).

What if he turned $400M into $600M in 50 years? Still deserving of much credit? I'm not saying those are the numbers. I'm not saying that those aren't the numbers. Nobody really knows what the numbers are. IMO, we probably shouldn't take Trump's word for it.