Predictions? Let's Have It!

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
603

If he were able to turn the business over to his children in some sort of blind trust, he would have to never talk to them to avoid accusations of behind the scenes dealings. From what I read about it recently, I don’t think real estate assets lend themselves well to blind trusts. Unless I’m mistaken, blind trusts are usually liquid assets like stocks and bonds. He’d need to start selling. And take some big losses. And pay some gift taxes to actually give things over to his kids.

IMO, he should do these things as much as possible. Even if he has to take some big losses. He should do it as a sign of his seriousness if he really means to fight the racket. It would be quite the patriotic gesture. Nobody thinks he would do it. That’s what would make is so amazing.

As long as he maintains ANY business interests, it will be used as a sword against him. Relentlessly.

It’s a little bit funny to see some of my liberal friends watching Trump like a hawk now. REALLY focused in on any possible contacts/ business with Russians. “Why isn’t this BIG news, these Russian contacts? Everybody in the US should be throwing a fit!” These are the same people who couldn’t be bothered to care one bit about the Clinton Foundation and the State Department business of Hill and Bill taking donations from countries who were buying military aircraft from the US and “speaking fees” from contractors who wanted a piece of the Haiti recovery money. I’m not a Trump voter, but let’s TRY not to be so damn blind.

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604

My God, you return to PWI simply to double down on lying your ass off again?

The content of Mick28’s posts have been blocked, but during your comeuppance at the hands of a moderator (Collucci) he reproduced that post you now say you didn’t write:

Do you ever stop lying?

605

Since you’re dispensing this advice on defense of Trump, let’s look more to see how much of an opportunity you have Obama to succeed or fail before jumping on him.

Take it away, Mick28:

[quote]Mick28 wrote:
Okay one more time for those who are not quite up to date on this Obama character:

Obama has close ties to racists (Wright) and terrorists (Ayers). He has only been a senator for 3 years. He’s THE most liberal Senator in Washington. He’s quite young and inexperienced. And to top it all off he wants to raise taxes on everyone.

What an attractive candidate for President.

Who is stupid enough to vote for this jerk?[/quote]

Statement made in summer 2008, prior to Obama’s election.

Speaking to everyone not named Zeb, the point I’m making more broadly here, enough with the double standards.

606

TB,

A few things:

  1. I clicked on the link that you provided and did not see any such thing. If there is something there that I said then fine I said it. But, the link you provided showed me nothing. So you can stop your inflammatory language as I am not “Lying my ass off”.

  2. If you are upset because I called the Presidential election spot on months ago and you were dead wrong you need to get over it.

  3. If you think you are going to continue this vitriol that you and I were involved in months ago I am not interested and will not participate.

  4. To show my good faith after I won the bet with two other posters I called it off and told them to both please stay and post. This was my way of burying the hatchet and ending the constant non productive feud that developed over Donald Trump’s candidacy.

You don’t like me, no problem. But, using this thread to attack me is not good for the thread or T Nation so I will not participate in it. I’ve made those and other mistakes in the past and Won’t go there again.

Let’s not communicate unless it can be civil and without name calling, otherwise let’s just ignore each other.

607

I think you are correct but he should make a good faith effort to keep his hands off his assets until he is out of office. How to do such a thing is not an easy task as you have explained above. If he does not at least attempt to do this he will be dogged by attacks on his character claiming that he only wanted the Presidency to fill his wallet.

608

I don’t think this has to do with old vitriol. I think it has to do with what you’re doing right now, telling us all that we need to wait until Trump is in office before attacking him…

…and saying this…

…when you (Mick28) were saying this before Obama’s election…

…which almost positively does qualify as “saying a bad word about Obama” before he started screwing up the country.

As Colucci said, you started (and kept) this Mick28 account around to say things you didn’t want to stand behind as ZEB. Don’t get upset that now everyone’s in on the decade-long ruse and we can connect the dots between things you said as Mick28 and things you say as ZEB.

I happen to agree that we should wait until Trump takes office before anyone starts lobbing grenades about what he will do, won’t do, might do, should do. It’s just kind of funny coming from you, given the above, to try and play the voice of reason, telling us to give Trump a chance before we criticize him, when you went ahead lobbing grenades at Obama, and now pretending that you didn’t. Tremendous.

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609

I said above to Mufasa that I called him liberal and that he had no experience and would raise taxes. I admitted to saying that.

Here is the post:

"I said he was so left wing that he bordered on being a socialist and that he would raise my taxes. If you find anything else that I said before he was sworn in that had anything to do with something other than those two points I will apologize.

Go look.

Edit: I also said he was inexperienced. But that was not earth shattering most said that as well."

610

And it most certainly does!

611

Entirely, 100% correct. And it isn’t vitriol to point out when someone is fibbing to try and weasel out of an inconsistency. It’s called debating.

612

One more point that should be mentioned.

If someone says about Trump for example, he is/was a bad business man, or that he is an egomaniac, crass, vulgar etc. I have no argument. But to say that he is attempting to line his pockets as President before he is even in office is senseless. And that was my point to loppar.

613

And there’s the catch. IF he listens. So far his main asset in the primaries and the campaign was ignoring everyone’s opinion except those of his family confidants.

I’m highly skeptical that a real estate developer who has been in the business for almost his entire adult life, who brought his smartest offspring into the business (Ivanka obviously, the rest seem like idiots) will simply let it go and focus on “boring” political issues. Especially now when after a temporary campaign drop his brand value is higher that ever.

Sure, New Yorkers may roll their eyes at the Trump Tower, but foreign countries are frantically scrambling to be on good terms with his local business partners and his family circle and greenlighting Trump franchise projects left and right. Philippines are allegedly appointing his business partner as an ambassador to the US and the Czechs are asking for an ambassadorship for Ivana (not Ivanka).

How can you be tough on the Saudis if you have 15 companies there on a veritable building spree? And a further 20 in Qatar and UAE?

I would be somewhat relieved if he takes Petraeus on board in some capacity, but I’m worried about the oriental royal court atmosphere of his early meetings with world leaders.

And things like this:

As Trump and Barack Obama met privately at the White House last week, Kushner strolled the mansion’s South Lawn, deep in conversation with Obama’s chief of staff. As Kushner walked through the bustling West Wing during Trump’s visit last week, he was heard asking Obama aides: “How many of these people stay?”, apparently blissfully unaware that the entire West Wing staff will leave at the end of Obama’s term.

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614

He’s not trying to line his pockets. I’ve had the misfortune to work for some really, really wealthy people. Besides the fact that they were colossal assholes, money for them became an abstract concept.

After all, how much different is your lifestyle if you have 50 or 500 million dollars? For them making money is a lifestyle, a passion, a hobby, a pastime, something they devote themselves almost 24/7. No vacations, no downtime.

And then someone like Trump would have to drop everything he worked on his entire career and focus on…what? Pence’s conservative values?

Guys like Trump work until 4 am. It seems ridiculous to me that Trump could watch idly while his companies are in a blind trust for four years. He even rejects outright the idea of divesting his assets. What happened to 'Murica?

615

He must have listened to Kellyanne Conway. If you recall he had fired two previous campaign managers prior to hiring Conway. If you recall his fortunes began to turn a bit after Conway took over. I am sure he must have listened to her quite a bit.

616

Not accurate. And ignores his entire transformation from announcement and the “Mexican Rapist” speech to viable candidate that was ultimately elected.

He went from total loony only partisans in need of a populist could vote for to a man that flipped the damn rust belt, and states that went TEN points for Obama.

I didn’t vote for him, I didn’t like him and would have preferred any number of republican candidates, however, I can objectively look at where and how he changed as time went on. You really can’t. He maintained the marketing and branding that worked (on everyone, including Hillary) and softened the rhetoric every step and is now on the verge of complete flip flop on a bulk of his promises.

Sure. I get this. But you seem to do it from a perspective of he’s either stupid, or too pig headed to realize the gravity of his victory. I doubt that.

Given the childish way he has responded to Hil & Jill’s “childish” (it’s more like fill my coffers and pay off my debts) recounts, he’s still pretty fucking petty and amped up at victory. Does that sound like someone who is just going to turn around and say “fuck it. I made it this far, let’s be a shit POTUS who doesn’t listen or try to do well. I’d sure love to have come this far to just really suck at this.”

On top of the fact the Republican party has an incredible amount to lose here… Like control of the house for the next 6-8 decades… (Not hyperbole)…

While I don’t think he’ll be all that great, I doubt he’ll be worse than Obama or Bush, but it has nothing to do with the reasons you don’t think he will. [quote=“loppar, post:613, topic:223006”]
but foreign countries are frantically scrambling to be on good terms with his local business partners and his family circle and greenlighting Trump franchise projects left and right. Philippines are allegedly appointing his business partner as an ambassador to the US and the Czechs are asking for an ambassadorship for Ivana (not Ivanka).
[/quote]

None of this would surprise or bother me in the slightest.

He wasn’t going to be tough on them anyway…

But it would depend on how much $ is controlled by those companies to be honest.

Come on man, are you Occupy Democrats or Slate now? That’s 100% conjecture and could have been asked in a “good, I want my own team and not all these dudes who look like chicks, and women who’ve been crying the last 24 hours on my staff.” or “great, I didn’t want to carry your dead weight.”.

617

As was mentioned above by another poster. It is very difficult to divest yourself of large real estate holdings without taking a bath at the end of the day. I do not disagree with the concept that through various contacts as POTUS he would certainly have the opportunity to enrich himself. But then again every President has that opportunity whether they go into the White House rich or poor. Seems to me a couple out of Arkansas did pretty well with their foundation.

618

lol… I don’t know, being the most powerful person in the whole of known human history, and doing it well enough so your face ends up on a fiat dollar of some denomination?

He has wealth, he has fame, and now he has power. In his mind he’s Alexander the Great or Caesar now… You think he’s just going to throw his hands up and be like “welp this is the best I’m ever going to do”?

No… He wants a 2nd term, and his statue right next to Lincoln’s.

Obama was a life long commie who turned capitalist to get his name on Rushmore, Trump will do the same shit.

619

You obviously haven’t been woken up at 4 am and berated for indulging in the vice of sleeping.

Telling you, they’re all the same. Smart, but colossal egos and often ugly pettiness.

620

That comment is spot on. Those who think Trump doesn’t want 8 years in office are off base. And that is the reason I said long ago that I am betting he’d be true to his word and pick a conservative Supreme Court Justice. He needs the republican party to get reelected.

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621

Conway explicitly stated that she had to go to and talk to the media so that Trump would listen to her advice because he listens to television.

http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2016/09/28/kellyanne-conway-on-what-trump-learned-from-first-debate-chaffetz-talks-clinton/

622

Well, that is an eye opener. No I have never been privy to that type of behavior, or been around folks who are worth into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The richest person that I know is “only” worth perhaps 10-20 million dollars and he’s a really great guy. We go golfing and talk politics all the time. No display of ego at all.