Wealth isn’t the same as money in bank. Most of Trump’s wealth is tied into properties. You can’t pay for groceries with a skyscraper. That’s why many wealthy people borrow money for everyday spending rather that liquidate (sell) their assets. This applies to pretty much every wealthy person. When someone is a billionaire it doesn’t mean they’re hoarding billions of cash in bank.
they’re hoarding billions of cash in bank
Lemmy’s understanding of wealth right there.
Being paid is a kind of attention/validation. The things he’s selling are “branding” stuff that feed into his cult of personality. It’s probably more of a narcissist thing than a money thing.
Rule number one of being rich; don’t spend your own money.
Is rule number two to never let them see you broke?
I think rule 2 is…
A sucker is born every minute.
He’s a grifter no matter how much money he does or doesn’t have.
Also, the debate shouldn’t be if trump is or isn’t a billionaire. It’s if billionaires should even exist.
They shouldn’t.
Umm… Isn’t that what Amazon does at a global scale?
He has to create opportunity for foreign actors to funnel money to him.
It’s not illegal to sell a $1,000 watch for $100,000. That way he doesn’t have to actually launder the money.
I have 4 unrelated email addresses on 4 separate domains and I get solicited for Trump Wine at least once a month on all of them. His spam game is on point.
Facebook Ads are on par with most of what Trump sells, and they’ve got a market cap of $1.4T
That’s his schtick, he’s actually just a billionaire cosplayer
He’s a liar.
Because he’s not actually a billionaire.
Lists of rich people like Forbes primarily use number approved by the individuals through various means. We know for a fact thanks to the recent fraud case in NY that the Trump Org regularly inflated nearly every number about their business, especially real estate. They regularly inflated the value of property for things like loans and underestimated the value for taxes.
Trump is well known for requesting people not question his finances in collaborative events like his Comedy Central roast where he can control it.
People with actual money doesn’t care about that. And that’s just the tip of the monetary iceberg. We’ve learned a lot since Trump decided to run for President the first time. It was probably the worst thing he could have done to keep his grifts running smoothly.
Was he ever a billionaire?
no his dad was a billionaire
And his dad only left him $400 mil which he completely lost through failed ventures and bankruptcies. What a goddamned terrible “business man”. Who the fuck bankrupts multiple casinos? How profoundly bad at business does one have to be to fail so hard over and over again?
I’m sure he was at one point, then as he began losing money on terrible ideas, because he’s an idiot, he started lashing out into any random crap he could to try and stabilize it. Taking out dozens of foreign loans with inflated numbers, and constantly ending up underwater in those, needing more to further the process, like a debt-based ponzi scheme where no one actually makes any money in the end, not even the banks.
He managed to bankrupt a casino. They basically print money, yet he managed to run one right out of business.
He lost the casino because he wasn’t willing to play ball with the family. He thought he could be a big shot and say what happens and found out you don’t try and cut in on the business of the family without giving tribute.
A lot of his value is tied up in assets that aren’t liquid (real estate). Also he is probably not worth as much as he says.
But the main reason is that these “cheap crap” things you mention are probably vehicles for money laundering from foreign actors. The best example are the NFTs he was hawking for awhile. Costs next to nothing to make and foreign states can buy a ton of them to give him money without it being easy to detect. Even if it is detected it is still legal to buy silly NFTs, right? Certainly more so than a foreign government giving a candidate bags of cash for nothing.
I thought foreign actors could not give to a canidate?
They can buy a million gold shoes that never get shipped.
Fuck it. Ship them. They still aren’t worth $100k and don’t cost more than 100c. The grift is complete.
But then they’d have to spend money on shoes to send to Russia, instead of not paying their lawyers!
They can’t give, but they can purchase.
Sure but they can buy “art”
I believe that it is illegal, yes (I’m not a lawyer). But that is the point. They can “buy” a bunch of cheap useless stuff from him instead of giving him money. That’s the essence of money laundering. Do something that superficially looks legitimate so that you can move a bunch of money that would otherwise be illegal.
I believe that’s the fallout from the Citizens United ruling. There are also “Dark money” PACs that are called as such because they can keep the contributions anonymous, but these PACs are allowed to donate unlimited funds to the campaign as long as there’s no “coordination” between the PAC and the candidate…
Our government is for sale.
That’s all his publicly-traded company was: a way to donate to tRump without visibly donating to tRump. No doubt the new crypto shit is the next grift now that the stock value has tanked.
I see his wife has a Xmas collection for sale including NFT’s.
Foreign nationals, let alone foreign governments, are not allowed to give money to political campaigns in the United States. Actually illegal. Bill Clinton got in trouble for it
If you can prove that an NFT scheme was foreign campaign money laundering in court, people can go to jail.
In court:
Foreign nationals, let alone foreign governments, are not allowed to give money to political campaigns in the United States. Actually illegal. Bill Clinton got in trouble for it
Don’t forget the Trump Hotel during his presidency that took huge “bookings” from foreign nationals during his presidency. The “Law and Order” party naturally jumped all over this as a violation of the Constitution…, oh wait.
How does one go about proving that money laundering occurred? Genuinely curious because I know it’s illegal. I guess you’d need to catch someone admitting that they did it?
For sure. But of course dude tried a coup on live tv and we are having trouble getting the justice system to hold him to account. So getting proof of the NFT scheme that I outlined as a hypothetical is probably going to be harder.
Partially because the coup is coming from inside the house. Representatives, senators, and SCOTUS seats already planted.
It’s not campaign money. It’s the “honest fruits of labor” that he “earned” by selling products. Even though every normal person can see that he’s a fucking grifter, maga morons can’t. So, now he has plausible deniability for any money “earned” in this “honest day’s work”.
grifters gotta grift
He’s a narcissistic grifter. He gets satisfaction from making money and a feeling of superiority for screwing people over in the process. No amount of money will ever be enough to fill the void of his missing humanity.
Exactly this. He was born rich, and yet he came up with an endless stream of grifts throughout his life. This is unnecessary and reckless. I believe he does it because he has a deep inferiority complex and ripping off people gives him a feeling of superiority.
I concur. Having a gold plated toilet speaks for itself.
The better question the media should really be asking him every single chance they get - when they aren’t continuing to grill him about Laura Loomer - is, “if the economy is so bad under Biden/Harris and your supporters are living paycheck to paycheck, why do you think there is a market for $100,000 watches?”
The media that he pays to provide him endless PR?
Do you really expect regime whores to do journalism?
The media don’t work for him. He works for the media. The media work for the billionaires.
One thing that people didn’t mention yet: this is the behavior that made him (stay) a billionaire. You don’t get to be one by being nice and non-exploitative.
