Mavigogun wrote on 11/14/19 at 03:32:42:As we knew all along, there was never a number 3- just a bunch of noise.
I gave a pretty detailed and solid number 3. Hardly a bunch of noise.
It's hard to deny the likelihood Trump's taxes would be treated fairly. Let's assume there's nothing significant in them that's out of line with anyone else in his income and business bracket. Trump had some casinos go bankrupt primarily in Atlantic City if I recall. He was not the only one. Those failures are a topic brought up on here repeatedly. Worth noting by those who've never been even remotely involved in a senior management position in an operation like that.
In a previous life, I was a credit manager for an heavy equipment provider so I've got some real world practical experience with reviewing financial statements and company history before investing funds to build custom equipment for a company. My authority limit was relatively small being a youngster in the business. 500k or a million, don't recall exactly, but I also participated in reviewing the really big ones. Here's the reality. Sure, there are large companies with spotless records on paper. And I'd emphasize the on paper part. But there are a lot of companies with somewhat of a checkered past.
Operating a business is hard, that's why only a few do it. You can be the smartest person in the world and fail because of circumstances out of your control. You can make 99 correct moves in a row but that last one might set up your demise. Or.....you can be dump as a rock and stumble into success.
One of the smartest people I ever worked for drove home that point repeatedly. Her point was to look at the broadest base of information as possible to arrive at the decision that was more likey to occur than the other. And even if you did all that and made the most educated decision that should deliver success, you can still lose.
Point is, most every person in Trump's category has failures in the past, some more than others. I have no idea where Trump stacks up because let's face it, there aren't many Donald Trumps. If I were going to benchmark to someone, I'd look at Mark Cuban.
Certainly worth noting that Cuban made noise about running against Trump (and if you recall the idea was well received) but that has virtually disappeared. I wonder what role revealing all his business dealings played in that?