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Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

Remember how every other President put their assets into a blind trust?

Shit like this is why! It deterred them from firebombing the entire goddamn economy to make a buck for their friends and followers!

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I remember how Jimmy Carter had to sell the family farm because it was viewed as a potential conflict of interest and how Mitt Romney's father, when making his run, when asked for a single year of tax returns made them all public, arguing that a single year could easily be manipulated to show anything, and that only by seeing the entirety of multiple years could an accurate evaluation be made.

>I remember how Jimmy Carter had to sell the family farm because it was viewed as a potential conflict of interest ...

Are you sure you remember that? Jimmy Carter put his farm in a blind trust, he didn't sell it.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/02/24/fac...

Fair.

https://www.tastingtable.com/1204239/why-president-jimmy-car...

notes:

>Carter sold all his personal stocks, and he put his interest in Carter Warehouse and Carter Farms into a blind trust.

I remember when presidents used to divest themselves of their private holdings. That went out the window in 2017

Jimmy Carter's peanut farm remembers.

Trump is already a billionaire and is in his 70s. No explanation of his behavior in terms of gaining money makes sense.

he just wants more social media followers. So people feel like they're not missing out next time he posts something like this.

This is honestly more believable to me than money.

You do not become a billionaire unless you have a pathological obsession with obtaining wealth. They have structured their entire lives, often at the expense of everything else, to increase their wealth. It isn't a goal, its a lifestyle. There is no number that is "enough".

Indeed. But the path he chose since 2016 is a bit suboptimal for making money. Don’t you think? Or do you think the long con was to become president for this week?

I’m not trying to ascribe moral character either. Power, status, fame, etc are just so much more compelling.

I agree, which is why I used "wealth" and not "money", since power/status/fame is just another form of wealth. Trump seems to be a special mix of rich kid who didn't get hugged enough as a child.

Now that contradicts the narrative that the stock market thing is a ploy to make money.

Didn't his first term get his son in law a multi billion dollar deal with the Saudis? Along with all the other bullshit like getting paid because the secret service has to stay at his properties. This isn't the long con, this is just a continuation. He's a lot more organized this time around.

That is easily disproved. A good counterexample is in the book Copy This by Paul Orfalea. He had trouble in school and couldn't hold a job so he started a copy place. This became Kinko's after his nickname and grew large in part because of his systematic way of having employees and customers all treated with respect. When he got tired of the business he sold it to FedEx and shared he five billion with his family.

We need to do something about out of control inequality, such as in the past when we had strong regulations on industry, high taxes on the rich, and pervasive union membership, but lying about what is going on helps no one.

Im sure there are counter examples, of course.

I’m trying to address the narrative I’ve seen a bunch lately that billionaires in this administration already have enough, so we can trust that they wont be financially motivated.

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