The White House, LLC | Hacker News Reader

The White House, LLC

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97 pointsgeox46 comments

We made Jimmy Carter sell off his family peanut farm for this?

Ludicrous. Criminals, the lot of them.

> We made Jimmy Carter sell off his family peanut farm for this?

https://theonion.com/you-people-made-me-give-up-my-peanut-fa...

Which is exactly what he did in his first term. The corruption and hypocrisy is the point. Republicans don't care about anything other than being the team in power.

> It’s best to understand that fascists see hypocrisy as a virtue. It’s how they signal that the things they are doing to people were never meant to be equally applied.

> It’s not an inconsistency. It’s very consistent to the only true fascist value, which is domination.

> It’s very important to understand, fascists don’t just see hypocrisy as a necessary evil or an unintended side-effect.

> It’s the purpose. The ability to enjoy yourself the thing you’re able to deny others, because you dominate, is the whole point.

> For fascists, hypocrisy is a great virtue — the greatest.

* A.R. Moxon, https://mastodon.social/@JuliusGoat/109551955251655267

He’s a good businessman, ok?!?

He wont be impeached so is the only hope that the next administration (haha) can charge him?

He will almost certainly pardon his entire family and himself prior to the conclusion of his 2nd term.

Who are we kidding, there will be a 3rd term and beyond.

Well, the precedent is set there to do that.

Yes and no - there's an argument to be made that you can't pardon someone for doing something illegal on your orders.

There are a lot of arguments that can be made, most of them have been made and most of those lost in the current supreme court.

I know you are being sarcastic, but he won't get charged because the courts have ruled that anything he decides is an official act is legal.

He's also not a good businessman. He's bankrupted 3 casinos.

To anyone here who is still on the Trump train, let's look at what this Epstien-island-visting, makeup wearing "stable genius" failed to sell to Americans:

~Red meat. ~Airline Travel. ~Gridiron football. ~College education. ~Liquor.

Yet this being is treated as some sort of business savant. Come on.

There also won't be a next administration, he's already said he's going to be president for life.

If the outcome of businessman is making money, then I'd say he's quite good ... and way before he became president.

His Dad transferred him $1B in NYC real estate in the 80's and 90's. If Donald had just sat on that and did nothing, he'd be a heck of a lot richer than he is now.

"Doing nothing" was a better businessman than Donald Trump.

Had Donald Trump liquidated his real estate holdings upon receiving them from his father, and invested them into the S&P500 exclusively, his net worth IIRC would be approximately in the range of ~$30-40 Billion.

Instead, he's bankrupted 3 casinos, and declared bankruptcy 6 times.

Why do people think he's some sort of business genius?

Can you back up your claim with sources and ... actual numbers?

No "IIRC", but like ... reality.

His inheritance is publicly documented....by him. So nobody knows the exact amount of money he received, and if it was in cash, valuation of properties, etc. So no, I can't back up exactly how much, because Donald Trump claims he was given a certain amount, and that amount has changed several times depends on who he's talking to.

In terms of actual wealth accumulation, just use a simple return calculator. If Donald Trump placed $1 billion into the S&P500 in 1980 and didn't invest dividends, he would have roughly $17.6 billion, based off the annualized return of 6.5%. However, based off court documents, Donald Trump got a LOT more than a billion, and some of that money was in NYC real estate, which grew much quicker than inflation.

No, the (unproven) claim was that the real estate was worth $1B in 2018 money, not when it was transferred, and not all went to Donald.

> According to The New York Times, Fred and his wife, Mary, provided over $1 billion (in 2018 currency) to their [five] children

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Trump

Edit: Only four living children, oops. And the claim was "the equivalent today [2018] of at least $413 million" went to Donald.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/t...

Basic point is still true. NYC real estate has gone up in value far faster than inflation has.

Also, Donald got approximately half of the fortune, not the 1/5 you would expect.

NYC real estate hasn't gone up 10x during that time.

As much as you want that to be true, you're just objectively wrong.

You're right, it hasn't gone up 10x during that time, it's gone up far more. His trust also owned the land for the buildings, which is far more valuable than the buildings Fred built.

Shit, my sister owns a walkup in lower Manhattan that she bought during COVID and it's already 3x'd in value as of latest appraisal.

You're stretching back 40-50 years, and that was when NYC was a dirty hellhole. It's nice now. You bought in Brooklyn at that same time Fred bought up a lot of Manhattan, you're looking at a return around 300-400x EASILY. Manhattan, if you bought in the 70s and 80s, you're looking at a much higher multiple.

That's not really true. His father was an excellent businessman and left him what would be $1b in today's dollars. If he had just invested that money in the stock market he would be far richer in say, 2008 then he was. He probably effectively went bankrupt with the casinos, his creditors just didn't really go after him.

What turned around his fortunes was being a game show host. He did do well from licensing his name. Also he is now really making a fortune off memecoins and other stuff that seems grifty.

People that think he was a good businessman are like joe six pack or vibe economy types. People in finance or real estate in New York would laugh at the idea.

https://archive.ph/7qAJm

A United Arab Emirates fund has agreed to invest $2 billion in a stablecoin (a cryptocurrency pegged to the dollar) at World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm the president owns with his sons Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Barron Trump, among other partners. The deal, which the then-candidate unveiled in September from his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, represents tens of millions of dollars in profits for the firm.

Over the past year, Trump-branded residential towers have opened in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, through a Saudi partner with state ties. In April, a real estate developer unveiled a Trump-branded luxury residential and golf resort at a $5.5 billion state-owned megaproject in Doha, Qatar, at an event attended by Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, and a Qatari minister. The Trump administration and family’s company has plans for new towers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Abu Dhabi.

In addition, sovereign wealth funds from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have pledged more than $3.5 billion to a venture capital fund led by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

In addition, the Trump administration is in talks with the government of Qatar to accept a Boeing 747 valued at around $400 million to serve as a temporary replacement for the United States’ current Air Force One presidential aircraft, which are more than 40 years old, given the delays in Boeing’s contract to build two new presidential planes.

Interestingly, the article begins with mentioning Hunter's activities in Ukraine, and implies that nothing improper happened there. Any honest observer would certainly think that a Ukrainian energy firm hiring Biden Jr to consult for major $$$ on matters he knows nothing about, while his father is the U.S. President's pointman in Ukraine, is clearly a shady deal. The article should be about how both presidents are being corrupt, but we get this.

The article doesn't need to be about both Presidents - why is that a necessity? The old administration is done and over.

It's clearly about the current administration, which is partaking in enough visible, ongoing corruption to fill a textbook.

He's a Yale-educated lawyer who runs a hedge fund. That's exactly the sort of person a company would want on their board.

Everyone that Trump is making even wealthier is highly educated and deserves it too.

Sarcasm, ha

This is "but her emails" energy. I don't care about Biden. He is done and irrelevant. Trump is the catastrophe we are dealing with right now.

it's a very poor argument anyway: "oh biden did bad thing too". Okay, so you're admitting it's a bad thing first of all. Second, how does someone else doing a bad thing make it any LESS bad for others to do it?

That's really disingenuous. Clearly Biden Jr. was getting paid more than he would have but he probably did have unique insights that would be worth quite a bit of money to Burisma. But the accusation is just that he made a few $100k more than he would have and made some top-level connections (so the money actually seems sensible). Every well read person just takes these things at face value as a single individual fallling up - but he had no true secrets to give and no real power. The corruption within the Trump admin is expansive with hundreds of millions of dollars across multiple businesses and at least in the first administration real power vested in family members.

This comment is only about Biden’s presidency- it should be about both Trump and Biden, but we get this

There is only one president. Biden is not going to run again. He's not relevant anymore.

Trying to what-about this just shows that you're either being deceitful or don't understand the differences. Biden Jr. was taking advantage of his dad's position - and everything seems to point that Biden Sr. was not involved and didn't really want to be invovled. The Trump family is all in and everyone is involved trying to grift as much as possible, including the President.

Yet another false equivalency.

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