Draining the swamp

[riverman]

It's easy to take pot shots when you're not the target of the criticism

you do that all the time so I guess I'll take it as the voice of experience....this is America...we can criticize our elected officials anytime we want....you've made it your agenda to take constant pot shots at Obama and Clinton....but hey....I probably shouldn't criticize the great orange snake oil salesman....he just lowered your taxes!

 

[Denny Crane]

you do that all the time so I guess I'll take it as the voice of experience....this is America...we can criticize our elected officials anytime we want

We absolutely can.

Thanks Obama!

 

[riverman]

$1/hour less than you could have

wrong.....it took every last nickel to settle accounts that winter and I did...I'm sure that doesn't help your cause..I don't like Trump...doesn't mean I don't like wealthy people

 

[3RA1N1AC]

OK, but 4,000 -> 64,000 millionaires in 8 years is 8x. The rate of inflation might have doubled money in 8 years back then. 2x is not 8x.

Right but you are missing my point. having a million dollars now is like having 350k then.

 

[Denny Crane]

Right but you are missing my point. having a million dollars now is like having 350k then.

I didn't miss your point. It just had little to do with what I wrote. 4,000 millionaires when Carter left office, 64,000 when Reagan left office, 11M today.

The real point is that gifted $14M as Trump was, he turned it into $billions. Out of those 11M millionaires today, about 1:500 do likewise.

 

[riverman]

It just had little to do with what I wrote

you wrote 11 millionaires existed....that's obviously a typo but it is what you wrote...and inflation is a factor as well as real estate values...one of Trump's Manhattan apartments has increased in value way more than the money in the bank has.....when you have 14 mill and NYC property given to you in the 60s....it's pretty hard to not snowball wealth unless you are an idiot...Trump is not an idiot...he's an asshole...might even go as far to say that Trump's real estate practices have caused working folks to be unable to buy a house in their home city or even rent. But he made profits!

 

[Denny Crane]

you wrote 11 millionaires existed....that's obviously a typo but it is what you wrote...and inflation is a factor as well as real estate values...one of Trump's Manhattan apartments has increased in value way more than the money in the bank has.....when you have 14 mill and NYC property given to you in the 60s....it's pretty hard to not snowball wealth unless you are an idiot...Trump is not an idiot...he's an asshole

Buying the property in the first place is something you and I didn't do.

Much of his real estate is financed with debt, far more than $14M worth. Again, something you or I couldn't figure out how to do.

He's got 500 businesses, many not real estate. Some bust, some not. Again, something you or I didn't accomplish.

Again, out of the 11M millionaires in the US, only 1800 (in the world) are billionaires. No trivial feat, even given $14M to start.

 

[Denny Crane]

wrong.....it took every last nickel to settle accounts that winter and I did...I'm sure that doesn't help your cause..I don't like Trump...doesn't mean I don't like wealthy people

You were lucky the government didn't demand you pay that extra $1 in minimum wage hikes.

 

[riverman]

You were lucky the government didn't demand you pay that extra $1 in minimum wage hikes

actually I paid my employees way more than minimum wage and I paid exactly what I owed to the govt...just didn't stiff my crew when we sold it.

 

[Denny Crane]

actually I paid my employees way more than minimum wage and I paid exactly what I owed to the govt...just didn't stiff my crew when we sold it.

You were lucky the government didn't demand you pay that extra $1 in minimum wage hikes.

 

[riverman]

Buying the property in the first place is something you and I didn't do.

Much of his real estate is financed with debt, far more than $14M worth. Again, something you or I couldn't figure out how to do.

He's got 500 businesses, many not real estate. Some bust, some not. Again, something you or I didn't accomplish.

Again, out of the 11M millionaires in the US, only 1800 (in the world) are billionaires. No trivial feat, even given $14M to start.

you just don't get my talking point...it's not what he did to line his pockets...it's how he did it I take issue with.

 

[riverman]

You were lucky the government didn't demand you pay that extra $1 in minimum wage hikes.

uh....my crew didn't make minimum wage.....sushi chefs aren't taco bell workers

 

[Denny Crane]

uh....my crew didn't make minimum wage.....sushi chefs aren't taco bell workers

If minimum wage was $10, you paid $15, and the government came along and raised minimum wage to $16, you were fucked even worse. Get it?

 

[riverman]

If minimum wage was $10, you paid $15, and the government came along and raised minimum wage to $16, you were fucked even worse. Get it?

didn't happen, get it? ...not a reality based post Denny....if the law said I had to raise my payroll a dollar an hour, I'd have done that..didn't happen, get it?

 

[Denny Crane]

you just don't get my talking point...it's not what he did to line his pockets...it's how he did it I take issue with.

Buying buildings and having them appreciate?

I'm around lots of construction oriented deals. Contractors sometimes are just incompetent. There are lots of lawsuits.

My neighbor had a house built on his lot. He hired a building contractor to design and build the place. They promised a June completion date. They had a clause that penalized them if they went over. The contractor finished in September, a year later than promised.

So I wouldn't blame my neighbor for suing, underpaying, etc., that contractor.

Another neighbor is an architect who designed and built maybe 10 houses within a 2 block radius. He had all sorts of trouble with his subs. Paid some, didn't pay others who fucked him over.

That's how construction business is.

If Trump paid some and didn't pay others, it may be better to look at the circumstances.

 

[Denny Crane]

didn't happen, get it? ...not a reality based post Denny....if the law said I had to raise my payroll a dollar an hour, I'd have done that..didn't happen, get it?

It is happening to millions of businesses today.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_"Fair_Wage_Act_of_2016"_$15_Minimum_Wage_Initiative_(2016)

 

[riverman]

It is happening to millions of businesses today.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_"Fair_Wage_Act_of_2016"_$15_Minimum_Wage_Initiative_(2016)

In my view 15 bucks an hour barely covers basics especially if you live in California or New York....working class wage workers without expendable income don't shop for the goods those businesses provide and the wage workers can't save up to buy a house or send a kid to college in many cases.....so a business owner takes on more overhead but his worker can take his kids to a ballgame once in awhile and buy them a hot dog...expendable income is good for the GNP

 

[Denny Crane]

In my view 15 bucks an hour barely covers basics especially if you live in California or New York....working class wage workers without expendable income don't shop for the goods those businesses provide and the wage workers can't save up to buy a house or send a kid to college in many cases.....so a business owner takes on more overhead but his worker can take his kids to a ballgame once in awhile and buy them a hot dog...expendable income is good for the GNP

Again, if they hiked minimum wage by 50%, it would have killed your business faster, and you wouldn't have taken care of as many of your employees.

 

[riverman]

Again, if they hiked minimum wage by 50%, it would have killed your business faster, and you wouldn't have taken care of as many of your employees.

Overhead didn't kill my business, weather did....seafood doesn't store well especially raw fish...it was a 3 months of bad snow storms that killed the place and I actually could have saved it if I'd gone in debt to carry through......wasn't willing to do that. Don't regret it at all....couple of the best years of my life

 

[jlprk]

Again, if they hiked minimum wage by 50%, it would have killed your business faster, and you wouldn't have taken care of as many of your employees.

So millions should suffer in order to keep inefficient businesses afloat. Let those businesses die, so their efficient competitors can expand and hire their employees, who were working without health insurance (as I did in the 1980s and 90s till I retired).

 

[Denny Crane]

So millions should suffer in order to keep inefficient businesses afloat. Let those businesses die, so their efficient competitors can expand and hire their employees, who were working without health insurance (as I did in the 1980s and 90s till I retired).

The workers can negotiate their own wages. It's silly to take a perfectly capable business and destroy it by mandating the employees be paid more than the business can afford. If the workers LIKE working for the business, let 'em.

 

[Denny Crane]

Overhead didn't kill my business, weather did....seafood doesn't store well especially raw fish...it was a 3 months of bad snow storms that killed the place and I actually could have saved it if I'd gone in debt to carry through......wasn't willing to do that. Don't regret it at all....couple of the best years of my life

By definition, your expenses exceeded your revenues.

Salaries are likely your biggest expense. By far.

To balance that profit = revenue - expenses equation, you either have to increase revenue or cut expenses. Or fail.

No business should require you to go into debt to meet your ordinary expenses. If you are borrowing for capital equipment or other capital expense, that's ok.

 

[e_blazer]

It seems to me that what's changed in our national discussion about minimum wage is the notion that a minimum wage job is supposed to be a living wage job. Minimum wage jobs used to be viewed as starter jobs for high school kids or a way for a spouse to make a few extra bucks to bolster the household income. Now we're talking about those jobs as if they're careers. It seems to me that we need some of those old fashioned minimum wage jobs, but that employers shouldn't make permanent career jobs minimum wage positions. Both sides need to get real about this discussion. High school kids flipping burgers to make extra money don't need a living wage. The undereducated minority workers who can't qualify for better jobs do need a minimally livable wage.

 

[jlprk]

Minimum wage jobs used to be viewed as starter jobs for high school kids or a way for a spouse to make a few extra bucks to bolster the household income.

Nope. When I was in college, working part-time minimum wage jobs, half of my coworkers were over 25, and a third over 30. There were some over 40, some over 50. Minimum wage jobs have always been like that. A few years ago, my son was in a fish packing plant. Same story, except up here in the Northwest, there are even more older minimum wage workers than there were in California for me.

 

[magnifier661]

Right but you are missing my point. having a million dollars now is like having 350k then.

Most millionaires don't have just a million dollars. Most have anywhere from 6-30 mil net worth. So in your math, they would still be millionaires back then.

 

[barfo]

At the end of 2011, there were 11 millionaires in the US.

About ~1800 billionaires.

Tens of millions started with millions and didn't make it into billions.

11 million millionaires.

Your "he didn't do as well as some of us" argument just went down in flames.

He did better than 99.9% of other millionaires.

There were 4,000 when Carter left office, 64,000 when Reagan left office.

11 million now.

The club used to be exclusive.

I didn't miss your point. It just had little to do with what I wrote. 4,000 millionaires when Carter left office, 64,000 when Reagan left office, 11M today.

The real point is that gifted $14M as Trump was, he turned it into $billions. Out of those 11M millionaires today, about 1:500 do likewise.

Denny, your argument is terrible. You say there were 4000 millionaires when Carter left office, and there are 1800 billionaires today. Trump is in both of those categories, more or less.

Few go from millionaire to billionaire overnight. Trump didn't.

You have to compare billionaires now to millionaires then, not billionaires now to millionaires now. So the ratio is more like 1 out of every 2, not 1 out of 500.

He was born fabulously rich, and he still is today. He deserves some credit for not pissing away his inherited fortune (although he made a credible attempt).

barfo

 

[Rastapopoulos]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...director-bahamas-based-us-russian-oil-company

(Sorry - the link isn't a respectable news source like Breitbart, the Enquirer or Fox, so you'll have to take it with a pinch of salt.)

The leaked 2001 document comes from the corporate registry in the Bahamas. It was one of 1.3m files given to the Germany newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung by an anonymous source. The registry is public but details of individual directors are typically incomplete or missing entirely.

Though there is nothing untoward about this directorship, it has not been reported before and is likely to raise fresh questions over Tillerson’s relationship with Russia ahead of a potentially stormy confirmation hearing by the US senate foreign relations committee.

ExxonMobil’s use of offshore regimes – while legal – may also jar with Trump’s avowal to put “America first”.

Pish. Next they'll say that avoiding taxes goes against Trump's avowal to put America first, and if so, why would people have voted for him?

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Denny, your argument is terrible.

Things that never need saying.

He was born fabulously rich, and he still is today. He deserves some credit for not pissing away his inherited fortune (although he made a credible attempt).

Robert Reich says he had this conversation with a Trump supporter. No doubt it's a little self-serving but I'm sure the facts are straight:

“How do you know he’s a successful businessman?” I asked.

“Because he’s made a fortune.”

“Has he really?” I asked.

“Of course. Forbes magazine says he’s worth four and a half billion.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s been a success,” I said.

“In my book it does,” said the Trump supporter.

“You know, in 1976, when Trump was just starting his career, he said he was worth about $200 million,” I said. “Most of that was from his father.”

“That just proves my point,” said the Trump supporter. “He turned that $200 million into four and a half billion. Brilliant man.“

“But if he had just put that $200 million into an index fund and reinvested the dividends, he’d be worth twelve billion today,” I said.

The Trump supporter went silent.

“And he got about $850 million in tax subsidies, just in New York alone,” I said.

More silence.

“He’s not a businessman,” I said. “He’s a con man. “Hope you enjoy your coffee.”

 

[3RA1N1AC]

Most millionaires don't have just a million dollars. Most have anywhere from 6-30 mil net worth. So in your math, they would still be millionaires back then.

Not true. MUST APOLOGIZE!!

 

[magnifier661]

Not true. MUST APOLOGIZE!!

I've seen thousands celebrate your failure on the rooftops of New Jersey. BIGLY