So… in regards to the “job creator” argument, the numbers above are telling me that, yes, DJT created a lot of jobs. No doubt about it, from executives to janitors, people up and down the socio-economic ladder got jobs and many of them, I’m sure, were happy and considered themselves well-paid.
So, in the “did he get a lot of people on payrolls” department, Donald Trump earns an unqualified “A”.
However, I’m less sanguine about whether these jobs are still there. Atlantic City… those jobs were created, then destroyed. If the plan had been to relieve people after a time or project, no problem, but a casino is supposed to be a successful business in perpetuity - there is no pre-built end date on a business like that. The fact that these businesses are no longer there, or that the jobs created in the 1980’s and 1990’s were lost in a haze of bankruptcies in the 2000s… that, too, is very telling about Donald Trumps ability not just as a job creator, but as a person who creates lasting jobs.
On that grade, he gets a F.
And if you dispute my grade, think about Microsoft. Or Apple. Or GM. There are people who have been with these companies since the 1970s, 1980s. Who was with Donald Trump in 1989, from his most trusted confidante to the person who drove his car, who is still with him now? I don’t think a single one. Even Buffett has Munger.
I don’t argue with your numbers one bit. I’d like to see his personal finance, since he already said that he doesn’t care if his businesses went under (screwing his investors) since he made money. The New Yorker article on the author of Art of the Deal had him say that Trump personally was right on the edge of personal bankruptcy, and in fact had to sell off a lot of assets. Almost going broke personally would be harder for him to laugh at.
OP wants us to compare specific past misdeeds and gives us some examples to work with:
Whitewater? This refers to some business dealings 35 years ago. A Republican-controlled Congress spent tens of millions of dollars investigating this and came up with nothing — and they were in the mood to impeach Bill for failure to signal while changing lanes. Can’t we let this go by now?
Benghazi? Oh — this refers to an incident that led to the death of one (1) government employee, which has been called the biggest disaster since 9/11, and which has resulted in more Congressional hearings than 9/11. I’ve never been clear on what the conspiracy theorists think Hillary’s purpose was in arranging the murder of Ambassador Stevens. One cogent fact that emerges from the discussion is that the Republican-controlled Congress had spitefully turned down a request to better fund Embassy security.
Trump University? The jury is still out, literally, but everything I’ve read or seen suggests that this was a scam to fleece the gullible from their money in return for something of little or no value. Does OP need a cite for this suggestion? Or, does he argue that the profits made, without providing value, by Trump “University” illustrate the business acumen of this great man; acumen that could be put to use similarly bamboozling Putin or Democratic Congressmen?
I would vote for X over Trump for millions of values of X, even if Trump had “had a long career in public service.” Trump has built his career on frauds and malpractice; he has many other undesirable qualities.
I’m sitting here reading all the extreme logistic gymnastics of the Hillary supporters trying to explain why Hillary is better for job creation than Trump, and laughing my ass off. Seriously, tears are running down my cheeks from laughing. You are all bending over so far backwards that you can kiss your own butt-holes! You guys are Hill-arious! Don’t ever change you crazy nuts. I love you all.
Anyone with the most tenuous grasp of running a business should immediately realise that if you can’t run a casino as a successful long term business you are truly an atrocious business man. A casino is literally a license to print money, a trained orangutang could have done a better job at running Trump’s atlantic city casino than Trump did. I’m not joking, this is actually true, Trump bankrupted his own casino by taking enormous salaries for himself and running up huge expenses to other Trump businesses in order to pay back his personal debt. At least the orangutang wouldn’t have done that and the operations and marketing managers who’s jobs would be to interpret the orangoutangs “ooks” as decisions would have been free to run the place at a profit.
Trump is a net jobs destroyer, not a jobs creator, if the assets he inherited were just left in managed fund, then the bank that used those assets to loan capital out would have created more jobs than Trump has.
Totally unrelated to the topic, but every time I see your name I wish that your first name was “Rig”.
Anyway, back to the topic. Trump proposes standard Republican orthodoxy: cut taxes for the wealthy, gut regulations, and slash the safety net and the jobs will come trickling down like manna from heaven. But in the immortal words of Rocket J. Squirrel “but that trick never works!” Hillary proposes standard Keynesian orthodoxy, spend on public works and these jobs will be real and have a positive effect on the country. That trick always works. If that makes you love us, then we love you back.
Perhaps this would be a good time for you to come up with those numbers. How do you answer JohnT’s assertion in post 58 that Trump’s business is losing billions of dollars per year?
How do address JohnT’s post 61 that so many of Trump’s businesses have failed that the jobs he created are simply gone?
Or perhaps you could address my post #57 talking about the hundreds of lawsuits that Donald faces for not paying his workers.
You may have laughter. JohnT and I have cites for our sources. We all know which one carries more weight in a rational (fact-based) discussion.
I’m not all that interested in the bait of “ur candidate is the suxxor,” but can you explain why you think Trump would be good for the economy?
My soundbite of why I think he would be bad is that his economic plan has been judged by a well-respected independent think tank to lead to an increase of the national debt to 125% of GDP, while Clinton’s plan would keep debt pretty steady at 85% of GDP. Cite.
IMO, Trump’s proposals for more spending and big tax cuts would set off inflation, make the cost of servicing debt unaffordable, leading to reduced investment and maybe even a banking crisis. That isn’t good for jobs. Why do you think that’s wrong?
Oh, dear, some mook on the Internet disagrees with me. How unfortunate.
But yeah, I see your point. When Der Trumpster is Pres, no doubt we’ll have full employment, either in one of his casinos or as guards in the Muslim detention camps.
The man has a number of businesses, their filings available to review. I did the work for TERH… why don’t you grab the same documents (10-K filings from 1996-2010) and tell me where I am wrong? Or show me that TERH was the company used to create offsetting losses to reduce the wildly profitable Trump ventures I didn’t review.
Tim, you brought the issue up. Why don’t you explain - since it seems to be your theory - why Trump would be a job creator as President.
Look, you can toss the whole issue of his businesses aside, good or bad. The President of the United States isn’t running a business. She or he is running a country; they are managing an economy, not a casino. They don’t create jobs directly. What about Trump’s policies or understanding of economics makes you think he would be good at keeping the American unemployment rate low?
Because he would lower taxes like we did in the 2000s, which created lots of jobs. Thankfully it was not like those job-destroying years of the late 90s or 2010s!
Ha ha, but seriously I’m trying to see if we can start a real discussion here; Tim, what are your thoughts how HOW Trump’s administration would create jobs, and how this will differ from the Democratic platform?
The problem behind Trickle-down economics is that it doesn’t trickle down until the owner gets his new boat, the wife her new Mercedes, and the world cruise she’s dreamed of. Then the bank account needs fattened up a bit, and of course, the house is a little too small now that they bought that art collection. Yeah, Trickle-down economics works great. (But, we all know this is what they mean by “Trickle-down”)
Tinkle-down economics is Trumps model. Piss on the little people you owe money to. It’s Trump’s way.
I don’t understand what any of you just said because I can’t count past the number of digits on my hands and feet. I’m just going to pretend you’re all egg-headed nerds because the world to me is an elementary school playground and I’m going to side with the beefy dumb kid so he doesn’t beat the snot out of me. Y’all can just go on with your fancy readin’’ and countin’.
I think you are misunderstanding the principle of trickle-down economics – those boats and cars and houses have to be made by someone, and those someones are the beneficiaries of what trickles down.
Still, it’s all nonsense, the rich’s elevated marginal propensity to save means that you’d have more efficient trickle-down by enriching the poor.
Thing is I accept the premise of the op as a reasonable basis of discussion.
The list of fact-based accomplishments by HR Clinton is pretty easy to create and can fill a few pages, certainly filled a few speeches at the DNC.
I’d love to hear what some consider the actual fact-based accomplishments relevant to being president of the United States supporters believe Trump documentably has.
Atlantic City and his role in its collapse (at best exploiting it and driving many small businesses out of business as he stiffed them) is perhaps the model of “jobs creation” for Trump.
But one can indeed give him credit for creating some business and not all have cratered. CNN Money roughly calculates he can be credited with creating 34,000 jobs via a multiplier effect.
Closest comparison they give is MGM Resorts (MGM) has 62,000 employees on $10 billion in revenue. Same multiplier effect to 93,000 jobs created by a similar sized business by annual revenue in the same industry.
That said not sure how creating a series of businesses, even if many did not crater, translates creating jobs for an economy overall. Afterall GM directly employs something like 216,000 people and has a whole downstream system with jobs created as a result … and I don’t think anyone thinks that that means its CEO would be a good jobs president.
