Donald Trump has invited lowly ol' me to be schooled... by his daughter. Oh, joy!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Coming soon to a New Brunswick Hyatt near me, the Trump family will impart their secrets to wealth creation and retention to us. The legend on the complimentary pair of tickets says it all: “DONALD J. TRUMP Invites You to Learn the Trump Family’s Most Successful Wealth Creation Secrets from His Daughter Ivanka Trump”. There’s Ivanka’s photo and a flared red splash graphic below “Daughter,” with the words “LIVE AND IN PERSON!” – reminiscent of the “AS SEEN ON TV” graphic we all know and love, if mistrust…

If you’re thinking by way of rejoinder, “uh, yeah, beginning with being born to Donald Trump,” you’re not alone here.

The graphics of the ticket merit some notice. The small photo insert – the size of a thumbnail, really – of Ivanka is an attractive one, if rather “Glamour Shots”-like. Really, independent businesswomen don’t need to tilt their head and let their hair cascade like that, however fresh, natural, and dare I say, model-worthy, said head and hair look. By contrast, The Donald’s photo is more thumb-joint-sized, with his hair looking every bit as fresh and natural as it did in 1989.

What did I and my fellow [randomly?-]selected Jerseyans ever do to deserve this? The Donald has deigned to invite me, a “special VIP guest,” to attend an all-day seminar on how to get and stay rich “the Trump way,” in which the lecturers will be, get this, his daughter Ivanka and “‘4’ self-made multi-millionaire experts”[sic]. (Apparently this invitation was penned by the same semi-literates who script the spam appeals for Nigerian internet scammers.)

And it really will be an “all-day” event; hours are 8:00 A.M. to 5:30. [shudders] Lest anyone hesitate at playing lowly Grasshopper to the Trump-think gurus, they are also gracious enough to waive the “suggested tuition fee” of $149. They will also give us VIP guests a “complimentary edition of 'TRUMP – Think Like a Billionaire” at the event, whether we want it or not.

As for the conference agenda, it consists of the usual sociopathic-capitalist drivel – slashing your taxes and eliminating your capital gains taxes entirely [these get a big :dubious: from me], shielding your assets from pesky little inconveniences like lawsuits, divorces, liens, etc.; getting Uncle Sam to cover your investing ass, and, last but not least, “learn the Trump way to cash in on the new trillion dollar booming foreclosure opportunity in 2007.” You see, it’s not merely a trillion-dollar foreclosure opportunity; it’s a booming trillion-dollar foreclosure opportunity. Gah! (And to think, the current tsunami of marginal home loans and bankruptcies of said high-risk lenders is being covered in the news as a national tragedy in the making – when really, it’s a primo money-making opportunity for the Uberrich investor class!)

I’ll think I’ll pass on this one; although I’m eagerly anticipating a future seminar course on the Trump Way to Do Time in a Federal Penitentiary for Tax Evasion, Malfeasance, etc.

Oh, what SPY magazine could have done with this one!

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Spy? Good grief. I can see the “I-wank-a Chump” subheads now.

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But of course you are a VIP. the non-elites get the lecture from Donald’s child which didn’t survive.

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You may not learn how to make money like Trump, but you’ll be witnessing him doing it by going.

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Mr. Trump, I’d like to get rich the same way your daughter did. Would you mind adopting me?

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You’re not that special, I got invited too. Or maybe we are both special. Hooray for us.

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For Og’s sake, Don’t Go! I don’t know what’s up with Trump’s hair, but what if it’s Contagious…!? :eek:

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I got my invitation about a week ago. As compelling as it is to imagine Ivanka whispering sweet tax-deferral nothings to me ( :rolleyes: ), I’ll have to take a pass.

Hey- I work in Iselin too.

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Hey, I got one of those, too.

If he’s such a billionaire, why’s he schlepping his daughter around like that?

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Heh, I just checked out Ivanka on Google Images. She has dad’s mouth. :slight_smile:

http://images.absolutenow.com/rp/Trump_JS02292864.jpg (Safe for work)

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The only reason I’d go would be to stage a performance-art protest of some sort, *a la * the “Yes Men” guys. (I have a couple of ideas, but for now, mum’s the word!) I’d have to have a reasonable assurance I wouldn’t get arrested, though, for several reasons of my own…

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I got sent to one of these by an old gullible boss I used to have. I didn’t complain since it was basically a free paid day away from the office.

It was like each keynote speaker was doing his own little infomercial trying to sell you on their books/tapes/programs. Complete and utter waste of time. Actually insulted my intelligence.

It was amusing however to see the faux entrepreneurs who spent their own dime to attend, got dressed up in their suits, and sat and took notes on their laptops listening wide eyed.

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I got one of those last week too, but it was his son (Donald Junior?) that was giving the presentation. :frowning:

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I got one about a week ago, but for me it’s his “right hand man” George that is putting on the presentation.

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Same here. :frowning:

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This is nonsense! Where is my invitation? Not that I could attend since I am still in Pittsburgh but I never turn down a free meal. Funny how the state of NJ still sends me jury duty notices but I always miss out on the good stuff.

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It worked for Donald as well. Donald doesn’t talk about it, but he got his start in real estate by borrowing several million dollars from his father, Fred Trump, who was a wealthy real estate developer.

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Go there and ask the presenter what rising oil prices/sea levels/grain prices/civil unrest in oil-producing countries/whatever are going to do to their schemes. You know, something that might inject a little of the hazards of the actual physical world into their cocoons.

Stand by the door in case you have to make a quick exit.

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I didn’t know that about The Donald. Makes his relentless self-aggrandizement (publicity-wise, not money-wise) all the more egregious. I wonder if one could trace the genealogy of Trump privilege all the way back to the Garden of Eden:

Adam TRUMP: Whaddaya call this, again, an apple? Not bad. By the way, Eve ol’ girl, you’ve got a nice pair of tits there. Nice ass, too.

[TRUMP espies God striding towards them from the other end of the Garden, His Divine eyes fixed on the Tree of Life, His Divine lips moving slightly, as if counting the apples still hanging on the tree…]

Adam TRUMP [speed-dialing his broker and barking into the phone]: It’s me… Yeah, it’s Trump, who the fuck else could it be? It’s just me an Evie here, and I sure as hell haven’t given her the power of attorney over my money… Shut up, and dump all my holdings in Eden! The shares, the futures, the holdings, and put a stop on that off-the-books lucre to the zoning board angels… Yeah, just call the bank and invalidate the check. What, do I have to invent everything around here? …Yeah, this dump is definitely headed south. It’s Paradise Lost, baby… this whole place is about to go down the tubes! Or, maybe we are. Now, here’s what I need you to do for me… are you listening? I want you to start buying up properties on Earth, all right? Go ahead and max me out. We’re gonna need some room to father the first race of people so buy up as much land as you can… Um, lemme see… okay, you see that spot between the two rivers east of the Med? Start there. I DON’T GIVE A FUCK IF IT’S MOSTLY DESERT! IT’LL BE CHEAP! A FIXER-UPPER! JUST ADD WATER, AND LET A FUCKING THOUSAND FLOWERS BLOOM! IT’LL BE FUCKING MILK AND HONEY AND A BIG HONKING TRUMP TOWER OF BABEL BEFORE I GET DONE WITH IT!

[TRUMP composes himself.] Look, I gotta talk with The Old Man now. Keep me apprised. [Hangs up.]

The invite didn’t say anything about free food. A free lunch, frankly, isn’t enough inducement, even with the free book and the waived “tuition” of $149. The only way I could get through a whole day of live financial-strategy infomercials would be if they ran an open bar. :smiley:

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Trump’s only real skill is in self-promotion. His business accomplishments are borrowing money from his dad and then buying and selling real estate in a time and place when real estate prices were consistently rising - lots of people did the same thing and many of them did it more successfully than Trump did. But he went around acting like he had discovered the whole idea personally. Then he became famous and began licensing his celebrity to products that other people were developing.