Sunday’s business section of the New York Times discusses Trump’s purchase of the Plaza hotel, a property he paid too much for and contributed to his shift from property developer to brand manager. Kevin Drum summarizes the lengthy piece.
It was an insightful article. My take is that Trump is a sales guy: he’s good at reading what people want and what sort of pitch they will respond to. This explains his oratorical and campaign successes, despite his apparent lack of policy knowledge.
The problem is that CEOs in general and Presidents in particular need a more varied skill set. Otherwise you become a bad CEO: [INDENT][INDENT] …the world is full to bursting with CEOs who have goals they would dearly love to attain but who lack either the skill or the fortitude to make them happen. They assign tasks to subordinates without making sure the subordinates are capable of doing them — but then consider the job done anyway because they’ve “delegated” it. They insist they want a realistic plan, but they’re unwilling to do the hard work of creating one — all those market research reports are just a bunch of ivory tower nonsense anyway. They work hard — but only on subjects in their comfort zone. If they like dealing with people they can’t bring themselves to read all those tedious analyst’s reports, and if they like numbers they can’t bring themselves to spend time chattering with distributors about their latest prospect. [/INDENT][/INDENT] Donald Trump would focus on a deal about 3 days before it was to be completed. Then his attention would go on to the next thing. Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. The Eastern Air Shuttle. Trump figured he could buy the Plaza for a high price, then somewhat later cash in by chopping it up into condos. It wasn’t a bad concept, but Trump couldn’t execute it. A decade after a consortium of banks took the Plaza and other his properties away from him, another developer with greater focus and business sense would successfully execute Trump’s Plaza plan. Vision and sales sense isn’t enough to stop one from being a mediocre businessman.
When the Quitinator Quit it made many Ethics proves and complaints that were coming her way to go away.
In any case it was the court of public opinion the one that convicted her, that there is a sizable but still a minority group that still thinks she is the beesneez is not good enough.
If you can say Obama believes what his preacher said because he was in the same room, does that mean anyone on this board believes everything that is said here?
So, we’ll probably see it once he’s out of office, eh? But that could be too soon. Maybe when his Presidential library opens? Nah, could hurt the current office holders. Memoir? Too damaging to the Democratic brand. Deathbed confession? No, wouldn’t want to hurt his legacy.
That Radical Obama is just so damn crafty. I mean, what more proof does one need!
We know Obama must be a radical because he hides the evidence of it so well! Much in the same way that we know Trump is a nice guy because he hides it behind a thin veneer of assholery and bigotry.
Here’s the whole thing with Trump, IMHO. In his business world, it only takes a relatively small percentage of devoted loyalists out of a large population to create profitable ventures and a valuable brand. Even if one disputes, as I do, that his business successes were due to any particular skills on his part, there are still things like his popular books and TV shows. He’s managed to leverage this into an early polling lead, but in the end national politics isn’t like that. Once you get beyond a bunch of diehard extremists carried along by momentum in the early stages of an election cycle, you need a lot more than just an enthusiastic minority. And here Trump is faced with a widespread view of him as a self-serving narcissistic buffoon.
The Republican establishment knows this, and unless he’s delusional Trump knows it, too. And Trump is far too set in his ways to build that kind of broad national coalition. On the contrary, he’s just enthusiastically accepted the screeching endorsement of the Horror from Wasilla. So I still say it’s not a matter of “if”, but a matter of “when”, this whole thing implodes. I could even be persuaded that Trump – as surprised as anyone that these morons actually put him in first place – is actively working to make it happen.
My favorite was when people said he concealed his real agenda during his first four years in office so he could pursue his real agenda during his second four years in office.
But, why did Obama instead, after taking office, flip around the other way and govern as a damned center-right DLC-DINO Clinton-clone bearing no resemblance to his left-progressive campaign-trail persona and posing no conceivable threat to the PTB?!
You are snarking at me like I’m a Republican conspiracy theorist trying to tear down the president’s reputation. I repeat: I voted for Obama, in the '08 primaries and in the general election in '08 and '12. I donated to his campaign in '08 and '12. I phone banked and canvassed for him. I have spent seven years defending him from attacks from the left and right. I *love *that he’s a stealth radical.
I guess your smugly self-assured opinion is that he was raised by a radical left mother (whom Barack himself has repeatedly described as “the last of the great secular humanists”) and leftist grandparents, attended a radical church in Chicago, hung out with a former Weather Underground bomber, and then just *happened *to become a moderate around the time he went into national politics. Right, that’s much more plausible and logical. :rolleyes:
He didn’t. That’s a pile of bullshit invented by assholes at truthdig et al.
There are countless examples of his taking on the PTB, and I’m not going to write an encyclopedia article on the topic. So I’ll just provide as illustration something from the WaPo today:
No, no, no; we’re still waiting for you to back up that “list of artists, musicians, and poets” talking point. We’ve taken the liberty of tying up your horse and putting up some barricades on the Gish Gallop Trail.