# Who has more business smarts: Trump or Obama? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 2, 2019, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833 "2019-02-02T14:20:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/41 "2019-02-03T04:57:09Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > what law firm was that? [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_and_career_of_Barack_Obama#Early_career_in_Chicago) > [@](#): > > In 1993 Obama joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 12-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2007 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/42 "2019-02-03T05:06:35Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Ah, altruism. I guess when you can cover your grocery bill with a $400,000 speech there really isn’t any need to work. What altruism? Obama has been quite successful in his life and he’s got a good amount of money. It’s ridiculous to argue that he’s a failure because he’s only a millionaire instead being a billionaire. But that does seem to be the argument you’re trying to make. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/43 "2019-02-03T05:25:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What altruism? Obama has been quite successful in his life and he’s got a good amount of money. It’s ridiculous to argue that he’s a failure because he’s only a millionaire instead being a billionaire. But that does seem to be the argument you’re trying to make. It’s odd that you would think he’s a failure. All I said was that his money was made through speaking fees. He doesn’t have to work for it. He gets more that a years wages from a single speech. A pretty sweet deal but it doesn’t involve any business skills. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/44 "2019-02-03T05:34:01Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > It’s odd that you would think he’s a failure. All I said was that his money was made through speaking fees. He doesn’t have to work for it. He gets more that a years wages from a single speech. A pretty sweet deal but it doesn’t involve any business skills. Like having multiple failed businesses one of which was a FUCKING CASINO :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/45 "2019-02-03T05:37:55Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_and_career_of_Barack_Obama#Early_career_in_Chicago) I asked for a cite that he was ever a partner in a law firm. He wasn’t. He argued a total of 1 case before a judge. If you read the article his purpose for being an associate was to learn about politics. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/46 "2019-02-03T06:34:52Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > Like having multiple failed businesses one of which was a FUCKING CASINO :rolleyes: failures are part of the success process. Trump has a lifetime of successes and has a positive net worth that greatly exceeds Obama’s. But we can look at Obama’s business failures with a little effort. He invested $535 million in a company called Solyndra. It was a company that one of his major campaign organizers invested in (George Kaiser). It went bankrupt in a year. People don’t credit Obama with this business failure because he used tax payer money. It was only 13 times his current net worth down the drain. No big deal. It’s not like he would give out favors because someone generated $250,000 toward his campaign. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/47 "2019-02-03T07:22:26Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > It’s odd that you would think he’s a failure. This one’s even worse than your last argument. By all means, keep it going. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/48 "2019-02-03T07:26:11Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > He invested $535 million in a company called Solyndra. If this were true, I’d be impressed that Obama had half a billion dollars to invest. I wouldn’t have guessed that he was ever that wealthy. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/49 "2019-02-03T07:41:43Z")
> [@viakix](#): > > Trump is a billionaire real estate mogul. Obama is a former Harvard Professor. Who do you think has more business acumen – Trump or Obama? Why is this an important (or even an interesting) question? Please respond. This is not a threadshit; it’s an honest inquiry. ETA: And as sauce for the gander, I will anticipate a query on why I’m asking. It’s because I would like to know if we’re going to be discussing the issue of whether the government should be run as if it were a business. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/50 "2019-02-03T08:24:33Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > But we can look at Obama’s business failures with a little effort. He invested $535 million in a company called Solyndra. It was a company that one of his major campaign organizers invested in (George Kaiser). It went bankrupt in a year. People don’t credit Obama with this business failure because he used tax payer money. It was only 13 times his current net worth down the drain. No big deal. It’s not like he would give out favors because someone generated $250,000 toward his campaign. People also don’t credit him with this business failure because Solyndra was one of the many companies involved in the program - a program designed to find promising but untested green energy solutions - and the program as a whole turned a profit. This is a bit like looking at a hedge fund that was overall profitable and complaining that one of the investments it made didn’t pan out. When you invest, you expect a certain degree of loss. Except even that’s unfair, because a hedge fund typically doesn’t have the secondary goal of supporting emerging and unsure technology. The point of the program was, in large part, to support “out-there” ideas. If the program had broken even, it would have been above-budget, because it was never expected to be profitable. Taken a whole, though, the program was a massive success - instead of the up to 10 billion dollars in losses Congress had planned for, [the program ended up turning a profit](https://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363572151/after-solyndra-loss-u-s-energy-loan-program-turning-a-profit?t=1549181879169). Did you not know any of this? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/51 "2019-02-03T08:32:47Z")
(Also, was that Obama investing in Solyndra? Or the Department of Energy investing in Solyndra? There _is_ a difference.) ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/52 "2019-02-03T08:41:27Z")
There’s a saying about where bucks stop; if I can remember what it is, I’ll come back and quote it… ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/53 "2019-02-03T10:16:53Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > failures are part of the success process. Trump has a lifetime of successes Strange argument. Trump has a lifetime of business failures in the real operating business, but a set of the media and marketing successes. It is clear he is a successful marketing business, it is also clear he is a great failure where there is any operational management aspect of a business under his management. > [@](#): > > But we can look at Obama’s business failures with a little effort. He invested $535 million in a company called Solyndra. Unless the US president sits on the selection committee of the Ministry of Energy, it is a very stupid and ignorant argument to advance that this says anything about Mr Obama as a person in investing terms. It is very doubtful I should think that what I understand was a venture-loan type program anyone above a middle committe in the Ministry would be involved. I remain very puzzled also by this habit of the American right to pick on a single company failure in a wide portfolio of early stage technology investment and go on and on about it rather than looking at the portfolio. This is completely financially and business investment illiterate, it is the kind of thinking and ecnomically illiterate argument that is normally seen with the Left anti market people - the evaluation of the performance of the early stage financing portfolios from the financial or investment (to leave aside any non financial objectives) is made on the Portfolio and for the private venture financing, it is well understood that a majority of the investments will not be greatly successful, indeed even outright failures (the motto thus “fail fast” to avoid reinvestment in dead ends). It is almost as if they are cherry picking (or do not really understand investment perhaps) what they mean when they say they want more private sector type behavior in the government action. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/54 "2019-02-03T12:11:57Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > There’s a saying about where bucks stop; if I can remember what it is, I’ll come back and quote it… Sure, but it’s still a bit of a silly thing to make claims on Obama’s business acumen based on investments someone in the EPA made based on a program from before he took office. Especially if those claims are stupid and wrong. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/55 "2019-02-03T12:12:07Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > Strange argument. Trump has a lifetime of business failures in the real operating business, but a set of the media and marketing successes. > > It is clear he is a successful marketing business, it is also clear he is a great failure where there is any operational management aspect of a business under his management. Exactly. Trump’s business success consists entirely of convincing people he is a business success despite all evidence to the contrary (prime example the fraud conducted by Trump University). Something which is only possible because he already had a lot of wealth. If Trump isn’t given $400,000,000 in loans, then he never ever becomes the person he is today. Trump’s business is a con. Eventually, criminal elements realized they could use the conman to launder money (and I think Trump was a willing player, which I think we’ll see confirmed shortly after he is no longer president). Nothing that Trump has done has required any considerable business skill. Just a large pre-exisitng bank account, and a propensity for lying. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/56 "2019-02-03T12:29:19Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > Exactly. Trump’s business success consists entirely of convincing people he is a business success despite all evidence to the contrary **Not exactly.** The marketing and the brand promotion is an aspect of the business expertise and success. It is a different form of skill than the operational management expertise. Certainly in the world of the venture financing I know the team I sometimes works with complains of the entrepreneurs who have all of the operational / technical expertise but no sense of the marketing to grow… However, it seems to me that most people when talking of the business success understand it without detail of differences and as the track record of Trump himself proves, no amount of the marketing genuis will overcome the bad operational management (while it is possible always to hire the outside marketing to solve the lack of that skill). The multiple rounds of the bankruptcies of the companies that should have been (by the comparison with their peers in the same time frame) the cash machines very much confirms what is otherwise quite obvious even now, the lack of any ability for the operational management. Trump has a genuis for the short-term marketing and promotion, which is perhaps well fitted to two things - the marketing of the real estate properties that are being rapidly flipped to the new buyer and the media marketing like for his reality TV. This seems very clear. As clear is a lack of the real management skills at all. > [@](#): > > (prime example the fraud conducted by Trump University). That is a prime example of the low / zero ethics and the committing perhaps of the legal fraud, but it is not an example of the bad management. > [@](#): > > Nothing that Trump has done has required any considerable business skill. Just a large pre-exisitng bank account, and a propensity for lying. No that is not correct. It requires a considerable skill in the marketing and promotion to manage to rebound from the obvious operational failures he has had. While the track record shows clearly he sadly learned nothing about the operational management, as the repetition of the errors show, it is a skill that is not trivial, his brand marketing (even to the extent of the camoflage of his real inability in the operaitons management, by the cunning in the brand marketing where the real operational companeis with genuine management capacity pay to rent the name.) Making ideological evaluations on politics of his skills will lead to error. ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Erudite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Ancient\_Erudite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Erudite)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/57 "2019-02-03T12:48:25Z")
> [@viakix](#): > > Trump is a billionaire real estate mogul. Obama is a former Harvard Professor. Who do you think has more business acumen – Trump or Obama? As Trump once said the biggest business deal Obama ever did was a real estate deal with shady Tony Rezko. Rezko, Obama’s longtime fundraiser, was convicted on federal fraud and money laundering charges. Sound familiar? Maybe Mueller should investigate this next and see how deep the rabbit hole goes? Naw. Trump is a better business person. He has successfully negotiated better trading terms of the USA. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/58 "2019-02-03T13:51:29Z")
> [@Ancient\_Erudite](#): > > As Trump once said the biggest business deal Obama ever did was a real estate deal with shady Tony Rezko. Rezko, Obama’s longtime fundraiser, was convicted on federal fraud and money laundering charges. Sound familiar? Maybe Mueller should investigate this next and see how deep the rabbit hole goes? Naw. > Trump is a better business person. He has successfully negotiated better trading terms of the USA. Once again, one should had never had trusted what Trump, the liar in chief, says. He just simplified a misguided ad from the then McCain campaign against Obama. > **[Rezko Reality - FactCheck.org](https://www.factcheck.org/2008/08/rezko-reality/)** > > Summary On the defensive over the extent of multiple McCain homes, the GOP candidate strikes back. But his TV spot gives an oversimplified and misleading account of how Obama bought his own $1.6 million house in Chicago.   The ad says Chicago... > [@](#): > > It’s untrue that Rezko got “$14 million from taxpayers” for himself, as the ad seems to be saying. The “help” to which it refers is a one-page letter Obama signed in October 1998 urging the city housing commissioner to support an apartment project for low-income senior citizens. A copy went to the state housing development authority. The 97-unit Cottage View Terrace, which opened in 2002, was funded with taxpayer money, and Tony Rezko was involved in developing the project. > > But the deal did not put $14 million into Rezko’s pocket. That figure represents the total development cost for the project. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Rezko and his partner, Allison Davis, netted about $855,000. That’s not pocket change, but it’s a far cry from $14 million. And the tenants of the building benefited too. > [@](#): > > Moreover, the ad’s claim that Obama wrote the letter as a favor to Rezko is without factual support. Both men deny that Rezko asked Obama to write them, and Obama says his district office frequently sent letters supporting “worthy” community projects, so routinely that “I wasn’t even aware that we wrote the letter.” Rezko’s attorney, Joseph Duffy, told the Sun-Times in 2007 that “Mr. Rezko never spoke with, nor sought a letter from, Senator Obama in connection with that project.” And Obama told Sun-Times reporters in a March 2008 interview: > [@](#): > > McCain’s ad, however, is worded in a way that could leave a false impression. It says Rezko “helped him buy his million-dollar mansion” by “purchasing part of the property he couldn’t afford.” That’s true, but only because the seller wanted to sell the two parcels as a unit and the Obamas couldn’t afford both. Rezko did not make a gift of any property to the Obamas. Furthermore, the fact that his wife sold her lot for more than she paid for it contradicts any suggestion that the Rezkos overpaid for their part of the deal as a way of getting the seller to lower the price to the Obamas for their part. Good negociators BTW need to have accurate information to make great deals, we already do know that besides [relying on hack economical advisors,](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/peter-navarro-trump-trade/573913/) his strength is actually an uncanny ability to come ahead while others end up holding the bag. He is now doing it with the business of America. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/59 "2019-02-03T13:54:39Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > Making ideological evaluations on politics of his skills will lead to error. I’m not making an evaluation based on politics. The fact is with $400,000,000 in loans, Trump is very unlikely to have succeeded. There’s no evidence that he has any business acumen to build something from nothing. Trump’s success is predicated on having enough wealth to market himself as wealthy. This isn’t exactly impressive. Without that wealth upon what would he have marketed himself? Assuming he had gone into business at all, it is very likely he would have been an abject failure since he has no real business skills. Although who knows with the pre-existing fortune maybe a desire to be good in business may have spurred him to develop the skills? Without a time machine who can say, but certainly everything Trump has done has come about from a pre-existing wealth and not from any significant amount of skill. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833/60 "2019-02-03T14:11:28Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > I’m not making an evaluation based on politics. You were and are > [@](#): > > The fact is with $400,000,000 in loans, Trump is very unlikely to have succeeded. Et alors? This can be said for many entrepreneurs in business. > [@](#): > > There’s no evidence that he has any business acumen to build something from nothing. Yes, but that’s very different question from general capacity in the business management. it is the mirror image of the mistake the trump promoters make for the opposite ideological reason. > [@](#): > > Trump’s success is predicated on having enough wealth to market himself as wealthy. This isn’t exactly impressive. There are many kids born wealthy that never achieve even with trying quite the imagery that Trump has. His capacities there in marketing and branding are not trivial things. > [@](#): > > Assuming he had gone into business at all, it is very likely he would have been an abject failure since he has no real business skills. Encore the same error. The Marketing savvy he has shown is indeed a real business skill. A narrow one, one that is not very useful to the management of a large organization like your government or even any large public corporation, but it is a real business skill. Denying that is boring politics… Admitting it does not make an argument for a competency for the presidency. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-more-business-smarts-trump-or-obama/828833.md?page=4)