Has Trump's reasoning, behavior, statements, policies bolstered your views of his business accumen or reduced it?

Question

Today's Washington Post:

Has Trumps reasoning, behavior, statements, policies bolstered your views of his business accumen or reduced it?

Just so you know my views. I wouldn't trust him to run a lemonade stand... Plus he'd be hitting on all the young clientele pulling up on pink bicycles...

Some of you MFers still think the Apprentice was a reality show... It's actually the dynamite on a LONG fuse that got us to this hellscape...

MisterWack · Accepted Answer

Well I thought of him as a highly successful real estate businessman …. Until I looked behind the curtain to find someone who bankrupted others , never returned his money on time or at all , and who manipulates others into believing his alternate facts which are just a fancy term for lies.

Taj Mahal Casino for example, Media told him it would fail. Donald pressed on and he failed. Trump Steaks failed too. I could go down the whole list, the only time Trump actually succeeded as a businessman was by conning a wide range of people willing to die for him.

Trump Cologne, Trump Guitars, Trump Watches, Trump Sneakers, Trump Mobile (and phones), Trump Hats (made in China), Trump Bibles (made in China), Trump NFTs ($99 for one card each and random), Trump Crypto, and more.

Trump Lobbyists - SuperPACs of billions of dollars , Tim Cook bribery over a Giant 24k Gold Bar , Saudi Arabia bribery over $500 million Jet , and so on.

Just a reminder, he would charge Secret Service to stay the night at Trump Tower while guarding his family and wouldn’t allow them to use the bathroom. All the money accumulated almost didn’t get returned to US Govt until they asked for full payment so, Trump obliged. He would charge world leaders in the Trump Towers $100k a night and almost didn’t get returned until US Govt demanded so Trump obliged.
Trump promised he wouldn’t be paid for being President last term, he kept the money.

Not to mention Saudi Arabia LIV Golf Tournament Deal that was thanks to his time in The White House last time.

And according to MAGA we can ignore that because Hunter Biden sold paintings during President Biden’s first and only term which I also hate though why can’t we hold all this accountable? One painting is enough to piss them off, though this long list that keeps getting bigger gets ignored. Beautiful hypocrisy.

Trump sold a $99 picture book about his time in office as well with small captions written by him. Like do I need to continue? The evidence speaks for itself. He was a failure until he found himself in office taking advantage of the people.
He takes advantage of people just like all the other corporate assholes.

BonzoInBitburg · Accepted Answer

His comments about The Fed demonstrate a complete lack of understanding about interest rates and the problems lowering them more than a quarter point will cause. Especially with inflation running at a full percentage point above the target rate. His views of tariffs are mind boggling when you can go back in history and easily predict the outcome will be in countries that have gone down that road. If he had any business sense, he wouldn't have threatened Intel with government taking stake in the company and forcing AMD and Nvidia to pay the government to sell to China. No business wants the government hands in their business and it never worked out where its been tried. Those 3 companies CEOs will most likely leave and move to more business friendly countries like any businessman with half a brain would do. Free market capitalism is dying in the US under the watch of a so-called businessman.

ODC2112 · Answer

In the United States, the myth of the “self-made” entrepreneur is one of the foundational elements of the national narrative. The official story tells of visionary men who, through talent and hard work, built empires from scratch. But if we look closely at the historical conditions that made the success of many of these figures possible, the fairy tale begins to crumble. The truth is that most of the successful entrepreneurs of the postwar era were not extraordinary geniuses, but rather people who happened to be in the right place at the right time, in a context that multiplied opportunities regardless of their personal abilities.

From 1945 to the late 1970s, the American economy experienced an exceptional expansion: domestic demand exploded for reasons entirely external to individual entrepreneurs. The postwar baby boom, suburbanization, rising disposable income, the spread of consumer credit, public housing policies, all these forces drove an America that was building, consuming, and expanding. In a world still free from Asian competition, with Europe and Japan busy rebuilding, anyone with access to a minimum amount of capital and the right contacts could strike it rich. In that context, it was more important to be there than to have a revolutionary idea. Many of those who are celebrated today as “captains of industry” were beneficiaries of unrepeatable circumstances.

Donald Trump is the emblematic case. He did not start from zero: his father, Fred Trump, was already a wealthy builder with a solid position in the New York real estate market, specializing in affordable housing. Donald inherited not only a substantial fortune, estimated at least $40 million in assets in the 1970s, an enormous sum at the time, but also a network of political and banking contacts that opened every door. Credit was extended to him because he carried a name that served as collateral. He was not a brilliant outsider; he was an insider with inherited wealth and a marketable surname.

When Trump stepped onto the scene in the 1970s and 1980s, New York was undergoing a phase of urban renewal. After the city’s fiscal crisis, investments flowed in, gentrification began, and there was growing demand for luxury spaces driven by the rise of Wall Street and finance. Trump inserted himself into this dynamic: he redeveloped the Commodore Hotel into the Grand Hyatt and built Trump Tower. But it is crucial to understand that the demand was already there; he did not create it. He merely rode a massive wave, like many other developers of his generation. His real skill was not in product or process innovation but in self-marketing: he turned his surname into a brand, and that brand became an asset. Most of his later ventures were not direct investments but licensing deals for the “Trump” brand.

And yet, when he tried to move beyond real estate and the symbolic power of his name, the results were disastrous. The Atlantic City casinos, Trump Airlines, Trump University, a series of failures that showed how overrated his entrepreneurial skills really were. Without inherited wealth and favorable macroeconomic conditions, Trump would never have become “Trump.” His story does not illustrate the tale of a Schumpeterian innovator, but that of an heir who managed to monetize a fortune more than create one.

This mindset, shaped during the era of easy real estate money and financial leverage, Trump brought into politics, with equally questionable results. His economic policies prove the point. The trade war he launched as president was based on a mercantilist and primitive idea: the trade deficit is a national loss, so it must be reduced by raising tariffs. This is a fundamental conceptual error. The trade balance also reflects structural differences between saving and investment: the United States runs chronic deficits because it saves little and attracts foreign capital, not because “others are cheating us.” Thinking that taxing imports would bring manufacturing back to America means ignoring basic macroeconomic mechanisms.

The result was the opposite of what was promised: tariffs increased costs for American companies and consumers, hurting competitiveness and driving up domestic prices. Not only that: domestic producers, sheltered by tariffs, simply raised prices, making “Made in USA” goods even more expensive. The trade war did not reduce the deficit; it merely shifted some imports from China to other countries, without bringing production back to U. S. soil.

To the mercantilist vision, Trump added a constant obsession: low interest rates. He repeatedly pressured the Federal Reserve to keep rates at rock-bottom levels, as if monetary policy should be tailored to the interests of a heavily leveraged developer. But in an economy already running hot, with strong demand and rigid supply, low rates mean inflation. This is exactly what happened in 2020–2021: abundant liquidity, fiscal stimulus, clogged supply chains, explosive demand. The result? Double-digit inflation. If this approach were maintained in the future, with additional trade barriers and a weaker dollar, the risk would not just be inflation: it would be stagflation, like in the 1970s under Carter, but with a much higher public debt burden.

The United States can still afford mistakes thanks to the privilege of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. But if short-sighted and unpredictable policies continue to erode international confidence, the supremacy of the dollar, and with-it America’s financial power, will begin to crack. And then no tweets or tariffs will stop the storm.

The Trump case is instructive because it dismantles two illusions. First: that entrepreneurial success is always the result of individual genius, rather than a favorable context and inherited rents. The second: that a successful businessman automatically knows how to govern a complex economy. He does not. Trump does not think like a policymaker; he thinks like a leveraged developer. And the world is not a Manhattan construction site; it is an interdependent system that does not forgive gross errors.

Simply put, Trump is the wrong man at the wrong time.

beefcakebradybatson · Answer

TRUMP HAS HAD FIVE OR SIX (PERSONAL OR BUSINESS) BANKRUPTCIES. HIS ATLANTIC CITY CASINOS SANK UNDER AN OCEAN OF DEBT. Please MISS ME ABOUT HIS BUSINESS "ACUMEN" BS!!! (DJT is the poster boy for Credence Clearwater Revival's 1968 hit "Fortunate Son.")

Dongie · Answer

Trump is NOT a pedophile such as Biden and Schiff! Im certain we ALL know the level of hate for president Trump that you churn out! As for The Apprentice, I never paid it an mind. I was not a fan of DJT until I heard his opinion of "liberal America". Then as the left began to attack him and those who merely attended his speeches, both verbally and physically, I became caught up in this civil war thats been raging since 2016. True to form, the Trump touch usually comes out positively in matters of business.

Avicenna · Answer

Washington DC changed crime statistics at command insistence. See what consequences that has…..

At any rate, your leftist hero couldn’t get the numbers right under Biden either, and as a political appointee serves at the pleasure of the President.

I would trust a leftist to teach teenagers, yet it happens. with disastrous results.

DryGermanGuy · Answer

He announced to lower drug prices 800, 1000, 1500 percent! What more do you need? :-D :-D

Danzigdawson · Answer

You're right on about the lemonade stand! 😄

exitseven · Answer

A bureau that gives the wrong statistics month after month after month has no place in this administration.

Twalli · Answer

Can't really say my views were changed. He didn't like negative news coverage, so why would he like negative reports on his job?

seeyounexttuesday · Answer

so your statement is that the job numbers have been accurate over the past handful of quarters?

ilistengood · Answer

No I think less of him now then before he was king.

Snakeyes7 · Answer

If your statistician sucks at their job, they should be fired, just like literally any other job. I don't see the issue with this.

NYCQuestions1976 · Answer

Less drinking, more therapy.

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