This may not all be new. Helping a kleptocratic dictator loot his country usually offers rich rewards.
Donald Trump should have seen through this. Lavish spending by someone who hasn't inherited or made a personal fortune (typically through shrewd investments in meeting human needs or in other forms of compelling innovation) indicates a ho0llow fool. Something that I have seen of some highly-successful entrepreneurs is that they are too busy for conspicuous consumption until they are slowing down and are advised to get a recharge.
Think of John Davison Rockefeller II, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Howard Hughes. They did some good while they were alive, and more after they died through foundations.
I have a forum on dictatorial leaders and their lavish indulgence; Paul Man-o-Fraud gave much aid to one of those dictatorial leaders in looting a potentially-rich country. Ukraine has the resources and workforce to be comparable to France. It got Yanukovych instead.
Washington Post -- long and well worth the read. Much more here.
In the end, lavish living catches up with those who do it, perhaps not as blatantly as cocaine -- but it is similarly difficult as cocaine to give up. Like cocaine, it messes up judgment. I'd be perfectly happy with a tract house, mass-market furniture and appliances, bland cars as needed for commuting, off-the-rack men's suits, clothing from places like JC Penney and Kohl's, and comfortable shoes. I would probably insist upon a better-than-average sound and video system because I love great music and movies -- but we all have our vices, do we not? All that I wish that I could enjoy that the rich have and I don't is some foreign travel and some economic security. The latter is out of the question because the capitalist system recognizes fear as a more efficient motivation to suffer for the unrestrained greed of capitalists and corporate bureaucrats than is any promise of bounty from the productivity of capitalism.
I see in Paul Manafort someone that anyone would wise would have seen as untrustworthy even if desperate. Anyone living beyond his means is essentially a gambler on credit.
Some wisdom for Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, and their circle:
Mark 8:36 King James Version (KJV)
36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
No, I am not a very religious person. This said, I can in no way use the word "Christian" to describe Donald Trump.
Quote:For a decade prior and on through Trump’s populist crusade, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates used offshore accounts, hidden income, falsified documents and laundered cash to maintain Manafort’s lush life of multiple homes, fine art, exquisite clothes and exotic travel, the government says.
In a richly detailed expanded indictment filed Thursday, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III parted the curtain shielding how two longtime Washington influence merchants worked the system. The government contends that Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign chairman for five months before being fired, used people all around him, from his buddy Gates to banks, clients and the IRS, to build a life of conspicuous consumption.
Donald Trump should have seen through this. Lavish spending by someone who hasn't inherited or made a personal fortune (typically through shrewd investments in meeting human needs or in other forms of compelling innovation) indicates a ho0llow fool. Something that I have seen of some highly-successful entrepreneurs is that they are too busy for conspicuous consumption until they are slowing down and are advised to get a recharge.
Think of John Davison Rockefeller II, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Howard Hughes. They did some good while they were alive, and more after they died through foundations.
I have a forum on dictatorial leaders and their lavish indulgence; Paul Man-o-Fraud gave much aid to one of those dictatorial leaders in looting a potentially-rich country. Ukraine has the resources and workforce to be comparable to France. It got Yanukovych instead.
Quote:Prosecutors say that Manafort made monthly payments to the home improvement company, many of them in six-figure amounts, drawn from accounts that he and Gates controlled in Cyprus and the Grenadines, companies with names such as Global Highway Limited and Lucicle Consultants.
Another $655,000 allegedly went to a Hamptons landscaper over a 2½ -year period. A second landscaper got $165,000 over the following two years.
The indictment describes how money poured into the coffers of the businesses that could turn a house into a state-of-the-art entertainment complex. It alleges that a lighting and home entertainment company in Florida got $1.3 million from five Manafort-controlled entities. Over two years, an antique-rug shop in Alexandria collected $934,000 from Manafort’s Cypriot accounts, prosecutors say.
Manafort spent $849,000 at one men’s clothing shop in New York City in 34 visits over six years — an average of $25,000 per shopping venture. Another clothing store, in Beverly Hills, collected $520,000 from Manafort on nine dates over five years, about $58,000 per visit.
Washington Post -- long and well worth the read. Much more here.
In the end, lavish living catches up with those who do it, perhaps not as blatantly as cocaine -- but it is similarly difficult as cocaine to give up. Like cocaine, it messes up judgment. I'd be perfectly happy with a tract house, mass-market furniture and appliances, bland cars as needed for commuting, off-the-rack men's suits, clothing from places like JC Penney and Kohl's, and comfortable shoes. I would probably insist upon a better-than-average sound and video system because I love great music and movies -- but we all have our vices, do we not? All that I wish that I could enjoy that the rich have and I don't is some foreign travel and some economic security. The latter is out of the question because the capitalist system recognizes fear as a more efficient motivation to suffer for the unrestrained greed of capitalists and corporate bureaucrats than is any promise of bounty from the productivity of capitalism.
I see in Paul Manafort someone that anyone would wise would have seen as untrustworthy even if desperate. Anyone living beyond his means is essentially a gambler on credit.
Some wisdom for Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, and their circle:
Mark 8:36 King James Version (KJV)
36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
No, I am not a very religious person. This said, I can in no way use the word "Christian" to describe Donald Trump.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.