01-19-2019, 08:02 PM
(01-19-2019, 01:35 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I don't see a reason to continue this conversation with you at this point. I mean, it's really kind of a waste of personal time that could be spent doing other things that are more constructive that pertain to my life. BTW, I don't admire Trump like you admired Obama. Once again, you fail to see/recognize our very distinct differences. I just respect him as a businessman, as a father and even as a politician these days.
More power to you. You can do far more good doing HVAC installation and repair than you can do trying to convince liberals that they are completely wrong.
Obama has an excellent legal mind which has made him a fine political leader. Donald Trump is not a good businessman; he is simply fortunate to have been born to a successful businessman and to have been in a real estate owner in a city with exorbitant rents. If he had inherited properties in such places as Detroit or St. Louis he would be flat broke. He has made ventures that have mostly gone under.
There's hardly an easier way to generate profit than to own residential and commercial properties in a city with a chronic and incurable real-estate market. There is no need for accommodating a changing market - just raise the rent even faster than GDP. There is no need to keep up with innovation in product design or manufacturing technology. Innovative marketing? There's more to marketing than putting one's personality onto a product. Financial analysis? That is how Warren Buffett makes his money -- deciding what investment is worth his cash. Donald Trump doesn't have the brains for that. Finding marketable resources like metals and oil is tougher. Donald Trump would be a disaster in the oil industry. Autos? The annual retooling of auto assembly lines to meet changes between model years is beyond his comprehension. Do you think he would have any competence in the area of intellectual property? Definitely not in book publishing, music, or movies. OK, he has had some success offering schlock entertainment, but seemingly anyone can make money offering exploitative bilge to fill time on some network. Do you believe that if he tried his hand in movies that Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, or Ron Howard would have anything to do with him?
You are probably a better businessman than Donald Trump is. You must keep abreast of technical changes in your business. You must convince people that it is wiser to replace an obsolete HVAC system with something newer, perhaps doing some math that others are either too incompetent or too lazy to do to express a decision between sticking with a dying HVAC system and either retrofitting or replacing it.
Capitalists at their best are drivers of economic progress as most people aren't. But Trump is simply someone who gets away with stiffing contractors as you could never get away with. I suspect that you really are a self-made man, not having had a rich father to leave you with a fortune to work with. If you default on loans, then the bank will liquidate your business. If you default on federal taxes then the IRS is the Infernal Ripping Shylock that can take its figurative pound of flesh. Bankers and the IRS have no ear for excuses.
The typical small businessman does not have it easy. Nobody gives him any breaks. Not the banks, not the regulators, and certainly not the taxing authorities.
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.