Roger

But this is actually TRUE. Remember, when he was getting his projects done he was PAYING the money, not taking it. He has said several times that he was SHOCKED (or words to that effect) how much influence he was able to buy for a $5000 donation to a Congressional campaign, and if this guy gets to Washington he is NOT going to (need to) be on the receiving end of those $5000 donations! (This is a great example of why I think the “Joe Kennedy metaphor” is so applicable here.)

Great comments. Thanks. I agree that any developer would fail that test. But I think that I was commenting on something slightly different, which is the expectations of Trump’s supporters. One of his strongest appeals is that he is viewed as independent and not subject to the money politics and crony capitalism of Washington. My point is that he has been deeply immersed in this world his entire life and, in fact, thinks of it as a normal part of business. So, regardless of whether he is self-funding his campaign or not, if the expectation of his supporters is that he is going to clean up crony capitalism, then I think that they will be disappointed.

As your Kennedy example points out, sometimes poachers make good game keepers, but this requires a bit of objectivity and introspection, and I don’t see much evidence of that with Trump. I think that the real Donald Trump is the guy who, as in my write up of the Republican debates, thinks that ethanol subsidies are a great idea, even though they are one of the dumbest subsidies of all time. Trump doesn’t believe in small government and free markets. He thinks that the government is there to help business, rather than play the neutral referee. He is, in short, a crony capitalist.

Roger

Yesterday I saw a story stating that Trump planned to slap a 45% duty on imports from China, and initially it scared me. Then I recalled how many times he’s spoken about “negotiating tactics” and combined that with the knowledge that China slaps big duties on many of our exports while simultaneously requiring most U.S. companies who want to manufacture there to have a Chinese company as a 50/50 partner. In that context, Trump knows that the Chinese are more dependent on exporting to us than we are to them and that this kind of negotiating tactic is the best way to make those barriers go away. He’s not stupid (although he sometimes deliberately sounds that way) and I think really WILL wind up cutting very good deals for the U.S. that– on a net basis– will work to our benefit.

P.S. This sentence of yours is absolutely hilarious and 100% true: “Trump claimed that the windfarm was an “eyesore,” a term that could be applied to almost anything Trump has built…”