Great moments in finance: Donald Trump's net worth depends "on my own feelings"

[Deepsepia]

This guy is the biggest sack of bullshit windbaggery walking, and god knows, there's competition for that title. But when you get to a deposition, and folks have to say something that's reasonably akin to the truth, The Donald explains his unique method of accounting for his wealth. (The reason he was deposed was that he was suing a writer, Timothy O'Brien, who dared to suggest that The Donald is worth much, much less than he claims)


Throughout the deposition, Trump sparred with O'Brien's lawyer, Andrew Ceresney, over how the real estate tycoon determined what he was worth.

Trump: My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with the markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, but I try.

Ceresney: Let me just understand that a little. You said your net worth goes up and down based upon your own feelings?

Trump: Yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day ...

Ceresney: When you publicly state a net worth number, what do you base that number on?

Trump: I would say it's my general attitude at the time that the question may be asked. And as I say, it varies.


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Donald-Trump-net-worth-Im-cnnm-1699260472.html?x=0

[Teh One Who Knocks]

I kinda like The Donald ;)


Except for his stance on being a birther :wha:

[Deepsepia]

I kinda like The Donald ;)


Except for his stance on being a birther :wha:

He's a bully. And a liar. And he leaves his investors holding the bag, and all the while he talks about what a business genius he is.

He's not. He's a "business entertainer", and my guess is that he makes more money off his reputation (licensing his name, his TV show) than he does off his business. I'm also willing to bet that his present financial situation is actually pretty perilous, and that he's using his political "campaign" to try to stoke investor confidence in his shadowy finances.

He lost me when he took to pissing on anyone who dared to question anything about his businesses, a kind of intimidation that always makes me suspicious.

Here's just one of "The Donald's" many moments of bullshit bullying




Streetwise: Don't kill the messengers -- rough times for analysts
Sunday, August 14, 2005
By Lauren Rudd

Corporations are not always as forthright as they could be. They often put the good news in bold print and bury the bad in a remote footnote somewhere. As a result, you will have to dig for what you are looking for. However, this is what "investment research" is all about. Rewards come to those who can find what others may have either bypassed or have not recognized as being important.

Unfortunately, the word reward can have many interpretations, especially when it refers to the ensuing consequences facing an analyst who invokes the ire of a corporation. Research that derails a corporation's image and deflates the egos of its executives will often result in an analyst being about as popular as a Norwegian rat.

Furthermore, this ostracizing of an analyst because some individual is "unhappy" with one or more of an analyst's conclusions is nothing new. I have been writing about it for years, and each time I hope it will be the last -- but it never is.

For example, on April 1, 1990, I wrote a column about the firing of gaming industry analyst Marvin Roffman by his employer Janney Montgomery Scott, a Philadelphia brokerage firm.

Why was he fired? Roffman wrote back then that when Donald Trump's (yes, the same Donald Trump that was glorified on "The Apprentice" television show) Taj Mahal casino would open, Trump would have had so much free publicity that he would break every record in the books during the period between April and July. However, when the cold winds blow from October to February, the casino will not make it. The market is just not there.

Trump promptly wrote a letter to Norman T. Wilde Jr., the then CEO of Janney, in which he called Roffman's statements an outrage. He also said he would institute a major lawsuit against Janney unless Roffman made a major public apology or Janney dismissed him.

Given the choice between writing a degrading apology letter to Trump or facing termination from the firm, Roffman chose the latter. As it turned out, Roffman was correct in his analysis, the casino did file for bankruptcy. Roffman subsequently sued Janney and received a settlement of more than $700,000.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05226/553354-68.stm

[Godfather]

What a pile of utter dribble :lol: I can't read much more about this guy, my eyes glaze over.


I'm fascinated with great Entrepreneurs... Everyone from Disney to Rockfeller to JP Morgan to Schawb. I'm reading Howard Schultz' biography and it's pretty interesting; and Warren Buffet to me is a brilliant, inspiring man.


But Trump is down there with Zuckerberg in my mind in terms of overrated and uninteresting :lol: I just don't care....

[Deepsepia]

But Trump is down there with Zuckerberg in my mind in terms of overrated and uninteresting :lol: I just don't care....

Zuckerberg has no debt and not much ego. Does he ever tell anyone how great he is?

Right now, Zuckerberg's stock is worth roughly $25 Billion. Even if you say "Facebook is way over-valued" . . . let's say its actually worth one fifth of that . . . that's still $5 Billion.

We have no idea what the Donald is worth, but I'd bet its less than $1 Billion.

Another thing: Zuckerberg doesn't hype himself or Facebook. He seems to be almost pathologically shy. He's proud of having built something hundreds of millions of people use . . . he should be. I don't particularly think much of Facebook, but you can't argue with its success.

[Godfather]

I wasn't trying to compare their personality or their worth. Those are apples and oranges.

Just neither interest me. Zuckerberg is bright but he doesn't fascinate me at all. I don't think he could write a pamphlet on his business philosophy because he's a robot. Dude lives programing, he rents a 1500sq foot house with no art on the wall and whores out information. Boring, almost to the point of frustrating :lol:

Trump isn't much more than a talking head, thinks his show is more important than anything else out there and wants to copyright "you're fired."

Like I said, I feel both are boring and overrated (each for different reasons). But that's just me.