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Nomi Prins: How Trump Became Trump And What That Means For The Rest Of Us
Authored by Nomi Prins via TomDispatch.com,
Trumpocrisy
The Donald’s Finances and the Art of Ignoring Conflicts and Contradictions
The 2016 election campaign is certainly a billionaire’s playground when it comes to “establishment candidates” like Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush who cater to mega-donors and use their money to try to rally party bases. The only genuine exception to the rule this time around has been Bernie Sanders, who has built a solid grassroots following and funding machine, while shunning what he calls “the billionaire class” that fuels the super PACs.
Donald Trump, like Ross Perot back in the 1992 and 1996 elections, has played quite a different trick on the money-saturated American political system. He has removed the billionaire as middleman between citizen plebeians and political elites, and created a true .00001% candidate, because he’s... well, a financial elite unto himself, however conveniently posed as the country’s straight-talking “everyman.”
Despite his I-can-buy-but-can’t-be-bought swagger, Trump’s persona has been carefully constructed to deflect even the most obvious questions of conflict of interest that his wealth and deal-making history should bring up. He claims that he would govern (or dictate) as he is, no apologies or bullshit. But would he?
The billionaire-as-president is a new prospect for America. The only faintly comparable situation in our history came before the Crash of 1929, when President Calvin Coolidge, who famously declared that “the business of America is business,” reappointed mogul Andrew Mellon as his treasury secretary, just as President Warren Harding had done before him. A walking conflict of interest, Mellon left Washington during Herbert Hoover’s administration to avoid Congressional scrutiny of his personal business endeavors. He was later investigated by the Department of Justice for falsifying tax information in his own business empire.
Trump is, by his own admission, a dealmaker who has, since the 1970s, utilized self-promotion and his own growing celebrity to make money. Nonetheless, he denies the importance of money itself. His quasi-autobiography, The Art of the Deal, opens with this now-familiar tall tale: “I don’t do it for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form.”
Today, he asserts that he is worth a cool $10 billion, having long been cagey about just how much he has. That figure, too, may be more scam than reality. Forbes pegs Trump's fortune at $4 billion in its 2015 top billionaires list, where he places 405th in the world and 133rd in the U.S. In his 92-page Federal Election Committee financial filing, which doesn’t require the disclosure of his total wealth, the value of his global enterprises, assets, debts, and income sources are listed in ranges, rather than exact figures. More than 20 items are characterized as worth “over $50 million.”
He has at least $1.4 billion in assets and $285 million in debt, if we use just $50 million as a guesstimate on those items; $2.8 billion in assets and $570 million in debt, if we pick the figure of $100 million instead. In other words, we still don’t know what he’s worth. As with so much else, we just have to take his word for it.
Consider the presidency as Donald Trump’s ultimate deal. And don’t think for a second that if he entered the Oval Office his money and deal-making lust and every conflict of interest that went with them wouldn’t follow him there.
He claims to be an open book -- “the definition of the American success story,” as his campaign website puts it. He wants people to believe (as his acolytes do) that he’s just like us -- except for the hair -- only richer, more successful, and (not to mince words) better. That narrative has, of course, been carefully constructed for our consumption, which means, if he succeeds, we are part of his chosen art form, his deal.
Though you might not know it from the incessant media coverage of his candidacy or his P.T. Barnum-ish self-glorification, there are plenty of pieces missing from his financial story that call into question both his skill as a dealmaker and his business acumen. Though there’s been much discussion of how money from the Koch Brothers and other billionaire donors might influence 2016’s candidates, there’s been little discussion of how Trump might be influenced by the billionaire backing him: himself.
Celebrity Apprentice
The Trump phenomenon has delivered ratings to networks and, arguably, the apolitical to their TV sets. It’s probably sold a lot of cars, judging from the commercials that went with the recent Republican debates. A record 24 million people watched the first one on Fox News. That event was, in fact, such an obvious triumph for Fox that CNN upped the ante, expanding the second debate to a full (some would say endless) three hours. As Trump noted, “I guess it was to sell commercials.” CNN similarly shattered its prior election debate records, averaging 23 million viewers.
All of this has been a boon for The Donald, who clearly has a remarkable ability to glue cameras to him and use the media to his advantage, a skill he honed starting with his first Manhattan deal in 1973. When Trump went on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on August 23rd, he dispatched Jeb Bush this way: “We need a person with a lot of smarts, a lot of cunning, and a lot of energy. And Jeb doesn't have that,” while dissing Scott Walker as a governor whose “state is really in trouble.” Walker just left the race. Jeb continues to falter. Call it Trump magic.
The Donald has long perfected two proven strategies for winning: attack and deflect. On both counts, he is a TV veteran. Appearing on NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman in 1987 to promote The Art of the Deal, his skill in deflecting attention from aspects of his life that might otherwise diminish his aura was already on full display. When Letterman probed the particulars of Trump’s personal wealth multiple times, he dodged effectively, insisting, “You’ll never get it out of me.” He also deflected his host’s question about the degree to which his father’s money contributed to his success. “He was a solid guy and a bright guy, I learned a lot” was about all Letterman could dig out of him on Fred Trump.
And here’s an irony: for all his edginess, Trump’s savvy in avoiding what might embarrass or confine him makes him much more of a politician that he’d like us to believe. His father, however, provided Trump with far more guidance and help than that “self-made man” would care for us to realize. So let’s start with a little tour of his celebrity apprenticeship.
Fred Trump was born in Queens, New York, in 1905. According to The Donald, Fred's father had emigrated to the United States from Sweden in 1885. Fred himself would convert a business in low-income housing into a $300 million fortune.
A year after leaving high school, Fred built his first home in Woodhaven, Queens. “It cost a little less than $5,000 and he sold it for $7,500,” his son proudly wrote years later.
By 1929, Fred was building larger homes. When the Depression hit, he bought a bankruptcy mortgage-service company, which he sold for a profit a year later. In 1934, he returned to building lower-priced homes in the depressed Flatbush area of Brooklyn. During the next dozen years, he would build 2,500 of them in Brooklyn and Queens.
Trump and his father had an "a relationship that was almost businesslike,” The Donald would later write and from Fred he would, he’s testified, learn toughness, though “I also realized that if I ever wanted to be known as more than Fred Trump’s son, I was eventually going to have to go out and make my own mark.”
Think, for instance, of George W. Bush’s urge to surpass his father’s record of political power -- and war making. But don’t imagine for a moment that Trump struck out on his own any more than the young Bush did. Trump recounts his first major deal as Swifton Village, a foreclosed apartment complex in Cincinnati that he said he bought with his father in 1969, while still in college. (Cincinnati Magazine claims the purchase was Fred’s exclusively.) The price was $6 million and in 1972, they resold it for $12 million, according to Trump (and a far more modest $6.75 million according to other estimates).
But Cincinnati was never The Donald’s dream. He wanted Manhattan from the beginning. His first deal there started in 1973 with a desire to purchase the old Penn Central rail yards at 34th Street on the West side of the island.
At that time, New York was a complete financial mess. That summer, Trump came across a newspaper story about the Penn Central Railroad bankruptcy filing. Penn Central trustees had hired a small LA-based investment management company led by Victor Palmieri to sell its assets, including its long abandoned yards in the West thirties and sixties. Ever the con artist, Trump recalled, “I couldn’t sell him on my experience or my accomplishments, so instead I sold him on my energy and my enthusiasm.”
Trump initially proposed building middle-income housing on the site with government financing. When the city became mired in financial problems and money for public housing dried up, he switched to Plan B and “began promoting the site as ideal for a convention center.”
Trump still did nothing without his father’s involvement. As their development firm had no official name, they decided to call it the Trump Organization, which covered them both and, they hoped, had a certain gravitas. Over the next several years, Trump solicited support from New York Mayor Abe Beame, who belonged to the same club as his father and to whom his father and he gave money, as he later wrote, “like all developers.” Palmieri would give Trump his virgin credibility with the press as his choice for developer, swearing to Barron’s that “he’s larger than life.”
On July 29, 1974, the New York Times featured a front-page story on how the Trump Organization secured options to buy the two waterfront sites from Penn Central for $62 million. However, it was Mayor Ed Koch who, in 1978, gave Trump’s pet project for a future convention center at West 34th Street his official stamp of approval by agreeing to buy the site. That site would eventually become the Javits Convention Center.
It was the symbolic, if not financial break The Donald had been waiting for. As for the West 60th street site, due to numerous problems, he let the option expire in 1979. In a sense, Donald Trump would never look back, but he would have to look down often enough.
Trump’s Bankruptcies
As Carly Fiorina made crystal clear to almost 23 million Americans in the second Republican debate (the topic had been broached in the first one), Trump’s companies have officially gone bankrupt four times since 1991, or as Trump spun it, “I used the law four times and made a tremendous thing. I’m in business. I did a very good job.”
While that’s a small number of bankruptcies relative to the hundreds of companies that comprise his empire, they represented a fair amount of debt. There was the Trump Taj Mahal (with $1 billion in debt) in Atlantic City in 1991 and the Trump Plaza Hotel in Atlantic City in 1992 (with $550 million in debt). Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, the company created from the post-bankruptcy ashes of the Taj Mahal, the Trump Plaza, and also Trump Marina in Atlantic City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (with $1.8 billion of debt) in 2004. Bankruptcy number four, Trump Entertainment Resorts (the post-bankruptcy company created to take over the remains of Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (with $1.74 billion of debt) in February 2009.
While Trump owned 28% of its stock, as he told Bloomberg News upon resigning from the board four days before the $53 million bond payment that forced it into bankruptcy was due, “I have nothing to do with it. I’m not in it. I’m not on the board.”
He continues to argue that the Atlantic City bankruptcies weren’t his fault, but attributable to the casino environment of that moment. Though there is some truth to that, he glosses over his method of creating new companies to purchase the bankrupt ones, after shedding their debts, and his convenient exit timing from management posts to shed blame.
While four of his companies officially went down for the count, he had many companies that didn’t and, as he has repeatedly said, he himself never declared personal bankruptcy (so his credit score likely remains in fine shape). Keep in mind, though, that, hard as it is to find consistent basic information about Trump’s various disasters, the count of his unofficial bankruptcies would undoubtedly run significantly higher. After all, a number of his companies effectively went bankrupt by closing down or being bought out at bargain basement prices.
In 1989, for instance, Trump purchased the Eastern Air Shuttle, connecting New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. with hourly flights, for roughly $365 million. But the Trump name didn’t carry the day and passengers didn’t pony up for the line’s fancier seats and gold lavatory fixtures. Instead, in 1990 Trump defaulted on the loans he had taken out to finance the company, and its ownership reverted to its creditors, led by Citibank. The Trump Shuttle was then merged into a new corporation, Shuttle Inc., and in April 1992, its routes were assumed by USAir Shuttle, which is one way the rich make problems disappear.
In April 2006, at a Trump Tower gala, Trump’s son Donald, Jr. promised that Trump Mortgage would become the nation's number one home-loan lender. In a CNBC interview shortly afterwards, Trump said, “Who knows about financing better than I do?” Eight months later, the company closed down amid the crashing housing market and negative publicity over an unfortunate hiring choice. Trump’s CEO, E.J. Ridings, had lied on his résumé. His previously advertised “top” spot at one of Wall Street’s “most prestigious banks” turned out to have been as a lowly broker -- for one week. As Trump continually reminds us, he only has the best people work for him.
Then there was “Trump University,” active from 2005 to 2010, where, for $25,000-$35,000, students could assumedly learn how to become real-estate gods like Trump. According to related lawsuits, they were then enticed to take out credit cards under phony business names to help pay for the privilege, and to inflate their income by projecting profits from non-existing businesses.
Earlier this month, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman told the New York Daily News that approximately 600 former students have filed suit against the “university” in Manhattan Supreme Court. Similar suits are pending in California. Schneiderman claimed Trump banked $5 million personally from the scam. Trump had also ignored 2005 warnings not to use the word “university” in the name.
Of course, if ordinary Americans declare bankruptcy due to unforeseen or difficult circumstances, they are regularly stigmatized as lazy deadbeats. The Trumps of our world, however, being rich enough to launch corporate bankruptcy protection filings, are seen as savvy dealers. In this sense, Trump couldn’t have been savvier, since he’s survived one potential financial catastrophe after another. Unfortunately, his experiences have absolutely no applicability to ordinary Americans, even though, as David Dayen wrote at the Intercept, “Everyone would have benefited from relieving primary mortgage debt, the absence of which led to at least six million foreclosures.“
Trump International
It’s evident from Trump’s recent comments that his foreign policy ideas haven’t evolved much since he last seriously thought about running for president in 2011 when he wrote the first version of a campaign book, Time to Get Tough (updated for his 2016 bid).
Then, too, he talked about “getting China to stop playing currency charades,” while declaring his “great respect for the people of China” and blaming “our leaders and representatives” for making terrible deals with their leaders that have cost American jobs. What Trump didn’t discuss then, and doesn’t discuss now, is how U.S. companies, his own included, produce and sell in China because they make more money doing that. Though he regularly complains that we don't manufacture anything here anymore, neither does he bother to explain his own patriotism shortfall, since he and his daughter, Ivanka, have clothing lines made in China (and Mexico, that land of “rapists,” and Bangladesh, a country continuously in violation of human rights for garment workers).
Absent any sense of irony, he has blamed Chinese currency manipulation for making him set up shop in China and claims China is “killing us.” This, though the Chinese stock markets have recently been hammered, the Yuan is weakening, and the country’s growth is slowing, hardly signs of an imminent threat. It’s a great Trumpian combo, though: anti-China anger plays well with the xenophobic crowd, while a weaker Yuan keeps costs down on Trump’s clothing business. A deal, after all, is a deal.
According to the Trump Organization website and his Federal Election Commission financial disclosures, he has operations practically worldwide, but notably not in Russia. Yet Trump has had his eye on doing business there for a long time. As far back as 1987, when it was still the Soviet Union, he wanted to erect a Trump Tower in Moscow’s Red Square. In 2013, he was still talking about the possibility in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Perhaps because of his ongoing business interests (or their mutual maverick styles), Trump, unlike his Republican presidential opponents for whom the Russian president is little short of the devil incarnate, regularly claims that he will have a “great relationship” with Putin.
As for Trump’s Mexican border wall and the fantasy of getting the Mexican government to pay for it, Trump has made hay with the immigration issue. You wouldn’t know, listening to him, that the number of illegal immigrants has dropped significantly since the financial crisis. On the Late Show recently, Trump doubled down on his wall, comparing it to the Great Wall of China and suggesting that “we can have a great and beautiful wall, we'll have our border, and guess what, nobody comes in unless they have their papers." This from the man who has a borderless record of outsourcing jobs and tax revenues to Mexico and elsewhere.
All of this adds up to a vast set of potential conflicts of interest and downright deception should Donald Trump ever set foot in the White House, a subject that is at the heart of what might be called Trumpocrisy in the present campaign, but seldom part of the debate by or about The Donald himself.
The Polls
For now, Trump remains the clear GOP frontrunner in terms of composite polling results. His polling success has been predicated since announcing his candidacy on a cocktail of bravado, media exposure, tactical hits on opponents as if they were competitors for one of his casino deals, and the wholesale avoidance of any serious discussion of the financial baggage he brings with him into the election season. Can there be any question that, for the man who wanted to leave his father’s helping hand behind, bagging the Oval Office would be the ultimate step in outshining Fred Trump’s legacy? It’s less clear what the rest of us get out of it.
Trump assures us that he wouldn’t let his business dealings interfere with his politics, but is he really prepared to step away from all Trump Organization matters globally? Does anyone believe that his deal-making instincts will die in the Oval Office? Or would building Trump Tower in Moscow be the touchstone for any future conversation with Putin about Ukraine and Syria? Would his acts be indicative of what happens -- consider Bill Clinton netting high speaking fees from countries in which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was conducting foreign policy -- when you fuse public office and private power? In historical terms, it would be as if a Morgan or a Rockefeller were running the country and his private business affairs at the same time, creating the quintessential conflict of public and private interest.
Unfortunately, we are used to politicians saying whatever they think they need to say to be elected president, and falling way short of their campaign promises on the job. Even scarier would be the notion of selling America to the craftiest bidder. The election may be more than a year away, but isn’t it time to dig beneath the carefully crafted persona that is Trump and unearth the person and the full spectrum of his business dealings? To see the real Donald Trump is to plunge into all the conflicts of interest he denies, the financial tricks he dispenses, the crucial details he obfuscates, and the flimflam he offers up day in, day out.
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If someone is unable to articulate a real life example of an improvement over Trump that exemplifies the opposite of what they are complaining about...
Then, they need to STFU.
Deez Nuts
Trump: because the socialist jew media attacks him the most
I'll say it over and over, Trump is to Hillary as Ross Perot was to Bill
Nice hit job.
Now Nomi, do one on Corzine.
Nomi- former director at Goldman Sachs.
Must be some criminal bankers arseholes puckering over the Donald taking the reins at the Department of Justice.
I guess Nomi and her Vampire Squid Bankster buddies are getting worried the Donald may get elected and put the hammer oto Wall Street corruption. Fuck her.
The story on Trump's bankruptcies, esp. since they did involve a lot of debt, is that HE HAS SUCCEEDED IN SPITE OF THEM.
I haven't seen that argument made before.
Where does Trump stand on the Fed? Will he support a real audit and end the Fed?
Of course he doesn't. His wealth is in the real estate market. He has been paying politicians to keep the federal reserve printing press running. If (when) the real estate bubble pops, Trumps net worth would be diminished.
He makes money and benefits from the Feds corruption. He got politicians 'elected' that increased the Fed's power and influence.
End the Fed!
No one else will stop the Fed either, and you know it. But he'll close the border and make it less likely that my daughters will be raped. So take what you can get, your purity gives you nothing but a boner.
Nice guilt trip. Protect your daughters with firearms. You know the ones that Trump wants to make harder to get and some that he wants to ban.
There is a candidate who is calling for an audit of the Fed and has given multiple speeches on ending the Fed. He even spoke at an End the Fed rally!
This man has my support until he drops out. And no, Rand is not dropping out. He is in this thing til the convention. He is campaigning in all 50 states, not just the early ones. Don't believe everything you hear in the MSM.
Ask yourself why they are saying Rand will drop out soon when his support is actually growing!
Excuse me Tylers et al, but why are we fighting about this, again? Sorry to interrupt this debate over the features of the current facade our corrupted Republic is wearing, but in the face of decades of evidence to the contrary, do any of us really believe that the election of a particular individual as president can have any meaningful impact on the prevailing circumstances of the day, which see America being steadily drained of her vitality by the deep state? Can anyone make a serious case for a provable, material difference between the parties when it comes to the appalling consequences of prevailing federal policies?
These questions sound rhetorical, but I am certain many of you know they are not.
Please pardon the interruption. By all means, return to the gladiator's arena.
Read below. Some of us might be voting for a cat. Can't do a worse job. Hey, if the cat does not pan out we can tie it up in a burlap sack and throw it into the river.
Good comment, pair-o-dimes! I agree 100%
I'd also like to point out that a significant percent of ZH commenters were
getting all wet between the legs for Obama in 2008.
Seems a sucker, always a sucker. Don't waste your breathe fighting that idiocracy.
By standard analysis, you're right. But we're in the post game now, where a Trump inevitably comes out of the woodwork. Will everyone just stand down to tyranny? There will be men to come forth. He may be the first.
Let's wait before we pigeonhole them. The past is that, let's give someone a chance, maybe he can break the system. He certainly doesn't like being told, 'no'. Does he agree with us on everything? No, but he IS for change, and has a vested interest (his empire) in succeeding. He may just sit down with Schumer and put everything Schumer values on the table before a word is said. It WILL be different. What is our alternative? There's zero chance any of the others will affect real change, Trump just might.
Same comments made on obamas behalf in 2008...
Hope and Change.
Nomi's anti-Wall Street privilege; she regularly calls out the banksters hijacking our polities. So think again
Except this is the primary cycle not the main event. So what interest is Nomi serving at this particular moment?
Wow, for something that is written in the style of a blatant hit piece, there is virtually nothing in here that doesn't make me like Trump. He is the son of a self-made man who was given a legacy and--unlike most rich kids-- managed to build on it spectacularly instead of squandering it. You can accuse him of learning the real estate business from his dad's connections, but that doesn't explain his success in the media business.
My takeaway is, he is an outsider that learned how to work the system brilliantly.
But again we need to stay focused here: all Trump has to do is make the Republican Party, as it is currently composed, implode. If that is all he accomplishes, he will have been a success. All the Republicans have done for fifty years has been to act as enablers for the Democrat/Progressive agenda. Reagan's election represented a very brief interlude of sanity, until he got shot...after which, he got the message and got in line, although he did manage to do at least a little to stem the Progressive tide for a couple years.
Great comments, and great movie.
Great comments, and great movie.
I don't know, I mean, right off the bat Ms. Prins bad mouths Andrew Mellon, like we can't trust any of the Mellon family?
Now, first off, it was Mellon family money that gave us the Carlyle Group, and where would Amerika be without the Carlyle Group, I ask you????
Secondly, Chris Mellon (of that Mellon family), was the one who "leaked" the "fact" that Iran had nuclear weapons back in 2000? (Chris was high up in the Defense Intelligence Agency at the time.)
Surely, we can believe Chris Mellon?
Iran has had nukes since 2000?
So what's the problem?
/sarc
OT, but I'm thinking of starting a campaign titled "Send the Kunt to the Klink, 2016". Does anyone think this is too subtle to go over with the general public?
Yup, controlled opposition.
+ 2
I give Nomi Deez.
Is that Lincoln in the illustration? Ain't that the dude who murdered over 1 million of his own people
because they wanted to peacefully exit their alliance with the union they voluntarily joined?
The misery he caused lasted over 100 years after he died. Fucking Marfams retard. Kind of
reminds me of a certain Kenyan.
Your fallacy, it's so huge.
For people from other nations who read this site, watch and learn from my countrymen's mistakes:
This is how dictators get elected into power. The voters settle for the choices they're given and pick the 'best' one. They do not rise up demanding other choices. They do not make revolution in the street.
Doing anything politcally disruptive is seen as equivalent to being 'socially disruptive'. A siginificant amount of people do not band together. And even if they do, we all know that attention will not be brought to them because people are more interested in the next celebrity posing naked to express 'individiuality'. 'Politics' is dead in America. It's just a popularity contest now. That's why I've given up on America.
The "Trump as dictator" idea that is being promoted is frankly absurd. You want an example of a dictator that was elected, look at Obama. Every single thing he has set out to do he has accomplished, almost always via extra-legal or extra-judicial means, like suborning the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or illegally running guns into Mexico, or anything that Eric Holder ever did. And that's the stuff we KNOW about. Guaranteed there is a lot of stuff that looks suspicious right now that almost certainly involved treason, like the murder of Seal Team 6, or his connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and his obvious allegiance to the 57 Islamic states worldwide. ("I've been to all 57 states"-- remember that one? Well he was right, just not in the way most people imagined).
If Trump becomes dictator, he'd probably be the best qualified one since Julius Caesar.
Hillary said today that she would use executive order for gun control and anything else she wants to do. Trump can't be any worse than that.
I never mentioned Trump as becoming an elected dictator. In fact I doubt he would ever be so blatant.
What I said is that:
"This is how dictators get elected into power. The voters settle for the choices they're given and pick the 'best' one."
I don't care what fool is getting elected into office for 2016. My point is that whoever it is, it will be because they're better than the other guy. This attitude of acceptance (like the commentator above me demonstrates) is what my comment is about.
Buckaroo, what are the 57 Islamic states? I haven't heard of that before. If there is such a thing, obamas 57 state comment takes on a whole new creepy meaning. Please tell us more about this.
There is a better way to make a republican (or Democratic Party, for that matter) implode. You join the party as an EC with a vote on the local county level. Then, you fuck it up, beyond recognition. I did this with 15 other willing participants for two years in my local party (a significant County in the SE). I am still an EC but have (temporarily) retired from participation for a variety of reasons.
I will reemerge with my fellow provocateurs/saboteurs when the time is right and do it again. Even though we are not actively participating, the local establishment has been so cowed, they haven't done anything of significance this election cycle at all. They are still trying to "heal wounds" between factions and "come together". If this goal is actually achieved, we re-emerge and fuck it up again.
There are indeed challenges. I am glad to discuss these and our experience with anyone willing to listen or have a try at it in their county.
"All politics is local."
We all need to stop expecting to change things with a Presidential election.
It's either: 1) a dedication of time, effort, and treasure locally as our forefathers warned us.
Or 2) violent revolution. There is nothing in between.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation [a 1] is an international organisation founded in 1969 consisting of 57 member states. The organisation states that it is "the collective voice of the Muslim world" and works to "safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_of_the_Islamic_Conference
What's an "EC"?
An EC is an executive committeeman. Sometimes it is called a precinct captain or a president. Different states apply different monikers.
In a functioning electorate system, the EC is the lowest organizational political unit. As such, the founders envisioned this person as having the most (albeit, diluted) power because our system was designed to operate from the bottom up. (Think States rights, state militia's, senators selected by governers rather than by voters, etc).
Hoping for a top down solution (voting for the right President) is therefore an improbable solution. Also improbable for reasons Listed below, is restoring the precinct system, as envisioned. However, the restoration of the precincts is in our hands if we so choose to invest in it. Winning the Presidency is not.
But, admittedly, trying to convince people to get involved in the "designed" way requires a lot of effort. First, you have to educate them on it, secondly, you have to convince them that it will work, thirdly, they have to invest time. All three of these steps is in reality very difficult (but not impossible) to achieve. It requires a large amount of effort. People with large networks would (or will) be more effective at it.
Here's more if you're interested: https://libertytreeprecinctproject.wordpress.com
Contact me if you have ideas or have more questions.
Poor yanks...
Donald Trump - “I used the law four times and made a tremendous thing. I’m in business. I did a very good job.”
Raymond from Rain Man - "I'm an excellent driver."
Trump - global warming was a hoax invented by the chinese to take our jerbs
"I am so mentally defective that I am incapable of comprehending the kindergarten-level mathematics required to view and plot on a chart the progression of global temperatures over the last century, and thus believe in the delusion that the planet is warming and that it is warming due to the effects of humanity."
– MEAN BUSINESS, 10/5/2015
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. @realDonaldTrump 2012
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/265895292191248385
--------------------
Wow, thanks, that's both hilarious and frightening from a presidential candidate no less.
Edit:
What, so now Trump supporters are the new "warmists" or something? What the..?
Oh, this is going to work-out great, I can see it now...
The fact that there are even two people on the entire planet who would disapprove of criticism of that utterly ridiculous and embarssing statement enough to give a down vote puts icing on it for me.
And this is somehow worse than the nonsense pouring out of any of the other candidates so far?
Standard Disclaimer: and at least he's not on his knees (yet) offering to suck the dick of the MIC...
If he's not a bona fide establishment guy he's not in the oval office so your "point" is moot and irrelevant.
Not sure why people are attacking Prins on this. Trump's blind support here is a pitiful joke. Trump has many dubious connections to DC lobbyists, corporations and especially Wall Street banks. So we're not allowed to question him? What bullshit.
I won't last into 2016 election cycle here at ZH by the looks it. Had enough of that in 2012 with the Obama and Romney fucktards...
Haole, The cognitive dissonce here at Zero Hedge is palpable. YAY trump! AGW is a hoax! Go Putin!
You're welcome. IIRC you were not so sure about it not long ago, commenting to avoid reddies shall we say? cheech wizard had to open his mister military yap but notice what he didn't say...
Trump is what passes for a statesman these days? facepalm
I've been hunting for some clearer idea of where Russia would come down on COP21 Paris but she was holding her cards close to her chest. Now we know as revealed in his UN speech last Monday. I had a feeling it would be firm. LOL
ALL roads lead to Paris
OOPS. THE UNITED NATIONS ITSELF HAS SAID YOU ARE WRONG.
https://archive.today/i29K7
Change your tune before you're yanked off the stage, you braindead freak.
Climate change is all about control. TPTB want total control. That's behind the gun control movement in America. Think of them as the Borg Collective.
There's this avatar here named Flakmeister... You two would make a lovely couple.
I can't imagine why. He seems to have deluded himself into thinking the world is warming.
GLOBAL = all over the entire world....EVERYWHERE ON EARTH
WARMING = rising temperatures
HOW are record cold temps possible ANYWHERE, if TEMPS ARE RISING EVERYWHERE.....
Do you see how stupid you are?
You have my vote for the dumbest fuck in the thread, or the most disingenuous liar...
Your pick...
You took both prizes hands down years ago when the agenda you pole smoke and cheerlead for was essentially proven to be a sham and a construct to redistribute wealth, engineer social and financial control globally through climate policy. Your masters at the UN and IPCC have admitted to such so please, spare us any of your BS because I realize it's bottomless.
Charlatan.
...and once again, consumate hypocrite.
Have you heard, there's this new thing called Agenda2030 that sounds just your speed, the whole AGW/AGCC/AGwhatever-they-call-it-now must be getting a little stale, even for a quasi-scientist-wannabe?
It would seem I misinterpreted your reply to me above somewhat. That would explain your enthusiam for BTC which btw appealed to me as well. It must have been difficult for you clashing with nmewn over that when you're obviously two peas in a pod when it comes to libertarian ideology. Hay, I kinda liked Gov. Gary Johnson.
My "Edit" was in response to the suckers publicly demonstrating their blind ignorance by down-voting me, not you. Sorry 'bout that.
Ohh! It's HackMiser! Where've you been, shill? We've missed wiping the floor with you.
How about global warming was hugely accelerated by Nomi Prins' friends shifting American jobs to China where there never were and are not now any environmental regulations whatsoever.
That is, look to your criminal banks, e.g. Goldman, et al, when you want to look for the root cause of "global warming".
Yeah, that was why is was predicted in 1896...
I agree Kayman that the role of bankster fraud is a huge driver in the cause of AGW. MOAR people to enslave with debt requires strip-mining the fresh planets abundant resources which requires 'money' (capital) which could be made out of thin air. But to say that their are no consequences for turning natural resources into pollution on an equally vast scale is, well, something a bankster would want you to believe.
The World Meteorlogical Organization, rooted in the navy men ~1850, the International Meteorological Organization 1872.
YAWN...
You're right that graph is pretty boring. Especially when you consider that humans were around for virtually none of it, let alone 7 billion of us.
Hay! nice time stamp.
Yawn...we're on the lower right...all 7B of us.
I do not see any reality to Trump's campaign, and this didn't change my mind.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/assume-you-are-being-played/
Hillary - - - is that you ?????
No, I am not Hillary.
There is zero reality to Trump's campaign, it is most likely a mis-direction by Roger Stone, that is one of his standard ploys. And therefore, given Stone's long associations with the prominent neocons, on behalf of, keeping attention on Trump while Twig, Shrub's brother finishes collecting the $B or so that buys him the nomination, and, they hope, the Presidency.
MSM is your faithful guide : Keep your eye on that Trump, he is the MAN. Such a dissident, so different, not a member of the establishment.
How much $ has Jeb raised? Much more than the other candidate. So this is just a timeout, while the Republican Establishment gets its ducks in a row, trades out the other candidates in various ways, and come campaign season, it will be clear to everyone that somehow, a candidate has magically appeared in everyone's mind at the same time.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/in-the-age-of-propaganda/
Think about what Trump's price was.
So many adds on this site...you are now like Facebook and all the other crap
Worse... I hear on facebook you can actually type in a message without half the characters disappearing, script errors or page resets....
Note to the ZH gatekeepers: If any individual complains about "ads" on this site, boot them immediately. They are obviously far too stupid or far too lazy to learn how to block ads on a website.
Standard Disclaimer: This also implies that are also far too STUPID to even learn how to use a search engine.
I just view him as a populist/opportunist. It's a shame that, at least in my humble opinion, that soundbites carry more weight than logical discourse. But, I guess things never change. I recall a letter from one of my great grandfathers to his grown children, to beware of Andrew Jackson's populist fervor, telling them not "to don the coon skin hat!"
I'm voting for Cthulu, because I refuse to settle for a lesser evil.
"How Trump Became Trump And What That Means For The Rest Of Us"
I don't care and why are we paying any attention whatsoever to this election farce anyway?
People are already falling for it AGAIN, even some frequenting ZH, which is astounding.
I like allot of what Trump says, but his tax cuts would just rachet up the debt even higher, so I can't vote for him. NOT ONE CANDIDATE HAS A PLAN TO SERIOUSLY REDUCE OUR DEBT, WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU? The American public would tar and feather a candidate that would try to anyway. That is why it is absolutely necessary that the US citizens experience either a bond default, or a repudiation of their currency. THEN THEY MIGHT GET IT.
Dear Econ 101 FAILURE.....
Tax cuts lead to increased revenues, INCREASED SPENDING LEADS TO INCREASED DEBT.....
Wow....just wow.....
You are truly on a roll....
in a 'debt as money' monetary system, such as we are forced to use.........the DEBT will rise regardless of which monkey sits in the WH......
the jobs from mexico and china will come back to our shores when the FRN is dead.............not before......
trav7777-'the system is the master and all must serve it'........
Ok, so what is so bad about all his business dealings? And what does that have to do with the issues that matter, namely driving up the welfare rolls and driving down middle class incomes through massive low wage immigration and massive export of american jobs overseas?
The establishment is desperate to deflect attention away from his issues.
Yesterday, I watched George Stuffitupyourass interview The Don about the shooting in Oregon. George was incredulous when Trump told him that "we don't need tougher gun laws" and proceeds to ask him three times why we didn't It was just another poor effort by the lamestream media to ostracize Donald, just like Ms. Prins is doing here
Why if the presstitutes had been doing their real job, keeping the public informed and aware, Obamymammy and Shrub would never made it to the ballot, let alone be two-time appointed puppets. The media should take a hard look in the mirror...
They don't care. Reporting the news went away years ago. The American press is more about: forming public opinion, entertainment, disinformation and propaganda. They are running Psy-Ops for the government.
"We will know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” - William Casey, CIA Director, 1981.
The USA is bankrupt. Who has more experience than Trump in dealing with bankruptcy?
Obama, under Obama more debt has been added than all other Presidents combined (by the end of his term at current rates)
That is the expontial formula. And the next president will be the same, until it all comes crashing down.
Stop thinking of presidents as different.
A half white facist Marxist queer is different, if not on policy then at least on preference.
Since the Donald mainly borrowed in New York and New York is where our financial overlords conjure money out of thin air, I for one, give him full marks for drawing a red circle around his casinos and handing them back to those criminals. Fractional Reserve banking with no legal reserve requirements is criminal , plain and simple.
K
Great article on Trump, Ms. Prins. It's about time Z/H started getting critical of Trump IMHO.
ZH isn't getting critical of Trump, they're showing you what the hypocritical goons like Prin are doing to try and minimize him.
"great article on Trump there Nomi." "Great job there Brownie"
Fuuuck... that is some chutzpah!
I upvoted you on the shot taken, but please don't even think of equating myself with a guy like Bush. I am just an old man eating stewed tomatoes in a tin, is all.
Great article on Trump, Ms. Prins. It's about time Z/H started getting critical of Trump IMHO.
Looks like they're on the same team to me. Neither is asking "Why did WTC7 fall down?" The best way to deal with the opposition is to "be" the opposition.
Will Republicans let the socialist jew media choose their candidate for three elections in a row?
At least The Donald understands what offshore tax-havens do (see link below), and no doubt he uses them to minimize his taxes. That should in no way disqualify him from becoming the US President, since all the other candidates use them too, though they probably don't understand the mechanics involved. The difference between him and them is that he has the guts to speak freely about wars and refugees and corruption - things that are infinitely more important to Americans than how he makes and saves his money. http://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2013/01/offshore-tax-havens-what-they-...
The difference between him and them is that he has the guts to speak freely about wars and refugees and corruption - things that are infinitely more important to Americans than how he makes and saves his money.
Right ... like he's been really really noisy about WTC7 falling down and proving we are an "occupied country".
Lies, deception, finances.....
That bitch is accusing him of being a politician!
Let's run my cat Spread Sheets
Got my vote.
Where does SS stand on the Fed?
After reading this article, I've decided I like Trump even more.
He is pandering to women named Crisy?
As a Brazilian who is watching everything from a distance:
All of the candidates are shit. Trump, at least, is honest and not financed by jews - that's why the media attacks him so much, it has nothing to do with what he says, what he thinks or who he is, because if he made polemic statements, the other candidates did as well. Just look at Hilary, literally crazy. Fiorina, Jew-Lover warmonger. Sanders, a lunatic communist. And the media is silent about them. If the Hillary scandal was actually Trump's, hell would have broke loose, but she is even being shielded sometimes.
Really America, what has happened to you? There is really no other option besides Trump, not because he is good, but because the others are uber-trash.
Trump, at least, is honest and not financed by jews - that's why the media attacks him so much, it has nothing to do with what he says, what he thinks or who he is, because if he made polemic statements, the other candidates did as well.
No candidate for the Presidency now can be considered open and honest without bringing to the forefront the subject of WTC7 falling down. That is perfect evidence that we are an occupied country. And anyone claiming to seek the top office in an occupied country needs to address the issue of what he will do with the occupiers.
why i like trunp: he says fuck you to all the established career politicians. is he a scam artist? sure. every business he ever started declared BNK at least once but at this point in time, who else will upset the applecart? i wanna see the whole shit pile collapse so i dont care who does it....
hannah
"every business he ever started declared BNK at least once"
You have absorbed and repeated utter trash. Pathetic.
he says fuck you to all the established career politicians.
Would he say "fuck you" to someone publicly asking him "Why did WTC7 fall down?".
My personal preference from a libertarian perspective is for the US to get out policing the world. But as that likely isn't going to happen, then we need an authoritarian like Trump....God help us though!!
because the miserable fraud hussein obama did well for the oligarchy, I'll support whatever NWO sock puppet the propaganda teevee media tells me to...
There are always quotes that stick in your head why each of the people running should not be President.
Standard Disclaimer: Like I said earlier, if I am going to vote, it will be for the person not currently sucking the dick of the MIC.
Typical leftist journalist hit job displaying the lack of ethics of the author.
For instance, see the quote "Ever the con artist, Trump recalled, “I couldn’t sell him on my experience or my accomplishments, so instead I sold him on my energy and my enthusiasm.”"
She quotes a statement by Trump where he is honest about what he had to offer at the time, i.e. not a lot of experience or accomplishments and where he focused on what he did have, i.e. energy and enthusiasm. She defines that as being a con artist and labels that he was always a con artist without providing any evidence he actually defrauded anyone, which is the essence of being a con artist.
According to Prins "You wouldn’t know, listening to him, that the number of illegal immigrants has dropped significantly since the financial crisis". But the Pew report (suspect itself) that she cites claims it has "leveled off", not "dropped significantly". So just a dishonest presentation by the author.
It is actually telling that in attempting to slime Trump she actually can't find any cases of fraud, criminality or dishonesty. Her claim apparently is that he only presents his best characteristics to the world (unlike all other politicians and journalists) and that is somehow terrible.
Bazza
This hatchet job by Prins is the kind of yellow journalism that is funded behind the scenes by her masters. Those that throw shit forget they also get it on themselves.
Next thing you know Nomi will be writing about how Goldman Sachs slime-balled American taxpayers out of $18 billion via AIG.
It is actually telling that in attempting to slime Trump she actually can't find any cases of fraud, criminality or dishonesty.
You would think that Trump, owning a chunk of lower Manhattan, would know why WTC7 fell down. Prins misses an opportunity here to expose that and to ask the rhetorical question "what does it mean to be elected President in an occupied country".
A little surprised at Prins attempting somewhat of a hit article, even if a half hearted one. I guess there is more to her than she would let on. Too bad for her.
The saddest part is that Trump's still probably better than the other 15 elephant sock puppets.
I thought you people were smart...there will be no 2016 election and trump is planted by the rothchild zionists for your entertainment to distract....you guys are so friggin stupid but one day you will wake up...you probably supported obama in 2008 also....wtf is wrong with you people? Nomi is as stupid as you all for even addressing this in an article. And zerohedge is stupid for not seeing the clear picture right in our faces. No wonder this country has gone to hell...you all are really really stupid...Sorry, but its true.
No fan of Trump but the rest are even bigger jagoffs
Trump says Snowden is a traitor and not a patriotic whistleblower.
Why didn't Trump talk about the misuse of Classified Secrets designation to hide unconstitutional government misconduct that should be punished.
Not to punish the messenger and whistleblower - Snowden
Sad but true. Ron Paul is the only one who could fix America. But America isn't ready for genuine solutions and now is about to learn some painful lessons.
Ron Paul is the only one who could fix America.
Ron Paul had lots of opportunities (and still does) to ask "Why did WTC7 fall down" and bring the subject of our living in an "occupied country" onto the table.
7 years later...
Where was Obama born?
What were his grades in college?
What was the tpoic of his college thesis?
Why do you have several social security numbers?
Why do you have a SS# from Connecticut when you never lived there?
Who paid for your college education at Harvard?
Why are Obama's medical records, his school records, his birth records or his passport records all sealed?
Is Frank Marshall Davis your real father?
Why didn't you confront your pastor of 20 years about his racist, anti-America sermons?
Admitted terrorist Bill Ayers said he wrote your book "Dreams From My Father", why did you say you wrote it?
and..............................................
Where was Obama born?
[S] Doesn't matter.
What were his grades in college?
[S] If they were good you'd already know. The fact that they are hidden tells you all you need to know.
What was the tpoic of his college thesis?
[S] this would be interesting.
Why do you have several social security numbers?
[S] This should be investigated. ...but nobody cares.
Why do you have a SS# from Connecticut when you never lived there?
[S] See above.
Who paid for your college education at Harvard?
[S] also would be interesting to know.1
Why are Obama's medical records, his school records, his birth records or his passport records all sealed?
[S] would be interesting to know.
Is Frank Marshall Davis your real father?
[S] Actually, if so it would at least make the Bamster natural born and there for eligible for the office he holds. As it stands, with a British Kenyan father, he most clearly is NOT natural born and thus ineligible to be president.....and yet, here we are.
:)
Squid
Why didn't you confront your pastor of 20 years about his racist, anti-America sermons?
Admitted terrorist Bill Ayers said he wrote your book "Dreams From My Father", why did you say you wrote it?
and..............................................
So who cares if he's got a few bankruptcies to his name? At least he has that.
After all, they elected a no-name community organizer who had not done a god damned thing. Why not give the slightly imperfect businessman a try? At least he knows what it's like to fail AND succeed. Obama knew nothing except to lie.
All true, but so f***ing what? The other candidates, except Bernie who is too timid, are f***ing useless garbage. Completely owned by the oligarchs…and he isn’t. That’s good enough for me. We sure as hell don’t need Jeb or Hillary in there, two more pieces of human excrement.
The entire political scene is a farce, with a congress that refuses to make the tough decisions and balance the budget by cutting entitlements. Trump will cut the crap out of this bloated government. He is the ONLY one who will.
C'mon! Trump is a project to help Dems win. GOP will not endorse him, so he will go as an independent, and this is then game over for both him and GOP. Hence Dems win. Very easy.
This is great. The hack jobs just keep his numbers growing. Any one else standing up to the media? He's got my vote on that alone. You can not let them define you PERIOD. He knows this. Palin tried to make nice with them for the duration of the campaign and look what it got her, Katie Kunt. If his only success is destroying the Rupukes then that is a good thing. We can get on with the real show.
Right on!, Trumps bad, we can't control him, he is not one of our trained puppets, he might even do somethig to help the average American if he is elected!! therefore he must be destroyed.
Any one else standing up to the media?
I would like to see him ask them ... or them ask him "why did WTC7 fall down"?
I have been reader of ZH for some years .I have been following Donald Trump's campaign for a while. I have a good news and a bad news
Good News is that Donald Trump has managed to stage a COUP against TPTB successfully..
Bad News is that economy will not be falling as expected..