Trump is the Kardashian of Money
Kim Kardashian became famous by convincing everyone she was famous. Trump became rich convincing everyone he is rich.
Once you understand that, the rest is obvious. Trumps marketing strategy for much of his life has been selling his success. It’s a common business strategy. We instinctively imitate the people we want to be, which marketers figured out a long time ago. Rock stars sell records because we think their cool, and we want to be cool. Models sell clothes and perfume because their attractive, and we want to be attractive. And yes, you can also sell success this way.
Trump has always flaunted his success, but you can definitely say he started selling his success in 1987 when he published Art of the Deal. Note that his first bankruptcy was 1991, only four years later. From, then on there are more real estate bankruptcies, but there are also new business based primarily on the idea that Trump is a rich and successful business man, such as The Apprentice and Trump Vodka. In other words, as Trump was failing in the traditional family business of real estate, he shifted to the business of selling the Trump brand of wealth and success.
(I’m getting all of this from Wikipedia, so rather than pepper this post with a lot of footnotes you can just look there).
Now Trump's business is primarily licensing his name.
From here, we see why he is most sensitive when others suggest he is worth less than he says. For once, it might not be ego, but business necessity. This is also, the reasons there is so much discrepancy on how much he is worth. Much of the Trump wealth is based on the value of his intellectual property, the Trump name, which is subjective.
But a more interesting and bigger problem is that we don’t know how much he is in debt. How much you are worth is not how much you have. It’s how much you have minus how much you owe. Trump has never released that information. He could be in so much debt his net worth is zero.
Trump got himself into a sweet position. He is able to sell his name because people believes he is rich, even if he is not. This means even if he his broke, as long as he can borrow enough to keep people believing he is rich, he still gets to make money. Pretty sweet huh. What could go wrong?
Well, you could run for president.
Look, I don’t know that he is broke, but I do know this. If he is no where as rich as he claims, he will never release his tax returns. He will be broke if he does.
However, for us, there is a serious outcome. If Trump completes the election never releasing his tax returns, then we will never see another politician's tax returns again. The Trump candidacy could already be harming democracy.
So, I say this. Maybe he is a rich as he claims. But until we see his tax returns, we should treat him as if he is broke.
Trump has always flaunted his success, but you can definitely say he started selling his success in 1987 when he published Art of the Deal. Note that his first bankruptcy was 1991, only four years later. From, then on there are more real estate bankruptcies, but there are also new business based primarily on the idea that Trump is a rich and successful business man, such as The Apprentice and Trump Vodka. In other words, as Trump was failing in the traditional family business of real estate, he shifted to the business of selling the Trump brand of wealth and success.
(I’m getting all of this from Wikipedia, so rather than pepper this post with a lot of footnotes you can just look there).
Now Trump's business is primarily licensing his name.
From here, we see why he is most sensitive when others suggest he is worth less than he says. For once, it might not be ego, but business necessity. This is also, the reasons there is so much discrepancy on how much he is worth. Much of the Trump wealth is based on the value of his intellectual property, the Trump name, which is subjective.
But a more interesting and bigger problem is that we don’t know how much he is in debt. How much you are worth is not how much you have. It’s how much you have minus how much you owe. Trump has never released that information. He could be in so much debt his net worth is zero.
Trump got himself into a sweet position. He is able to sell his name because people believes he is rich, even if he is not. This means even if he his broke, as long as he can borrow enough to keep people believing he is rich, he still gets to make money. Pretty sweet huh. What could go wrong?
Well, you could run for president.
Look, I don’t know that he is broke, but I do know this. If he is no where as rich as he claims, he will never release his tax returns. He will be broke if he does.
However, for us, there is a serious outcome. If Trump completes the election never releasing his tax returns, then we will never see another politician's tax returns again. The Trump candidacy could already be harming democracy.
So, I say this. Maybe he is a rich as he claims. But until we see his tax returns, we should treat him as if he is broke.
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