Trump's tax returns

[psionl0]

*Steve Rogers handing Nick Fury 10 bucks GIF*

Somebody else who is shocked and amazed that Trump would do such a thing.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Somebody else who is shocked and amazed that Trump would do such a thing.

Yeah but unlike you "I'm not shocked that he would do it" and "Therefore it's no big deal that he did it, everyone does, LOL Librul tears" aren't the same thing.

 

[timhau]

In 2017 when Trump paid $750 in taxes JoeBiden paid $3.7 million.
And Biden gave $1 million to charity, Trump gave $0.

That, by the way, relates to what made me first think that Trump is a huckster. That was when the first or second season of The Apprentice was shown over here, and the contestants were involved in organizing some sort of a small charity event. I don't remember the exact numbers, but the wining team managed to raise something like $10,000, and Trump magnanimously promised to double that amount from his own money (insert several rounds of "Wow!" and applause here).

OK, this guy is supposedly a billionaire several times over, and now he's giving away $10,000 and I'm supposed to be impressed? A real billionaire would gather more than that by looking between his couch cushions.

A quick search with Altavista or whatever it was that we used back then did reveal that Trump was, even then, notoriously stingy with his charitable contributions. He did, however, regularly call Forbes after they released their billionaire list, complaining that they have him listed way too low, so his "Self-promotion beats actual achievement" -schtick is nothing new.

 

[Aridas]

I wonder if Forbes will reassess the conclusion Trump is a billionaire.

Mmm. To poke at this with some unofficial sleuthing -

Looks like there’s an answer to the $4B question on Trump’s finances: Smells like mortgage fraud

Early last year, Michael Cohen released a few pages of Trump’s financial statements in advance of his testimony to the House Oversight committee, newly in the hands of a Democratic majority. I noticed something strange in those statements, and wrote a diary about it: In the March 31, 2013 statement of Trump assets, there’s a new asset line for “Brand Value,” listed at a whopping $4 billion, that wasn’t on the previous statement from June 30, 2012. This $4 billion accounted for nearly the entire increase in Trump’s net worth over those 9 months.

<snip>

Now, you don’t personally guarantee a loan unless you absolutely have to. So it looks like whoever was underwriting this mortgage didn’t believe there was enough equity in the property itself to back the loan. (Trump’s 2013 financial statement has the net equity of New York City commercial real estate at $1.06 billion.) So the lender required a personal guarantee. But Trump needed to show personal assets to back that guarantee, and poof! The $4 billion in “Brand Value” appears.

<snip>

There’s a term for inflating assets, or making them up out of whole cloth, in order to secure a loan: Mortgage fraud.

So... a takeaway is that about $4 Billion of Trump's supposed worth seems to have been conjured out of the void, and with about that much substance to it.

 

[psionl0]

Yeah but unlike you "I'm not shocked that he would do it" and "Therefore it's no big deal that he did it, everyone does, LOL Librul tears" aren't the same thing.

You are just pretending that my subsequent post doesn't exist so that you can make up strawman arguments.

 

[alfaniner]

Someone on CNN said Biden should hand Trump a check for $750 at the debate and say he heard he needed a loan.

I'd rather have Biden put $750 in cash on the floor directly in front of them and say "It's yours if you pick it up before the debate ends." I can just see Trump's eyes constantly flicking to the pile and licking his lips, all the while being totally distracted from the questions.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You are just pretending that my subsequent post doesn't exist so that you can make up strawman arguments.

Okay. The New York Times is just lying is your argument. "Fake news!"

 

[Segnosaur]

I'd rather have Biden put $750 in cash on the floor directly in front of them and say "It's yours if you pick it up before the debate ends." I can just see Trump's eyes constantly flicking to the pile and licking his lips, all the while being totally distracted from the questions.

All these are fun suggestions.. but, I suspect the debates probably have a "no props" rule.

Sent from my LM-X320 using Tapatalk

 

[Aridas]

His base won't budge, they don't care. Hell, they are literally placing their lives in danger just to see the man on stage.
I think they'll just see his tax returns as evidence of his savvy business skills.

Hard to say. I doubt they'll see it in that light, personally, but... different values and narratives come into play there. For example, "He's a criminal? So what? All those politicians are criminals. Trump is on my side, and that's what actually matters to me."

GOP propaganda is corrosive to democracy.

I have no faith in the average Trump supporter because I think the average Trump supporter has the intelligence of a lobotomized gold fish.

Alternately - "I had no idea that the Mueller Report said anything bad about President Trump" said the old lady after a town hall with Amash.

Controlled media pretty much is a thing on the right, effectively speaking.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Okay. The New York Times is just lying is your argument. "Fake news!"

Claims without presented evidence are rejected.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

So the NYT has given us the "eye opening revelation" (based on documents it hasn't disclosed) that Trump is no different to other 1 percenters. He has taken advantage of the complex tax laws to reduce his tax liability to practically nothing.

I'm shocked I tells you, SHOCKED!

Yes and no. None of it is new to us people outside the alternative facts bubble, but it's another nail in the coffin for the idea of Trump being a successful businessman, and of the idea of him somehow being better than the rest of the politicians/rich people in America. Remember when he was going to drain the swamp? Remember when he ran on the idea that as a rich entrepreneur he could help the US bigly, since he was so good at negotiations and running a successful business?

Also, we all knew Trump had wormed out of paying tax, and that he might not be as rich as he claimed, but now we know just how bad he's doing.

The cultists won't be swayed by this, as it will only reach them after being carefully filtered and spun by the alternative media, but more rational people, fence-sitters, just might think twice about re-electing a man who's on the verge of personal bankruptcy.

 

[JoeMorgue]

If you are only talking about his core sycophants, that wasn't my point. Those people are not going to care about the NYT's exposé.

Okay we need to address this.

Everytime someone applies... like amoeba level pattern recognition to the last 4 years of politics and makes the minimally observant observation that nothing is shifting support for Trump outside of the margin of error of the polls despite all the insane things that keep happening this is always the retort.

"Oh I'm not talking about this core group of supporters. Of course their opinions won't be changed. No I'm talking about..."

About who? Finish that thought. Who? Who are you talking about? And an answer is going to require explaining how you know they even exist.

538 and 270 and Reuters and AP and NBC and ABC and all those organizations that are showing these same trends of just literally nothing affecting Trump's "40% +/- the margin of error of the poll" level of support which has stayed exactly the same since the moron got the nomination aren't somehow magically going around asking people who are already sure about how they think of Trump to the point that nothing can change their mind and no one else.

These are polls of "X number of Americans." or "Y Number of Likely Voters" or "Z Number of Registered voters." They aren't going out of their way to only talk to people whose minds are made up. If the "effect" was there, these polls would show it. Like they do this for a living you know?

There are swing voters. There are undecided voters. There are fence sitters. What there is not is a magical tipping point demographic of people having their opinions changed about Trump who all just up and decided to never talk to pollsters but who are magically going to decide to show up at the polls in about a month.

2016 was a game of inches in the margins of a few counties. 2020 will be the same. There will be no "wave."

 

[Regnad Kcin]

He pays more on his hair than in taxes. Very meme-able, I think.

Challenge accepted.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Hope that Democrats resist the urge to jeer Trump for being broke. The real story is that he's a tax cheat.

Mocking someone for being broke not exactly a crowd pleaser, especially in the current economy.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I think most people get why Trump being broke is a different "thing" from your cousin working two minimum wage jobs just to pay rent being broke.

 

[Distracted1]

Hope that Democrats resist the urge to jeer Trump for being broke. The real story is that he's a tax cheat.

Mocking someone for being broke not exactly a crowd pleaser, especially in the current economy.

But surely if a man with a very good brain, who knows more about so many things than anybody and works harder than anyone, can be broke there are some pretty serious flaws in the system, no?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I think most people get why Trump being broke is a different "thing" from your cousin working two minimum wage jobs just to pay rent being broke.

Given the successful decades-long propaganda campaign of labelling democrats as out of touch big city elitists, they shouldn't go within 100 miles of trying to poor shame anyone.

The fraud is the meat of the issue. Anything else is off message.

 

[cosmicaug]

2016 was a game of inches in the margins of a few counties. 2020 will be the same. There will be no "wave."

The margin will be wider but the accounting of the margin will be done differently (more mail-in ballots with different issues in counting them, in-person voting may fail in places, frivolous voting fraud claims will be raised, voter suppression may be more effective) and we don't know how that will turn out. If enough of the differences favor Trump, we may end up with, say, twice the margin as last time, but an election that still appears as close as 2016.

So by all appearances, we may still have exactly the situation above.

 

[pgwenthold]

Someone on CNN said Biden should hand Trump a check for $750 at the debate and say he heard he needed a loan.

now _that's_ funny!

 

[pgwenthold]

Biden should come on with two stacks of bills, put them on his podium, then point to the smallest one and say "taxes" and then point to the pile that is nearly ten times bigger and say "hairspray".

for the record, it's closer to 100 times bigger