Thursday, May 19, 2011

Did Donald Trump Drop Out Because He is a Wet Raccoon?

The conventional wisdowm says Donald Trump dropped out of the 2012 Presidential race because he made a fool of himself on the birth certificate issue. Or because he was never really serious and was just angling for a bigger paycheck from his TV show Celebrity Apprentice.

"Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector," his Monday announcement proclaimed. Getting back to what he does best seems like a good reason.

But here's another angle. Trump has claimed that his net worth was $7 billion. Forbes magazine, on the other hand, puts his net worth at only $2.7 billion. That's over $4 billion missing from Trump's highly-touted business prowess.

In fact, Donald Trump first went on the Forbes U.S. billionaire list in 1988. But $1 billion invested in the S&P 500 back in 1988 would be worth $4.7 billion today. Invested in the Dow Jones Industrials it would be worth $5.7 billion. That would mean Trump has done $2 or $3 billion worse than if he had just put his money in the stock market.

Now it is quite possible that the net worth exaggerations started back in 1988. His ex-wife Ivana was reported in the press back in 1990 as saying The Donald was only worth $400 to $600 milllion not the $1 billion he claimed. Going from $.5 billion to $2.7 billion would be more in line with gains in the stock market averages, but would still be just average.

If you think about it, maybe Donald Trump was running for President so that he'd have an excuse to park his money in the stock market for the 2 years of compaigning and 8 years in office, assuming election to a first and second term. By my calculations, that might be worth $1.5 billion over Trump continuing to invest his money in his businesses himself.

"What's the difference between Donald Trump's hair and a wet raccoon? A wet raccoon doesn't have seven billion f*cking dollars in the bank." That was the joke Donald Trump told on himself on Commedy Central in March.

Now maybe the Donald is going to say he was only joking or that "f*cking dollars" aren't quite the same thing as real dollars. But I say if he doesn't have the $7 billion dollars he claimed to have, there is no difference between Donald Trump and a wet raccoon.

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