MAGA

BLM protests are mostly young people outdoors wearing masks. Still wrong because they are in fact spreading the virus. Trump fans are largely elderly, indoors without masks. Pure stupidity.

The NY Times obtained more than two decades of tax information for Trump. Excerpt below, about debts that have never been disclosed.

“This time around, he is personally responsible for loans and other debts totaling $421 million, with most of it coming due within four years. Should he win re-election, his lenders could be placed in the unprecedented position of weighing whether to foreclose on a sitting president.”

That’s a hell of a maturity structure if his businesses are not really generating income like it looks like.

He can prolly refinance. But from what I read he is selling passive investments to come up with the dinero. That sounds a bit desperate. You should never sell, it generates a taxable event!

No offense…but I think you guys know almost nothing about personal finance and taxes. (Note - nothing I say here should be construed as a defense for Donald Trump’s continued presidency, re-election, or ability to run the country.)

DJT has assets worth almost $4 billion. If he has $400m in maturing debt–that’s nothing. That’s 10% of his capital structure. Sure–he has to come up with some way to pay it back–but if he can borrow the money (which I’m quite sure he can)–problem solved!!! And if he can’t–then he just has to generate some operating capital in the next four years.

“But he can’t generate any operating capital!!! He’s broke and all his properties are losing money!!!” No, they’re not. There’s a difference between an accounting profit, an operating profit, an economic profit, and a tax profit.

Think of it this way–if DJT makes $50m on a reality TV show, and he has $20m in “operating profit” (which includes revenues and operating expenses, but excludes taxes and depreciation) from a hotel/golf course/resort, then you might think he has $70m in taxable income. But you’d be wrong.

He will take that $70m and invest it back into his resort. And that $70m becomes a deduction, which may be able to be expensed immediately under the IRS capitalization rules. (Anything with less than a 15-year life is immediately expensed. Anything with more than that has to be capitalized and depreciated.) The “accounting profit” is depreciating the $70m over 30 years, but the IRS allows most of it to be immediately expensed. So the “taxable income” is lower than the “accounting” income is.

Moreover, since he just contributed $70m back into the resort, he can probably go out and borrow an additional $70m–which can also be capitalized and depreciated. Now–he has another $70m to depreciate. Now he has $70m in income and $140m in expenses, which generates a $70m loss, which can be carried forward for 20 years.

Most people look at this and say, “OH MY GOD!!! THE PRESIDENT LOST $70 MILLION IN A SINGLE YEAR? AND HE’S RUNNING OUR COUNTRY??? OH MY GOD!!!” What they don’t realize is that even though he has zero taxable income, his net worth increased by $100m ($70m in “income” and $30m of unrealized capital gain–net of the accumulated debt)–and the IRS does not tax net worth. (At least not yet.) The IRS taxes taxable income, of which he has zero.

If you rinse and repeat this for 30-40 years, you accumulate a lot of money. Granted, you also accumulate debt, but the debt is only a fraction of the assets. The assets keep increasing in value to the tune of 15-20% per year, and the interest expense is 5-6%. He will keep doing this for ever and ever and ever. And once he’s dead and gone, his kids will pick up the torch after him and continue to run his empire, the way he picked up his dad’s torch and ran with it.

Again–maybe this is morally repugnant because it perpetuates dynastic wealth while keeping the poor in the poor house. I’m not here to opine on morality. I just state the facts–which is that Donald Trump is doing just fine.

Huh. Why is the governor of Texas making it really difficult for people in Harris County to vote (this is primarily Houston)?

Oh. My. God.

I guess they’ll have to drive to one of the 802 actual voting sites inside Harris County to cast their ballot.

Isn’t there a pandemic going on that has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States and more than 16,000 people in Texas? It would seem that drop-off ballot boxes would be a very cheap investment that would 1) protect the public and 2) make it easy for people to vote.

Why would the governor of Texas not want to do those two things?

objection. Assumes facts not in evidence.

Huh. Well, it seems that under the governor’s proclamation, there would be one drop-off box in each county in Texas, even though Harris County (#1 in population, with 4.71 million Texans) is much bigger than say, McMullen County (#250, with less than 1,000 Texans). BTW, Texas has 259 counties and that’s the most in the U.S. Just seven counties account for about half of the state’s population.

Anyway, it seems the governor’s proclamation makes it easier for some Texans to vote in this manner and makes it more difficult for others. Why doesn’t the governor want all Texans to have similar voting options and availability?

i would really like an app where i can vote kind of like tinder.

Why not? If we can do banking or payments (e.g. Venmo) through apps on our phones / computers, why not voting?

They do have similar voting options and availability. There is one voting station for every 6000-ish residents, and one place to drop off your ballot in the mailbox in the county.

I’ll go ahead and pre-empt your next question: Why does Governor Abbott make it relatively more difficult for voters in the major metro areas? The answer is quite simple–voters in the major metro areas are more likely to vote Democrat. Governor Abbott is a Republican. So he is doing everything within his power to keep his party in power.

You could whine and b!tch about how this is unfair. Maybe it is. (I don’t claim to know what is “right” or “fair” or “moral”.( But the Democrats would do the same thing. They will also do whatever they can to stay in power. They just don’t have the power to do it (at least not in Texas).

Remember the Golden Rule. He who has the gold (or in this case, the votes) makes the rules.

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Thanks for saying it out loud.

I question Governor Abbott’s patriotism and civic principles.

Do you really believe that a Democratic governor wouldn’t do the same thing? I mean, c’mon man. The Democrats will do everything they can to try and get votes for themselves–just like the Republicans.

This is Politics 101. Increase your voter base by any means necessary while suppressing the other party’s vote. Tax the other party’s constituents while funneling that tax money to your constituents. Do whatever it takes to make your party look good while making the other party look bad. Lie if you have to. Just win, baby.

If you really think that Democrats are somehow morally superior, then I’m not sure we have a lot of common ground.

Why do you keep talking about parties instead of principles?

I think that if you are an eligible voter in the United States, voting should be easy, convenient, informed, secure, and safe. In other (more highly functioning) democracies, like Denmark, do voters take such things for granted? If so, why can’t we do that here?

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Why do you only keep espousing the principles of one party? Youre a party line automaton, but you won’t admit it.

Wait a second.

I said that I think if you are an eligible voter in the United States, voting should be easy, convenient, informed, secure, and safe.

Isn’t that like, you know, the point of being in a democracy? That’s a principle that has nothing to do with political party.

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gerrymandering is a common and acceptable practice. i think they’ve been doing it since the beginning of our us history!