Two Thirds Done

Thoughts and experiences of an eighty one year old Wild Duck.

Avram Miller by the sea
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587 posts since 2006

Tag: Trump

  • One Election Is a Mistake. Two Are a Choice.

    At what point do citizens become responsible for the actions of their government?

    As a dual American and Israeli citizen, I have found myself living with this question on two fronts.

    When Trump was first elected in 2016, he lost the popular vote. Many Americans did not support him. Voter turnout was low, and it was possible to argue that the outcome did not fully reflect the will of the people. I struggled with whether the American people were responsible. My conclusion, at the time, was that they were at least in part. Not because they all supported him, but because too many either supported him or chose not to oppose him. In a democracy, indifference is not neutral. It is a form of participation.

    Then came 2020. Americans made a different choice and Trump lost. A correction was made, and that mattered. Democracies make mistakes, but in 2020 America corrected itself.

    Then came 2024, and the same choice was presented again. This time Trump was elected with a majority of the vote. It is hard to argue now that the outcome is accidental or circumstantial. A pattern is not a mistake.

    Israel, for me, has felt different so far.

    (more…)

  • Never again?

    Today is my birthday. I am 72 years old. While I was being born, the death camp, Auschwitz, was liberated. I always take some time on my birthday to think about what happened there. I read stories of the survivors and the people that liberated them. Look at photos of emaciated bodies. I try to imagine the pain and suffering that went on there. I think about those that created the death camps and served there.

    One of the great mysteries for me has been how a sophisticated and culturally advanced civilization represented by Germany could turn itself into such an evil place. I wondered not only how the leaders of that country could follow such a path of inhumanity but how so many average germans could not only allow it to happen could actually participate in it. I still do not have answers for that.

    Many people would say “never again” but I could not say that because I could not really understand how it happened in the first place. Many would say that it could never happen in the USA but I could not say that because I had seen are dark history before my very eyes during the days of the civil rights marches.

    Now we may be able to understand what happened in Germany. The election of Donald Trump and his actions make me very concerned. I don’t say this lightly and I am sure there will be readers of this post that not only disagree but will be angry or worse.

    I am not going to spend time making comparisons between Trump and Hitler or between today’s USA and Germany in the 30s. I am just expressing my fear and saying that I still do not understand what happened in Germany and why I could not happen again.

    We must be vigilant. We must resist the evil that is Trump.

  • Explaining Trump’s Taxes

     

    Mr. Trump, please release your returns. I have so much to learn
    I really wish he would release his tax returns. I learned a number of tricks from Romney’s returns that has saved me money. I am sure I would find additional methods from Trump’s.

    I am pretty sure he pays no taxes and it is for the most part (but not completely) legal. As the New York Times has reported, He had an almost billion dollar ($916 million) loss in in 1995. I assume that Trump uses pass through structures like Limited Liability Companies and S Corps for his business. This allows him to write off the losses from his personal income taxes. If he did not have enough income (and I doubt that he had much income from a tax perspective), he could carry forward the losses and shelter future income. However, to do this he had actually to have a basis worth that amount. That is, he had actually invested $916 million dollars. Frankly, I doubt this. I am trying to figure out how he got this deduction without having made the full investment. He probably was leveraged. Maybe he was able to convert his business into a C Corp after he took the loss and then put it into bankruptcy to wipe out the loan without having to get forgiveness of debt income.
    Depreciation and leverage, two beautiful things.
    Trump makes his money from real estate investments in addition to other activities like his media business. Real Estate is a great way to earn money and not pay taxes. Frankly, I do some of this myself. Here is how it works. Let’s say you buy a building for $100 million dollars in the year 1996. You borrow $80 million and only put $20 million of your own money to work. You get to depreciate (write off) about 4% a year (there are ways to write off more). The income you receive from rents etc is reduced by your expenses which include mortgage interest and the depreciation. Let’s say that the building increased by 100% in ten years. It is now worth $200 million. Assuming the mortgage was interest only, your equity in the building is now $120 million with $100 million of unrealized gains. You have depreciated the building by 40% of the original purchase price. If you were to sell the building you would have to pay capital gains on $160 million. But no, you keep the building but refinance it. You get a loan for $160 million. Remember you only put in $20 million to start with. You can handle the increase in the interest payments because you have been able to increase the rents. Now, you have $160 million in cash. You need spending money of course. So you use part of this money to support your lifestyle. Let’s say you keep $60million. Now, you have $100 million to use as a downpayment on a new building(s). You buy a place for $500 million and borrow $400 million. Ten years later that building is worth $800 million. Your equity is $400 million. You borrow again. Remember, we started with $20 million twenty years earlier. We still have not paid a dime in tax.

  • The next president of the United States may not be running for that office!

    For some time, I have been thinking that the next president of the USA might not be currently running for office. Perhaps this has been just wishful thinking. I can’t imagine the possibility of Donald Trump as president. Frankly, it scares me. While I can imagine Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office, I don’t find it that appealing. Bernie Sanders, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz don’t seem to have a chance, and I doubt that they would be effective leaders.  Cruz also scares me.

    So who could be the next president, the one that is not yet running? Well, it is the current Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan and here are two scenarios that put him into office.

    A Brokered Convention

    If none of the Republican candidates gets a majority of the delegates before the convention, then it is possible that that a candidate that did not run in the primaries could be elected. I will spare you the details about how this would happen. While there are some possible candidates, I think Paul Ryan has the best shot. Then, of course, he would have to compete with the Democratic Candidate, which will be most likely Hillary Clinton.  He would have a good chance of winning especially if various Clinton scandals get traction.

    A Third Party throws the Election to the House

    The constitution is clear that to be elected President and Vice President, one has to have a majority of the electrical college. The only way to not have this happen is to have more than two candidates running for office with a third candidate getting enough votes to deprive either of the other two candidates a simple majority although I guess the Electoral Collage could be evenly split.  In this case, the decision on who will be the next president is made by the House, which very likely will continue to be controlled by the Republicans after this next election.  If this happens, each state gets one vote. The representatives of the 39 states that have more than one Representative decide amongst themselves who they would vote for. If a state cannot reach a decision, they cannot vote. Please note that small states like Wyoming, Rhode Island, etc. have as much to say as California and Texas. The House has to select on of the top three candidates.  A simple majority vote by the Senate determines who will be Vice President. Once again, small states have the same vote as large states. However, the Senate may only choose between the top two Vice Presidential nominees. The House may have a Republican majority while the Senate could very well have a Democratic majority.  This would mean that the President and the Vice President could be from different parties.

    There are many ways this situation could happen.  One is for Mike Bloomberg to run and take enough votes away from both the Republican and Democratic Candidates to throw the election to the House.  If Trump is the Republican Nominee, I think the House will elect Bloomberg. Not sure who the Senate would select as Vice President.  The other way this could come about would be for Trump to be denied the Republican nomination and decide to run as a third party candidate. He could take enough votes away from both the Republican and Democratic candidate to throw the election to House.  In this case, the Republican Candidate would probably be elected President.

    Trump wins and gets Impeached immediately

    Trump is very scary and is capable of anything. It is not responsible to take a chance on what this thug would do with the power of the Presidency. Trump and his Vice President could be impeached and removed from office soon after getting there if the Democrats and Republicans in the Congress agreed to work together to make this happen. With these two people gone, the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, would become president. This is the second scenario where Ryan becomes President.

    Hillary gets into legal trouble and Biden steps in

    I believe (but I’m not 100% sure) that if Hillary had to resign as a candidate before the election because of some scandal or legal action, and after getting more than 50% of the votes, a candidate that was not running could be chosen by the convention.  Of course, the convention could select Bernie but most of the delegates will be in the Hillary camp, and I don’t think they would go for it.  So it will be Biden to the rescue.  If Hillary is selected by the Convention and then resigns after, I would think her name would remain on the ballot.   The electoral college would vote for a candidate selected by the Democratic Party.  Once again, I believe that it would be Biden.

    So there you have it, there is a reasonable possibility that the next president of the United States will be Mike Bloomberg, Paul Ryan or Joe Biden.