US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5517

On February 24 2026 14:56 KwarK wrote:
Phrasing it as “beating the 500 most successful companies” is extremely dishonest. The more accurate way of phrasing it would be “beating the returns given passively to afk investors who loan capital to a group of companies chosen arbitrarily without active research by the investor”. We’re not talking about a genius CEO here. And we’re not talking about a genius stock picker. We’re talking about the performance a 401k plan invested in the default large cap index fund plan gives someone working at mcdonald’s. That’s the bar Trump failed to clear.

Give any one of us his inheritance and 50 years to compound and we’ll do better. If you really think that you couldn’t then that says more about you than Trump.

On February 24 2026 16:35 maybenexttime wrote:
Claiming that making things actively worse is a sign of business acumen is certainly an interesting take. ;-)

On February 24 2026 16:31 baal wrote:


If you gave me 100M to fund my entrepreneurship I'm not certain I would be able to turn it into a few billion, I might, I might fall short or I might even lose it, but if I were to pull it off, and on the side manage to be a 2 term president, and someone were to tell me I haven't achieved anything in my life I would laugh in their face.

But I'm sure you personally would become a billionaire and the first three term president, compounding SP500 has nothing on you, shine on you crazy diamond.


What is extremely dishonest is that you compare compounding interest to regular living, Trump didnt get his 100M and didnt spend a dime till he was 70, he spent hundreds and hundreds of millions along the way.

On February 24 2026 17:16 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
The majority of day traders and institutional investors don’t really meaningfully beat the S&P 500 in the long run, you get tens of thousands of people like Cathy Wood and Masayoshi Son who strike it hot once then completely fail to even meet expectations for the rest of their lives.

With regards to Trump and his investing history, it’s kinda like Epstein in that I don’t think there was any evidence that they were actually good at their legitimate day jobs. But there sure are a whole load of evidence that both peoples got incredibly wealthy by through malignant financial activity. I guess we could consider that to be a symbol of financial success but I’m not sure if it’s something anyone should consider to be admirable.

I can’t say that I can beat Trump if I were given his fortune because I wouldn’t have the connections and knowledge to engage in the sort of financial shenanigans, exploitation and fraud these sort of rich guys engage in day in and day out. The best I can do is earn enough from pandemic era investments to pay for my house deposit.

On February 24 2026 18:12 KwarK wrote:

Sounds like you’re unfamiliar with how compounding works. It’s really not hard to turn a smaller number into a larger number with compounding growth.

I could absolutely turn 100m into 2b given 40 years to do it.

On February 24 2026 18:47 Jankisa wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +

His biggest achievement is convincing Americans that he's a successful business man, and that was done by the combinations of reality TV and Americans, on average, being morons.

On February 24 2026 13:37 baal wrote:


With passive investing you mean dumping your net worth into the SP500 and not touching anything in 40 years?

On February 24 2026 13:37 baal wrote:
If you start with 100M and you end up with a few billions, you were very successful, I mean most people wouldn't even bother and would just retire in a yacht, (I would).

On February 24 2026 19:27 GreenHorizons wrote:

Trump is so quintessentially an "American product" we should probably put him on the flag.

He convinced people he was a peak businessman before reality TV, though the multi-million dollar production team and propaganda campaign so NBC could make a buck, certainly helped.

That's a bit of a theme. Whether it's NBC, the gossip columns, or CitiBank, it was in their financial interest to perpetuate the propaganda around him being a successful businessman.

I guess that's what you might call a whoopsie-doodle?

On February 24 2026 13:37 baal wrote:


With passive investing you mean dumping your net worth into the SP500 and not touching anything in 40 years?

If so 99.99% of people (you included) will under perform lol, imagine that your metric of success is beating the 500 most successful companies in a given time frame LMAO. Also it means not touching a cent, which obv Trump did, he lived a lavish life.

If you start with 100M and you end up with a few billions, you were very successful, I mean most people wouldn't even bother and would just retire in a yacht, (I would).

Saying that Trump hasn't achieved anything requires such a degree of denial of reality and bias that renders the opinion of somebody who claims that, as useless.

On February 24 2026 11:20 Vivax wrote:
Semantics on the topic are important in the clinical and legal context.

The hard age limit of 18 in the US probably is supposed to serve as some kind of deterrent because of its massive porn industry (just guessing that it is the reason) but tends to be softer in some other countries.

Usually there‘s a tolerance range of two years difference under 16 and under certain circumstances that require consent obviously, there‘s possible tolerance starting from 16. My first relationship was in the sub16 range which might have been dangerous if I lived in the US.

I think the Russian connection regarding Epstein (apparently he hired Russians on the farm and some of them provided services) is another troubling aspect because it exposes some entities in the US keeping their options open to a collaboration which doesn‘t resonate well with the allies it claims to have.

On February 25 2026 00:05 Manit0u wrote:
Dude is not smart, he's not business savvy, he has no class. He got rich on being bribed by various parties to do their bidding and all kinds of scams.

On February 24 2026 12:07 Manit0u wrote:
I'm truly surprised at the length of mental gymnastics people are willing to go to still try and defend Trump. He's a total scumbag, failure as a president and also failure in life. Dude has absolutely nothing going for him. Didn't achieve anything in his entire life by himself and now just acts as a 12yo boy throwing tantrums left and right in need of attention.

On February 24 2026 23:34 Billyboy wrote:


He did make a lot of money, but most of it has been as president, which most people think is a problem not something to be happy about. And it’s not special, every American politician ups their net worth incredibly. On top of that, it is so much harder and more impressive when some one jumps from poor to middle class, or from middle to wealthy (but not as hard as the first) then when someone goes from ultra wealthy to more ultra wealthy.

I’d also like to push back on your word success. How I measure it, money made is very low on the list. Having happy healthy children and having a great relationship with them is probably number one. I think being selfless is far more important than being wealthy. Having people in your life that will help you out, without asking, needing nothing in return. Is success to me. Making a positive difference with as many people as possible is success.

Trump by every measure outside of wealth is a huge failure as a human, which you agree with. He’s super rich and famous and powerful. I don’t find it impressive nor would I describe it as successful. The more rich showy people I meet in real life the less impressed I am with them. Especially those who came from family money. The amount of dumbassery and waste you can do and still end up richer is wild.

Successful means something different to different people

On February 24 2026 13:12 dyhb wrote:
I have similar thoughts on the call-someone-a-Nazi weekly quotas. Or the related reaction to crafting some outright lie or half-truth about Trump, confident that anybody pointing it out can be righteously called out as a Trump defender.

Like, he’s a bad guy. You don’t get special license to drop all standards when it comes to bad guys. But there’s something effective in-group in performing the lie, calling somebody a Nazi if they notice, and in-group signal on people “defending Trump” if you do the routine often enough. Epstein files were a bust on all but a few fringe figures and some financial/sensitive documents crime, but it’s so much easier to just demagogue through it all.