Tag Archives: forbes

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How Producers Manage The Trump Show

by AdelePlatz Posted on May 15, 2017

Mother Jones

Over at Politico, “How Trump Gets His Fake News” is getting a lot of play this morning. And why not? In one sense, it’s an old story: Trump’s staff has to treat him like a volcanic nine-year-old lest he decide on a whim to move the Oval Office onto a barge in the Chesapeake Bay or something. We’ve read dozens of pieces like this in the past few months because Trump, by all accounts, really is a lot like a high-strung nine-year-old. At the same time, this kind of stuff is liberal crack: you can never get enough.

So what’s the best part of this latest installment in the Trump saga? The fake Time cover that got Trump lathered up about climate change? How Katie Walsh almost got fired because of a blog post from a conspiracy theorist? The fact that aides desperately try to ply Trump with good news to keep his temper in check? The endless search for whoever fed him the latest unapproved tidbit of Trumpbait? They’re all good. But maybe this is the best:

More recently, when four economists who advised Trump during the campaign — Steve Forbes, Larry Kudlow, Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore — wrote in a New York Times op-ed that “now is the time to move tax reform forward with urgency,” someone in the White House flagged the piece for the president.

Trump summoned staff to talk about it. His message: Make this the tax plan, according to one White House official present.

Once again, we see that Trump couldn’t care less about policy. Any old health care plan is OK. Any old tax plan is OK. Just announce something and get it passed. Who care about all the stupid details, anyway? Just smug PhD types and annoying tea party crackpots.

Nothing matters. It’s all just a big show.

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A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How Producers Manage The Trump Show

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Donald Trump Is Worth About $3-4 Billion

by HildegaSizemore Posted on January 5, 2017

Mother Jones

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Bear with me here for a moment. I have a theory to share with you that might answer a long-debated question: how much is Donald Trump worth?

Here’s the theory: Trump likes rich people, but he doesn’t like people who are richer than him. This suggests that his cabinet picks might tell us just what it takes to be richer than Donald Trump. Here’s a revised version of my usual Swamp Watch chart:

The list tops out at $2.5 billion. This suggests that Trump is worth $3-4 billion, right in line with the Forbes estimate of $3.7 billion. Donald Trump has apparently been very careful to make sure that he’s the richest guy in his administration.

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Donald Trump Is Worth About $3-4 Billion

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The History of Self-Funded Candidates is Littered With Losers. Sad!

by CarmeloPerkinson Posted on June 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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Following the latest reports of Donald Trump’s dismal presidential fundraising, the self-professed billionaire insisted he could bail himself out. “If need be, there could be unlimited ‘cash on hand,’ as I would put up my own money,” he said in a statement. Trump has been insisting that he can single-handedly finance his campaign for months. “I’m self-funding my own campaign,” he boasted in February.

So far, more than 70 percent of his campaign’s funds have come from loans he’s made to himself. (Among the top recipients of his campaign spending are his and his family’s businesses.) If Trump’s really going all the way on his own dime—which is unlikely—he’ll have to beat the historically poor showing of self-funded candidates.

Ross Perot

Spent $72 million running for president, 1992/1996
The Texas billionaire dipped deep into his pockets to finance his ill-fated runs, including spending $2.9 million in 1992 to air 30-minute TV ads such as the chart-laden infomercial called “Chicken Feathers, Deep Voodoo, and the American Dream.”

Michael Huffington

Spent $28 million running for the US Senate in California, 1994
Huffington, then married to future napping guru and media mogul Arianna, spent a record amount on his Senate race, prompting another Republican to decry the “increasing power on the part of moneyed interest.” The naysayer: Mitt Romney, who later pumped $45 million into his 2008 presidential run.

Meg Whitman

Spent $144 million running for California governor, 2010
The ex-eBay CEO bid high for the Golden State’s top job but was shut out by Jerry Brown, who spent 80 percent less.

Michael Bloomberg

Spent $250 million running for New York City mayor, 2001/2005/2009
Bloomberg has spent more of his personal wealth in (successful) pursuit of office than any other American. When he floated the idea of a 2016 presidential bid, sources said he was willing to spend at least $1 billion.

Linda McMahon

Spent $99 million running for the US Senate in Connecticut, 2010/2012
McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, got body-slammed in back-to-back races in which she put up more than 95 percent of her campaign budget. “It’s an incredible amount of money to spend on a campaign,” she conceded after her second loss.

Richard Tarrant

Spent $7 million running for the US Senate in Vermont, 2006
In the annals of self-funded candidates, Tarrant is a small fry. But the Republican will be remembered for blowing his wad on negative ads and still getting burned by Bernie Sanders.

Steve Forbes

Spent $76 million running for president, 1996/2000
George W. Bush scrambled to raise more than $100 million in 2000, partly out of fear of the flat-tax advocate and Forbes editor’s family fortune. Yet Forbes gained little traction in his runs, proving once again that self-funding your political career may be, in the words of his eponymous business mag, “the worst political investment.”

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The History of Self-Funded Candidates is Littered With Losers. Sad!

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This Map Shows the Price Of Weed In Every State

by JestineChristia Posted on May 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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Where would you go if you wanted to smoke weed? Well you might start in Colorado or Washington, the two states where it’s legal to smoke it recreationally (although that landscape is always shifting). But what if you didn’t care about the law, and you just wanted to blaze based on financial considerations? Well, you’d probably still head to Colorado or Washington, according to a new map from Forbes:

Map courtesy of Forbes

Forbes used data from priceofweed.com, which gets its data by “crowdsourc(ing) the street value of marijuana from the most accurate source possible: you, the consumer.” One might say stoners aren’t the best source of financial data, but, then again, there isn’t much stoners are more serious about than what they shell out for weed.

So good on you, Oregon, Colorado, Washington, California. And bad on you, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Virginia.

(h/t The Independent)

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This Map Shows the Price Of Weed In Every State

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Just like you, NASA wants to send your kids to Mars — but for different reasons

by y32nmet Posted on May 5, 2015

Just like you, NASA wants to send your kids to Mars — but for different reasons

By on 5 May 2015commentsShare

Fear not, humanity — NASA says it’s on track to put humans on Mars sometime in the 2030s, which is roughly when we should know whether we’ve totally screwed this planet, or only kinda.

“This plan is clear, this plan is affordable and this plan is sustainable […]. I’ve spent my entire life being 20 to 30 years away from going to Mars, and I think we’re incredibly closer today.”

That’s NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, giving his opening remarks at the Humans to Mars Summit happening today through Friday in Washington D.C. Bolden is so confident, in fact, that he tried to pressure a little girl into saying that she’d go to Mars, according to Forbes: “Please say yes, I promise we’re gonna bring you back … Have faith, we’re gonna get there.” (Yikes. You’ve got a little of that creepy man-in-the-white-van vibe going there, Bolden.)

Last month, at a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Bolden explained why studying Mars was important for understanding Earth (he also totally owned Ted Cruz when the republican senator accused NASA of spending too much time on climate change research, but that’s a whole ‘nother story). Here’s Forbes again:

“We need to understand Mars and what happened to it to understand what might happen to Earth,” Bolden said, referring to scientists’ understanding that perhaps Mars once harbored a large water ocean in the past and may have even been habitable, but at some point the red planet stopped generating its own magnetic field, causing its atmosphere and much of its water to be lost to space.

[…]

“Mars is the planet that is most like earth,” Bolden added, explaining how earlier conditions there may have once sustained life long ago, and perhaps still today in some form. “And it will sustain life when humans get there in the 2030s.”

If you want to check out what’s going on at the summit, you can tune in to the live stream below. Speakers will be talking about everything from the affordability of sending humans to Mars (gotta be cheaper than sending them to Manhattan, amirite?) to the tech required for such a mission to the possibility of finding Martian life. There will also be a bunch of sci-fi writers there on Friday to talk about — oh, I don’t know — maybe how cool it is that their life’s work is becoming a reality.

Oh, and Buzz Aldrin will be there, too, because if you don’t invite Buzz Aldrin to your humans-in-space event, NASA will send you to Mars.

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Here’s NASA’s plan to send a few of today’s schoolchildren to Mars

, Forbes.

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Just like you, NASA wants to send your kids to Mars — but for different reasons

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Scot who stood up to Trump development deservedly named ‘Top Scot’

by Myrna Posted on December 4, 2012

Scot who stood up to Trump development deservedly named ‘Top Scot’

By Philip Bump

Earlier this year, a film was released documenting the efforts of a Scottish farmer to oppose a new development by Donald Trump. The movie is called You’ve Been Trumped, and it is racking up accolades and awards.

I haven’t seen the film. But I am confident that part of the reason it’s earning such praise is that Donald Trump is an odious, preening buffoon. We’ve written before about his development plans in Scotland, and about his methane-soaked project in the Bronx. We have not, however, spent a lot of time otherwise mocking his stupid opinions and trolly comments. This is because one does not engage with children as though they are your equals. If the child is yours, you would put him in timeout; if he is not, if you are just an observer to a child’s bad behavior, you merely sigh heavily and thank the Heavens that you were not cursed with such a useless little pile of crap.

Anyway. The farmer at the center of the film, Michael Forbes, is in the news again. This time, it’s for winning “Top Scot” at the Spirit of Scotland awards.

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“Blah blah blah blah.”

From The Scotsman:

Mr Forbes — who won the award after an open public ballot — had consistently refused to move out of his crofter’s house and sell his land, which was ­famously branded a “pigsty” by Trump, to make way for the tycoon’s golf course development.

Last night Mr Forbes, 60, who says he still lives with the threat of eviction by Trump ­International, was honoured at the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Awards, along with Scotland’s Olympic heroes, film actress Kelly Macdonald, Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis and author Ewan Morrison.

Forbes described meeting Trump.

“I had no idea who he was at that point. I might have kept my mouth shut, but I went right off him the first time I met him.

“He was being all nicey, nicey and talking about how successful he was and how much money he had. That was it for me. I took an instant dislike to him. He called me a village idiot and accused me of living in a pigsty but I think everyone knows by now that he’s the clown of New York.”

Indeed we do! What did Trump have to say about the award?

Mr Trump’s organisation did not respond to a request from The Scotsman for a comment on Mr Forbes’ success.

That is because Donald Trump is literally one of the worst people in America (and therefore in the top 20 worst people worldwide). He inflates the extent of his wealth, promotes idiotic conspiracies like anti-vaccine nonsense and birtherism, and has repeatedly argued against wind turbines because they kill huge numbers of birds (they don’t) while his tacky, crumbling high-rise in Toronto certainly kills a huge number of birds every year. If you made a movie that was simply the words “Donald Trump is an execrable jackass” flashing for 120 minutes, I would found a film festival simply to give the film my top award.

Anyway. Congratulations to Michael Forbes, global hero. Here’s hoping Donald Trump doesn’t take your house.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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