idb
Gold Member
- Dec 26, 2010
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So did I...and I'm worth more than I was then.At minimum he made enough to cover his spending habits. Because your math says he's worth the same now as he was then.You think you could turn 150m into 20b? It's more likely you'd lose it all.
He would have had as much money today if he'd simply invested it in index funds.
Donald Trump isn't rich because he's a great investor. He's rich because his dad was rich.In an outstanding piece for National Journal, reporter S.V. Dáte notes that in 1974, the real estate empire of Trump's father, Fred, was worth about $200 million. Trump is one of five siblings, making his stake at that time worth about $40 million. If someone were to invest $40 million in a S&P 500 index in August 1974, reinvest all dividends, not cash out and have to pay capital gains, and pay nothing in investment fees, he'd wind up with about $3.4 billion come August 2015, according to Don't Quit Your Day Job's handyS&P calculator. If one factors in dividend taxes and a fee of 0.15 percent — which is triple Vanguard's actual fee for an exchange-traded S&P 500 fund — the total only falls to $2.3 billion.
It's hard to nail down Trump's precise net worth, but Bloomberg currently puts it at $2.9 billion, while Forbes puts it at $4 billion. So he's worth about as much as he would've been if he had taken $40 million from his dad and thrown it into an index fund.
That makes him a dummy and a loser.