Other Trump's Money

Policy Mic:

The root cause of Donald Trump's astonishing confidence is that he's better at making money than you. Behind nearly every imperious comment he makes about America's inability "to win anymore" is a sense of self-worth derived from his considerable net worth: nearly $3 billion, by Bloomberg's count.

Trump's ability to amass wealth is at the heart of his bid for the White House. It serves as the entire basis of his credibility on any matter he'd have to manage as president, whether related to the economy or immigration or foreign policy. If Trump can negotiate his way onto a list of the wealthiest people in the world, his argument goes, then he should be able to negotiate effectively on behalf of the American people.

But just how savvy of a businessman is Trump? Apparently not quite as savvy as he makes himself out to be, according to a new analysis of his finances by S.V. Dáte at the National Journal. Had Trump never gone into the business world and simply invested his share of his father's real estate company into a mutual fund of S&P 500 stocks in the 1970s, he'd be worth around the same amount that he is today. It's a reminder that the biggest reason he has so much wealth, as Vox's Dylan Matthews points out, is because he was born into it.

So let's look at the actual mechanism of this whole American Dream / Meritocracy setup, shall we?

1. pick rich parents
2. sit on your ass and get somebody else to do the work

This is how it was for the 40,000 years before about 1789.  And apparently that's how it went right on being this whole time - I guess we just pretended it was something else for a while because it still fucking works that way.  

So please tell me again, what exactly are we supposed to be the "exception" to?