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The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
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Tuesday, February 5, 2019

INSIDE DOPESTER


The term derives from the work of the late David Riesman.  An inside dopester in politics is someone who knows all the statistics and inside information about politics in the way that a real sports fan knows it for baseball or football.  I am, or aspire to be, an inside dopester in politics.

For some time, I have had a theory – idle speculation, really – about Trump, which I may have mentioned, and I am guessing that it explains the enormous 40 million dollar gap between donations to and expenditures by Trump’s Inauguration committee, the subject  of a wide-ranging subpoena issued today by the office of the Eastern [not Southern] District of New York.

My theory is that Trump is cash poor.  He owns many big buildings, which however are mortgaged to the hilt, but he has a huge nut [i.e., regular monthly expenses] and he desperately needs the flows of cash that come from his franchising of his name and so forth.  He is not a typical rich person in this regard.  The sums he gets from lending his name to steaks, for profit universities, caps, and all are small for someone supposedly as rich as he says he is.  But he needs every penny he can lay his hands on.  I think a large amount of that unaccounted for 40 million found its way into his pocket.

We shall see.

3 comments:

Jerry Fresia said...

I think you are right and this helps explain 1) why Trump fears releasing his tax returns, and 2) his interest in pleasing Putin and/or Russian oligarchs.

Christopher J. Mulvaney, Ph.D. said...

I am inclined to go a little further. Trump Enterprises and the administration are corrupt family enterprises. The foundation is just one rather small example and the evidence against it was so great Trump Enterprises didn't contest the charges by the NY Atty. General. Kushner's security clearance problems are another reflection of this problem. The campaign's willingness to accept help from foreign governments which is illegal is another example. Ivanka Trump is implicated in the Inauguration Committee scandal as it has been reported that she was involved in approving inflated invoices. The foundation operated just like the Inauguration committee and the later is likely to be charged with a battery of crimes including fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Hiring Manafort, whose partner was a FSB agent, who worked for a political party established by Russian oligarchs to maintain control over the Ukraine, is a decision no typical candidate would make.

I think it only reasonable to assume that every Trump project involved payoffs, kickbacks, contracts with mob front businesses. I agree with Jerry's second point but it is too late and I'm too tired to launch into that topic tonight.

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