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General Election Thread: Two Weeks Out

Republicans run for President to make money.
 
TownieDeac said:
Sounds like savvy business to me. I don't see the problem.
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Few people in public office have their regional offices in the most expensive places in their districts. Whether it's the CA Congressman from Newport Beach or Beverly Hills or Greenwich, CT, Members understand they don't spend wildly for their offices.

They would be excoriated for doing so or even thinking about renting space from themselves.

It's not savvy. It's slimy.
 
RJKarl said:
By the way, Trump has lied again about how much money he is putting up for his campaign. Last month he gave a whole $30,000 and got many times that for rent of his offices, use of his own plane and many other payments to his companies.
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Within reason there is absolutely nothing wrong with this.
If a candidate owns assets and uses them for his campaign, he should be compensated for the market value of the use of those assets.
The only way this would be crooked is if he was grossly overcharging his campaign for the use of offices that he owns and flying his plane, etc (Which he may or may not be)
 
The lawyers were wusses. The reality is the last Trump wants is to be deposed. He's not suing anyone.
 
Baconwfu said:
Within reason there is absolutely nothing wrong with this.
If a candidate owns assets and uses them for his campaign, he should be compensated for the market value of the use of those assets.
The only way this would be crooked is if he was grossly overcharging his campaign for the use of offices that he owns and flying his plane, etc
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As I said, whether it's Republicans in Orange County, CA or Dems in Greenwich or Beverly Hills, they don't rent the most expensive space. They don't rent in their own buildings.

Virtually no candidates see campaigns as ways to enrich themselves.

 
RJKarl said:
As I said, whether it's Republicans in Orange County, CA or Dems in Greenwich or Beverly Hills, they don't rent the most expensive space. They don't rent in their own buildings.

Virtually no candidates see campaigns as ways to enrich themselves.

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I agree that no candidates (should) see campaigns as ways to enrich themselves. My point is that if Donald has an empty floor in his office building and he wants to use that for his campaign and wants to charge his campaign market rates (and those rates are reasonable for the purposes of a campaign) then he's not "enriching" himself. If he's charging his campaign market rates then in all probability, he be charging some other organization the same rate if this campaign wasn't there, so in an economic sense he's no better off.
Where he gets into "enriching" himself is if he's charging way more than he could get on the market, if he's occupying more space than is necessary or the level of the rent (market price or not) isn't justifiable for it's purposes.
 
It's enriching yourself if you use OPM to pay your own companies for goods, services and rents that you can purchase from others. By definition, he is economically better off if he rents space from himself that wasn't currently being used by others. Further, he is doing a disservice to donors by renting the most expensive space he can find versus quality space that is far cheaper.

I'm not saying it's illegal, but it is certainly unseemly and an unwise use of donations.
 
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Baconwfu said:
I agree that no candidates (should) see campaigns as ways to enrich themselves. My point is that if Donald has an empty floor in his office building and he wants to use that for his campaign and wants to charge his campaign market rates (and those rates are reasonable for the purposes of a campaign) then he's not "enriching" himself. If he's charging his campaign market rates then in all probability, he be charging some other organization the same rate if this campaign wasn't there, so in an economic sense he's no better off.
Where he gets into "enriching" himself is if he's charging way more than he could get on the market, if he's occupying more space than is necessary or the level of the rent (market price or not) isn't justifiable for it's purposes.
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There's some evidence that he's doing that. It's particularly interesting that the value of his brand is decreasing so what normally would be market rate is more than what someone else would pay.
 
RJKarl said:
It's enriching yourself if you use OPM to pay your own companies for goods, services and rents that you can purchase from others. By definition, he is economically better off if he rents space from himself that wasn't currently being used by others. Further, he is doing a disservice to donors by renting the most expensive space he can find versus quality space that is far cheaper.

I'm not saying it's illegal, but it is certainly unseemly and an unwise of donations.
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I know you're not saying it's illegal, but I'm saying that assuming everything is on the up and up, (meaning he didn't overcharge his campaign or anything like that) it doesn't matter if he utilized his assets or someone else's, it's all the same, and really even could be smarter to use his own because that lowers transaction costs and simplifies a lot (i.e. lots of flexibility and you don't have to worry about dealing with dickhead landlords)

It's not enriching yourself if OPM was going to have to pay for the same things at the same prices and his companies were going to make the same sales/perform the same services for someone else at the same prices

I said, "in an economic sense" which does not mean economically. From an economic standpoint he is no better off because the space would've been rented anyway. Economically he is better off because he has income coming in, but unless he's charging more than market, it's not more income than would've been coming in anyway, thus he is no better off "in an economic sense"....that's a bit nuance I know, but there is a difference.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't know what Trump is charging his campaign or how expensive his office space is (although i'm sure it's not cheap). Also, what benefits are associated with having offices in Manhattan (I assume that's where his offices are)? I mean, he was probably going to have offices there anyway because he's that kind of guy. You can definitely argue that having an office in Manhattan is frivolous, but there is obviously an argument that it has value and unless you're an expert on such thing, you kind of have to give him/them the benefit of the doubt on that one.
 
RJKarl said:
It's enriching yourself if you use OPM to pay your own companies for goods, services and rents that you can purchase from others. By definition, he is economically better off if he rents space from himself that wasn't currently being used by others. Further, he is doing a disservice to donors by renting the most expensive space he can find versus quality space that is far cheaper.

I'm not saying it's illegal, but it is certainly unseemly and an unwise use of donations.
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LOL. Democrats use OPM for everything they do. That's the way they buy the votes to stay in power. (Along with votes from naïve millennials like many on this board who have never had to pay for any of the giveaway programs that the Democrats are constantly proposing to buy votes.)
 
bobknightfan said:
LOL. Democrats use OPM for everything they do. That's the way they buy the votes to stay in power. (Along with votes from naïve millennials like many on this board who have never had to pay for any of the giveaway programs that the Democrats are constantly proposing to buy votes.)
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Funny words coming form a guy who's generation about to bankrupt medical care and social security by ignoring end of life costs their whole lives
 
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