This is quite amazing. Do you work PR for Trump?
Try to do the math yourself then:
http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm
I have no idea why you say that they have purposely designed the numbers. They simply took the S&P 500 Index from 1982 to 2014. From 1982 through the end of 2014, the S&P 500 index had an annualized return, including reinvested dividends, of 11.86 percent. A dollar invested in 1982 would be worth 40$ today.
It's not a question of math. It's a question of the start date. And they didn't pick 1982; they picked the year 1987. Did you even read the article you linked?
That is the math. Pretty simple.
It's no wonder you struggle. You can't even properly identify what kind of problem this is.
If I want to make some wealthy investor/businessman look good (or some other one look bad), I can just select certain start and stop dates.
For example, Jim Rogers is a commodities guys. Commodities did very well in the nineteen-seventies when stocks were doing poorly. So if I want to make a favorable comparison between Rogers and Warren Buffett, I just use the nineteen-seventies as my frame of reference, when Rogers would have seen his portfolio go up by more than Warren Buffett saw his portfolio go up.
Then I can just excuse the fact that Buffett's business continued to boom in the nineteen-eighties, while Rogers' net worth stagnated, by saying that Rogers got out of the business.
You have to understand that all markets have their own peaks and troughs, and they don't happen at the same time. Why in God;'s name would they pick 1987 unless they were trying to make Trump look bad.
Yes, reality is a bit more complicated. But it does a good job of portraying that Trump is not the businessman he wants you to believe.
No I understand it very well. Do you understand that 95%+ of investors don't earn as much as an index fund?
This guy would have amounted to jack-shit without daddy's money, influence and network.
And if those were his only gifts, you wouldn't know who he was today. Many, many Americans have wealthy parents and almost none of them build on that wealth in the way Trump did. The only reason you know who Fred Trump is today is because of his son.
Trump has even admitted himself that he has benefitted a lot from the very generious bankruptcy laws in the U.S. -> 4x bankruptcy + banlisted from several large banks (e.g. Deutsche Bank) should help illustrate that.
http://www.newsweek.com/kurtz-trump-backlash-66503
Yeah, he's a cowboy. But what he's describing isn't uncommon in the U.S. You make a lot of deals, and you shoot a few blanks.
You clearly don't understand business.
Hey, I'm not sure why anyone allows Warren Buffett anywhere near a business.
And of course, the guy's moral compass is admirable as well:
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-fence-2011-6?IR=T
Oh yeah, and his economic understanding is also truly great. I mean, what economist wouldn't support Trump's idea of a 25% tarrif on chinese goods?
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/19/news/la-pn-trump-obama-20110419
Keep drinking the kool-aid.
Trump's a clown, but he's a more enjoyable clown than, say, you are.
Hence why I disregarded the notion that kids born to wealthy parents were inherently brilliant. I would even make the argument that it's usually quite the opposite.
Hey, when you go wrong, you don't go wrong in just one spot, do you? The kids of the wealthy are well above average in intelligence. Trump's siblings include a judge and an executive at a bank.
Trolling or not, it seems that my target audience stays the same.
You should be happy to have any audience at all.
I said credible persons. Not the public. We all know he is hated by default by a lot of people in the south. That's not evidence of anything related to his performance.
The south does not come close to making up a majority of the country, and Obama has significant pockets of approval in the south because of the higher than average African American populations down there.
But it's hilarious how you believe that Obama could've won more than fifty percent of the national vote twice, and yet still think his above fifty percent job disapproval rating precludes any credible people in a majority.
I appreciate you telling me about the Great Recession but that ended sometime ago and the U.S. employment levels are still below trend.