Hot take: Trump is demonstrably far poorer than he claims.

Again: Scotland holds the key.

His audited UK financials show money-losing properties with arbitrarily inflated values with no tie to actual market conditions.

Those are his ONLY audited financials.

1/

So, three businesses that lose around 5 million pounds a year and have a collective value of, say, 70M pounds (being generous) are claimed to bring in 150 million pounds a year!

And, again, those are his MOST trustworthy numbers.

2/

All of his other financial claims have no constraint at all. They're just made up with no oversight.

My best guess: he got around $200M from dad and now has $150M or so, because he's bad at money and takes bad risks.

3/

I do think there is fairly strong evidence that he, also, makes money by helping oligarchs launder money.

BUT, he seems to also be bad at that. He makes dumb deals that involve too much risk and too little return.

4/

There are huge error bars around every number related to Trump. We have no idea how much his businesses make, how many assets he owns, and how much debt he has.

There is a good chance he, himself, has no idea. Because he has a small and inept finance team.

5/

And he, himself, doesn't understand business.

But I would wager that he is somewhere between broke and worth $150M or so. Which, of course, is very rich but not impressive. A $200M or so (we don't know the real number) inheritance in 2004 should be worth far more today.

6/

When I've tried this logic on Trump supporters, it doesn't work of course. They are then even MORE impressed with his hustle. A broke guy has a big plane? Cool!

7/

But those suburban "common sense" Republicans surely understand that if they leave their kids $200K and their kids are worth $100K 20 years after their death, their kids have messed up badly.

8/end