Holdup. Trump is one of the great geniuses of our generation? That's a little much, isn't it?

His IQ is known to be one of the hightest

Tooth, what's the rationale for Trump being "one of the great geniuses of our generation"?

I don't see very much that shows me he's very intelligent. But I think its extremely difficult to evaluate a person's intelligence. Especially for politicians that are heavily incentivized to say things that they know are incorrect.

His performance during the "punish women for abortion" interview disproves a high level of intelligence in Trump.

I think what TS is trying to say though is that something like that interview doesn't really reflect a person's 'intelligence' as most people use the word.

Things like thinking quickly on your feet or clearly explaining your position aren't the same thing as intelligence.

So if Trump had just never really thought about his position before because its just a line to get elected that he doesn't personally care about - his performance in the interview isn't really indicative of raw intelligence.

That being said, I find the idea that Trump is one of the 'great geniuses of our generation' pretty silly and would love to hear the reasoning behind a claim like that.

On what basis would you believe that?

He obviously, at least in his youth, would have been significantly above the bell curve, and I would agree that he's an intelligent guy, but you're claiming top dawg status and I can't imagine it's because of his lifes work. Or even the op ed pieces where he's flexed his intellectual muscle and shown the whole world that he has a reasonably grounded understanding of how the world works. There're just millions upon millions of people who are at that level, and plenty of them have far more impressive life stories if you were to take a close look at what they've done with the circumstances they were dealt - it just so happens that most intelligent, sane people aren't as interested in self promotion and rubbing their good fortune in the faces of people who're struggling every day for reasons that are beyond their control. Even if you're a straight up white supremacist you must realize there're tons of people out there who're higher on the arian pecking order. My entire german side has blonder hair and bluer eyes than any of the drumpfs and none are racists, or even elitist to any major degree, although I think everyone on some level can agree that not everyone in this world has identical mental acuity / cognitive efficiency... whatever you want to call it.

I guess you just must know / have seen something I havent, and I'd love it if you could point me towards material that might change my mind. Because all I see is a guy who had every advantage in the world who chose to spend his life grabbing at low hanging fruit. And I don't think less of him for doing it, because low hanging fruit is every bit as delicious as the fruit you'd have to waste all that effort getting a ladder to reach. But how low must your standards of creativity be that you can look at his career and see radical, generation defining innovation?

He's probably significantly higher than average as far as intelligence goes. I wouldn't think he'd be smarter than either Clinton or Obama. In fact I'd say both of them are equally intelligent.

What makes me cautious about someone like Trump was his response when asked about the right to privacy in the Constitution and if it is protected. This was after he gave his stance on abortion. Someone with their sights on the presidency should be well versed in something like this.

Bernie Sanders thinks we need "all walks of life" represented on the Fed's Board of Governors and seems to have trouble understanding the importance of collateral in determining interest rates. I understand that grandstanding is what these hearings are for but its very hard for me to watch this video and believe Sanders is particularly smart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCWX...&feature=share

Not to defend him, but in many ways economics is difficult to understand, especially when it comes to the morality behind certain decisions. Not saying you aren't right, I can see where many people get their views screwed up when it comes to anything dealing with econ/finance.

Judging a politicians inherent intelligence based on economic statements is pretty silly. It's gotta be a top 5 topic where making honest, fact-based statements is extremely -EV.

But do you think sanders isn't being genuine? If there was even the slightest hint that something he was saying lacked authenticity he would instantly lose credibility with a lot of his base. Maybe he's just that slick, but I would assume if he held a belief that would be distasteful to the public he would just avoid the subject / be evasive if it was brought up.

In a strange kind of way, in my view, if Bernie is being genuine/sincere it reflects negatively on his intelligence, otherwise it reflects positively. Put another way, the degree of Bernie's sincerity/genuiness regarding his economic policy ideas is inversely proportional to his intelligence level.

There's a difference between avoiding honest fact based economic statements and being insincere.

It's just necessary to reduce it to some extremely over-simplistic generalisations.

I think that "avoiding honest fact based economic statements" and "using over-simplistic generalizations" aren't really mutually exclusive.

I think we all agree economics is incredibly complex. So there may be times where it makes sense to present your position in simplistic terms that ignore a number of more complex factors.

A simplistic example would be if you're debating a binary choice with someone where each option has different pros/cons - its not really up to you to call out the cons of your position and the pros of your opponents position.

Many of us might like a politician that did that - someone that actually talked about an issue holistically - but there's probably no chance they'd actually get elected.

How would a politician who said economics is so complex I (or no-one) really has much clue if A or B is better for the economy but I'm going with A.

I agree with you about the holistic point though I think outside of front line politics it's a good thing.

Poorly. Very poorly.

Edit: There's probably a decent sized minority [but not big enough] that would respond well to something like:

"economics is so complex I (or no-one) really has much clue if A or B is better for the economy but I'm going with A because of [Insert moral reasoning behind why A is better than B here]".

We're on the same page. I considered adding the moral reasons bit. That's far more how it is (and should be, I would argue)

The economics bit is mostly about avoiding economically very bad ideas which still leaves lots of options.

Well holy ****. I think we just had a conversation that didn't derail into just arguing tiny semantical details! Peace in our time!

Which is why I'd be understanding if his message was vague or gave me even the slightest impression that it was part of some machiavellian plan to gain power so he could follow through on ideas that he really does know a lot about. But when I look deeper at things like his free college education plan, i really think he's being totally serious.

And it's not that i think truly enlightened people are all against free college - it's obviously a complicated issue. But when he reduces it, as he seems to all issues, to a simple matter of compassion for the poor - he really undermines his credibility. His poorly thought out, simplistic solutions to complicated problems reveal an insane level of arrogance and if there's one thing that really inhibits progress in politics it's not lack of intelligence, but rather the stupidly inflated egos from people who have a very low depth of understanding and are unwilling to even try and see things from other peoples' perspective.

He himself isn't even a believer in the educational system. While in college he was dismissive of the curriculum and thought he was too cool for school, refusing to engage within the system. But now suddenly he's a believer in the merits of college education even though all modern research, which i'm sure he's blissfully unaware of, suggests is stupidly ineffective in preparing disadvantaged people to function in society. And he gets to be the hero because he's willing to give away the wealth of society in the form of pointless degrees to feed the delusion that all people, no matter how crippled their social or intellectual development may be, are capable of doing anything.

But I'm sure he's a really nice guy.

It appears as though many people the politicians of their opposing ideology are lower intellects. I guess that's not surprising.

I am a little shocked though that people think Trump is intelligent. Once you realize he is a trust fund baby who has earned no more than bank interest then I don't know what the evidence is for high intelligence (not that building a fortune is much evidence of it either but at least it's something). Despite having access to a lot of insiders and elite organizations, he doesn't seem to pick up a lot of basic terminology or understand very basic legal concepts that many people gleam from the evening news or occasionally reading a newspaper. He seems dedicated to an anti-intellectual philosophy.

People see Trump as an elite (as a billionaire he does qualify) and associate elites with intellect (some legit association there). Maybe they then assume his ability to relate to legions of dumbasses is due to some super elite, ingenious, Machiavellian calculations. I think the simpler explanation is that he can relate to those dumbasses because he IS a dumbass.

The idea that Trump is a trust fund baby that hasn't shown significant business success seems pretty silly to me.

While I agree its not as impressive as a rags(or middle class)-to-riches story, its still impressive. And I doubt an average intellect would be likely to pull it off.

Edit: What's the argument he's only earned bank interest? I've seen a bunch of claims that he hasn't beaten the stock market (a much tougher thing to do than beating bank interest) and those have all been deeply flawed.

I don't think it's actually that clear cut whether he beat the market, and estimates of a lot of figures vary wildly, but sure - let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he beat it by a fair margin. It's evidence of competency, though completely unnecessary if you listen to him talk pre POTUS campaign. The man is clearly not ******ed.

Monetary gain is a really terrible measure of someone in his shoes though. Most people with that kind of money would rather just research charitable/political causes, live modestly and be a proper member of the donor class. Not that anyone should frown on ambition, but if you actually wanted to "make thee world a better place" he has a strange way of showing it. Not all commerce is equal. If you're ok with scavenging for deals on casino real estate you get great deals because very few people with a high net worths want to take party in an industry that most consider ethically dubious. Is it on the same level as tobacco execs from a few decades back? It's not nearly that ****ty. On some level I guess it's serving a legitimate demand. And it's not nearly as scumtastic as adelson and wynn who invest billions building new real estate to push the envelope of luxury. But it's not something you really want to brag about either.

Abba, please post a realistic argument with figures that he didn't beat the market.

Most of your post is irrelevant to the discussion. We're talking intelligence and not evaluating him as a person. It's way more obvious that Trump is a ****ty human being.

It's obvious he "beat the market". He was handed something like 100 million. He's worth 4 billion now. Even if that number is wrong by half, that's still more than just "competent".

I don't see how anyone can say this. He did what he wanted to do, if that doesn't appeal to your own idea of living "a good life", that's fine, but I don't see how you or anyone else can pass judgment on what he chose to do with his. Literally any person in the Forbes list could have done better things for humanity if you think hard enough, that doesn't make them wrong about what they chose to do with their lives.

The most basic form of the argument is pretty straightforward:
1. Forbes first estimated Trump's net worth, in 1982, at 200M.
2. 200M invested in the SP500 in 1982 would be worth 7-9B today
3. Trump's net worth in 2015 was around 4.5B

But the reality is much more complicated. His net worth has not been a straight line, and the 1982 date could be considered cherry-picking. Most significantly, his estimated net worth in 1990 was -800M. That's negative 800M, due to personally guaranteeing a bunch of casino debt that went bad.

A couple of interesting articles detailing his financial history and his dark period of the early 90s:

What's He Really Worth? [from 2005]
Trump and His Debts: A Narrow Escape

It could be argued that getting out of that hole and rebuilding his empire qualifies Trump as one of the greatest business geniuses in history. You could also argue that getting in that hole in the first place demonstrates recklessness, greed, and gross incompetence. The truth is probably somewhere in between. And of course it all begs the question of whether those kinds of deal-making skills that built the Trump brand would serve him well as a politician.

Also interesting to note: Forbes calculates a "Self-Made Score" for everybody on the 400 list. On a scale of Alice Walton (1) to Oprah Winfrey (10), Trump gets a 5.