Businesspeople From New York City

"The joy is in the getting there. The beginning years of starting your business, the camaraderie when you’re in the pit together, are the best years of your life."

"The idea of negative income tax is novel: In effect, it's a kind of income tax that works in reverse. For those who earn below a certain amount — like the poverty line — the government pays them. The largest example of NIT is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which serves 27 million working families in the US. It was started in 1975, under President Gerald Ford, expanded once by President Reagan, and expanded further by President Clinton. The EITC functions like a big tax refund. If a family makes below a certain amount each year, the government will refund the tax that was withheld plus an additional amount."

"we must eliminate the blatant conflicts of interest at the Fed. The reality is that the Federal Reserve has been hijacked by the very bankers it is in charge of regulating. I think most people would be shocked to learn that Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, served on the board of the New York Fed at the same time that his bank received a $391 billion Fed bailout. And he is not the only example. At least eighteen current and former Fed board members were affiliated with banks and companies that received emergency loans from the Fed during the financial crisis. We can no longer allow the foxes to guard the henhouse at the Federal Reserve."

"In his latest annual letter to shareholders, JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon says the US should "dramatically expand" its current earned-income tax credit, a form of negative income tax that pays low-earners instead of asking them to pay income tax... Dimon's letter echoed his comments at this year's World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, where leaders took to the idea because robotic automation now looms over a growing number of jobs. Governments may need to find ways to supplement people's wages when employers no longer require the employee's specific type of work. Dimon's vision of the near future is different from how most of us think about earning an income."

"(About the risk of a severe "correction" of the US stock market) If we talk about probabilities, I see a higher chance of market collapse than others think or than is priced into the market. If the market sees a 10% chance, I would say it's more like 30%. [...] The timing of these things is virtually impossible to predict; it could be six months or two years from now."

"The current pandemic is only one example of the bad planning and management that have hurt our country: Our inner city schools don’t graduate half of their students and don’t give our children an education that leads to a livelihood; our healthcare system is increasingly costly with many of our citizens lacking any access; and nutrition and personal health aren’t even being taught at many schools. Obesity has become a national scourge. We have a litigation and regulatory system that cripples small businesses with red tape and bureaucracy; ineffective infrastructure planning and investment; and huge waste and inefficiency at both the state and federal levels. We have failed to put proper immigration policies in place; our social safety nets are poorly designed; and the share of wages for the bottom 30% of Americans has effectively been going down. We need to acknowledge these problems and the damage they have done if we are ever going to fix them...."

"I've always been deeply opposed to crypto, bitcoin, etc. You pointed out the only true use case for it is criminals, drug traffickers, money laundering, tax avoidance. .... If I was the government, I’d close it down."

"We need to demand more of ourselves and our leaders if we want to prevent or mitigate these disasters. This can be a moment when we all come together and recognize our shared responsibility, acting in a way that reflects the best of all of us... My fervent hope is that America rolls up its sleeves and starts to attack these problems. Fixing them would better prepare us for future catastrophes, create better economic outcomes for everyone... improve income inequality, protect the most vulnerable and foster economic growth that is more resilient, which would also strengthen America’s role in the world."

"He's dangerous because of the power that attaches to the office he holds... because he's so susceptible to powerful, smarter... people. It's very easy to get him to do your bidding. ...[W]e've seen a lot of evidence of that. You need just flatter him, and... whether you're Kim Jong-un or Vladimir Putin, he'll... stop the sanctions or he'll look the other way when you start building more nuclear missiles. It's quite terrifying, and in addition to that, we're talking about somebody who's quite unstable... [T]he more pressure he's under (because he's completely out of his depth here)... the more cornered he's going to feel and the more he's going to lash out... [T]hat's what we need to watch out for in the next few months."

"It's forcing the media to have a conversation that they've never wanted to have, and never have had, which is about Donald's psychological health."

"We're talking about a man who has control of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. That makes him more dangerous than... other people, because he has the nuclear codes."

"Everything's about money in this family, but I'm also different... [M]oney stood in for everything else; it was literally the only currency the family trafficked in... I knew that it was also about love, and to be disinherited... shut out entirely... was to be told quite explicitly that you don't count, and you are not loved."

"[M]y grandmother who was [often] sick.. and broke bones more times than I can count because of her , was in agony much of the time. ...She'd come home from the hospital... and just moving was extraordinarily painful for her; and my grandfather could not tolerate it. ...[I]t impinged on this idea... that everything had to be great at all times... [T]he only people who suffered for that were the people who were actually in pain... anybody... in the family who showed the weakness of being human."

"I needed to tell the [origin] story of the family because there's so much at stake."

"[] is the origin... the ground zero of all of the family dysfunction... I believe that he was a sociopath. ...He had no real human feeling for anybody, including his children, and was quite adept at using people to his own ends; and if he found them not to be of use, he had no compunction about discarding them. ...[H]e enjoyed humiliating other weaker people a great deal."

"[M]y dad couldn't change who he was, so he was... dismantled over time."

"One of the unforgivable things that my grandfather did to Donald... he severely restricted the range of human emotion that was accessible to him. ...[C]ertain feelings were not allowed: sadness... the impulse to be kind... generous... Those things that my grandfather found superfluous, unmanly... a stupid waste of time... were punished; ruthlessly punished."

"Donald tried his very best not to be destroyed in the way my dad was... so he ended up with a very narrow range in which he could safely operate as a human being; so it's created this quite dangerous situation."

"How do we gauge this man's ability to function in the real world, as he's never really had to. ...[T]hat ... is quite terrifying."

"Donald has always been protected and continues to be protected from his inadequacies... incompetence... lack of knowledge, from his failures... [H]e's always had support from more powerful people... protecting him from his mistakes, or from people who would try to hold him to account; and he's always been amply financed."

"He's utterly incapable of leading this country, and it's dangerous to allow him to do so."

"My grandfather was an adherent to Norman Vincent Peale's doctrine of positive thinking. ...It allowed room for nothing else, and there are times in our lives when we are legitimately distressed... sad... in pain. ...[T]o be prevented to feel those feelings honestly and openly is a form of torture."

"To make it worse... for Donald, when he was very young, 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 approximately... his mother, who was really his only source of human connection and comfort... got very ill and was, to all intents and purposes, absent from his life. So he suddenly found himself, so young, basically alone in the world because my grandfather was incapable of filling the void left by my grandmother's absence. ...Because of the very vulnerable age he was [at] when she became sick, I think on some level he experienced that as a betrayal. She didn't have the capacity to heal the rift, even after she was [physically] able to, and I think that stuck with him..."

"He learned to become the killer... who needs to succeed at all costs, who recognizes that other people are expendable, who does not need to take responsibility, who will do anything to get attention, financial rewards and "to win.""

"Donald... had to sacrifice whatever goodness there may have been in him once, whatever capacities of experiencing the full range of human emotions, to my grandfather... at the cost of all of us."

"[T]here are so many parallels between the circumstances in which my family operated, and in which this country is now operating. I saw... what focusing on the wrong things, elevating the wrong people, can do... the collateral damage that can be created by allowing somebody to live their lives without accountability... continuing now, on a much grander scale."

"In my father's case, tragically, he was not of use."

"[] had no empathy. He was... driven in a way that turned other people, including [family]... into pawns to be used to his own ends. If somebody could be of service... he would use them. If they couldn't be, he excised them."

"Unfortunately for Donald, he could be of use... Donald had many years of watching my father be the wrong one. ...Clearly he learned the lesson from watching his almost 8 year old brother be punished for being kind... generous... sensitive, for having interests outside of what my grandfather thought was acceptable. ...[H]ang out with his friends... boat and fish and fly... He was not a killer."

"If I can do anything to change the narrative, and to tell the truth, I need to do that because I don't believe the American people had the entire truth 4 years ago."

"This is far beyond garden-variety narcissism; Donald is not simply weak, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be. He knows he has never been loved."

"His deep-seated insecurities have created in him a black hole of need that constantly requires the light of compliments that disappears as soon as he's soaked it in. Nothing is ever enough."

"The full-page screed he paid to publish in the New York Times in 1989 calling for the Central Park Five to be put to death wasn't about his deep concern for the rule of law; it was an easy opportunity for him to take on a deeply serious topic that was very important to the city while sounding like an authority in the influential and prestigious pages of the Gray Lady. It was unvarnished racism meant to stir up racial animosity in a city already seething with it. All five boys... were subsequently cleared, proven innocent via incontrovertible DNA evidence. To this day, however, Donald insists that they were guilty—yet another example of his inability to drop a preferred narrative even when it's contradicted by established fact."

"Nobody has failed upward as consistently and spectacularly as the ostensible leader of the free world."

"While [hundreds of] thousands of Americans die alone, Donald touts stock market gains. As my father lay dying alone, Donald went to the movies. If he can in any way profit from your death, he'll facilitate it... then he'll ignore the fact that you died."

"I realized there literally was nothing that I could say at the time. Nothing stuck. ...He insulted a Gold Star family... a second amendment defense against Hillary Clinton, and... by the time the Access Hollywood tape came around, I knew that if I had said anything I would have been painted as a disgruntled, disinherited niece..."

"Outside of New York I don't think people really... understood the truth behind his business record, and his financial failures, which are legion and serial."

"[P]erhaps the final betrayal was when he was sent to the military academy because he was behaving so horribly and nobody could control him... [[w:Mary Anne MacLeod Trump|[M]y grandmother]] told me much later that she was relieved when he left."

"Once my Dad was out of the family business and was branded a failure, he and anyone connected to him (which would have been me) no longer mattered. So there was this level of thoughtlessness around us. So luckily we were able to laugh about it, because it's really not very funny, although some of the presents were quite hysterical... to have your uncle and his wife, who were extraordinarily wealthy, give you a 3-pack of underwear for Christmas... was a bit beyond the pale... My mom... was even lower on the totem pole than I was... Donald didn't even recognize that they were presents that he had given me."

"Nothing Donald said during the campaign—from his disparagement... to his mocking... —deviated from my expectation... I was reminded of every family meal I'd ever attended during which Donald talked about... ugly fat slobs or... losers... [C]asual of people was commonplace at the Trump dinner table. What did surprise me was that he was getting away with it."

"We thought the blatant racism on display during Donald's announcement speech would be a deal breaker, but we were disabused of that idea when Jerry Falwell, Jr., and other white evangelicals started endorsing him. Maryanne, a devout Catholic since her conversion five decades earlier, was incensed. "What the fuck is wrong with them?" she said. "The only time Donald went to church was when the cameras were there. It's mind boggling. He has no principles. None!""

"After a decade during which Donald floundered, dragged down by bankruptcies and reduced to fronting for... failed products... The Apprentice traded on Donald's image as a brash, self-made deal-maker, a myth that had been the creation of my grandfather... that astonishingly, considering the vast trove of evidence disproving it, had survived into the new millennium... [I]n 2015, a significant percentage of the American population had been primed to believe..."

"When Donald announced his run for presidency on June 16, 2015, I didn't take it seriously. I didn't think Donald took it seriously. He simply wanted the free publicity for his brand. He'd done that sort of thing before. When his poll numbers started to rise and he may have received tacit assurances from... Vladimir Putin that Russia would do everything it could to swing the election in his favor, the appeal of winning grew."

"When Maryanne's turn came, she said, "... We've come a long way since that night when Freddy dumped a bowl of mashed potatoes on Donald's head because he was such a brat." Everybody familiar with the legendary mashed potato story laughed- everyone except Donald, who listened with his arms crossed tightly and a scowl on his face, as he did whenever Maryanne mentioned it. It upset him, as if he were a seven-year-old boy. He clearly still felt the sting of that long-ago humiliation."

"Donald was to my grandfather what the border wall has been for Donald: a vanity project funded at the expense of more worthy pursuits. Fred didn't groom Donald to succeed him; when he was in his right mind, he wouldn't trust Trump management to anybody. Instead, he used Donald, despite his failures and poor judgment, as the public face of his own thwarted ambition. Fred kept propping up Donald's false sense of accomplishment until the only asset Donald had was the ease with which he could be duped by more powerful men. There was a long line of people willing to take advantage of him. In the 1980s, New York journalists and gossip columnists discovered that Donald couldn't distinguish between mockery and flattery and used his shamelessness to sell papers. That image, and the weakness of the man it represented, were precisely what appealed to ."

"Donald today is much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning, or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses, or take in and synthesize information."

"By 2004, when The Apprentice first aired, Donald's finances were a mess (even with his $170 million cut of my grandfather's estate when he and his siblings sold the properties), and his... "empire" consisted of increasingly desperate branding opportunities such as , , and . That made him an easy target for Burnett. Both Donald and his viewers were the butt of the joke that was The Apprentice, which, despite all evidence to the contrary, presented him as a legitimately successful tycoon."

"In Donald's mind, he has accomplished everything on his own merits, cheating notwithstanding. How many interviews has he given in which he offers the obvious falsehood that his father loaned him a mere million dollars that he had to pay back but was otherwise solely responsible for his success? It's easy to understand why he would believe this."

"Donald's need for affirmation is so great that he doesn't seem to notice that the largest group of his supporters are people he wouldn't condescend to be seen with outside of a rally."

"He's a clown," my aunt Maryanne said during one of our regular lunches at the time. "This will never happen." I agreed. We talked about how his reputation as a faded reality star and failed businessman would doom his run. "Does anyone even believe the bullshit that he's a ? What has he ever accomplished on his own?" I asked. "Well," Maryanne said, as dry as the Sahara, "he has had five bankruptcies."