I'm no billionaire

You don't have to be smart, or even a stable genius, to make money in real estate, you just have to be staked. I know this for a fact. 

My father was not a wealthy man. He was working class. And grew up in the post Depression era. his mother saved string. His father took whatever money was saved by not having to buy new string, and blew it all at the racetrack.

Nevertheless, he made something of himself. Not for nothing but he did  after he spent a year in an Army prison for smoking the reefer in 1947. My father was not your everyday CPA. 

When I moved out to California and started making a life for myself he suggested I get some real estate. Are you kidding, I was barely making ends meet writing shitty copy for help wanted ads in recruitment advertising. That's when he fronted me $30,000 to buy a condominium in the not so desirable souther areas of Culver City.

It was 800 square feet and had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a dining room (more of a nook), a tiny living room, and a kitchen the size of a powder room. You could fit two people in the kitchen but then there wouldn't be any room for a pot roast or a chicken.

I dutifully paid him back because I didn't want that nut hanging over my head. And in a stroke of good fortune the California real estate market obliged me with a huge profit on the condo. I sold it for nearly 3 times what I paid for it. 

I took that profit and bought out my my uncle and his modest home in Palm Springs. It was a way for me to avoid capital gains tax. And for him to have some cash in his pocket for his golden yet-cranky years.

With the miniscule rent he was paying me I was also able to bail out my sister-in-law who had gotten underwater on her townhome. I still rent it to her. At ridiculously under market rates, but I'm glad to be in a position to help her out. 

The point is, real estate been very, very good to me. So to assume that Donald Trump is some kind of business wunderkind is to conflate his success with some kind of plan. Or even a concept of a plan.

Any idiot, including me, can make money in real estate. As the saying goes, "Land, they're not making any more of it."

Just something to keep in mind considering I was fronted $30K in 1990. Ex President Grandpa Ramblemouth was given $400,000,000 by his tax cheating father. And yet he still finds the need to pimp sneakers, bibles, trading cards and shabby books.

OK, maybe the last one doesn't help make my case. I've also got books to sell as well.