The Donald's Fuzzy Math

By Dian Vujovich

The Donald is really something. Just ask him. He’ll tell you flat out. But when it comes to his net worth, calculator beware: If you don’t get it right, he’ll sue you.

Seems as though Timothy O’Brien, a u t h o r o f “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald ” published in 2005 about the real estate and TV mogul, figured Trump’s worth then to be between $150 and $250 million. That didn’t square with The Donald who said he was worth billions in 2007. So, he’s suing O’Brien for defamation. Go figure the timing on that one? A lot can happen in a couple of years to one’s net worth. And, by the way, who really cares?

But wait, there’s more. The quotes from his 2007 deposition written about in a May 18th, WSJ story (http://tiny.cc/cVqyX ) contained quotes that only Trump could think of and get by with. Like this one: “My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feeling.”

My net worth goes up and down with my feelings, too. My doc suggested Lexapro to help me balance things out.

In that same deposition Trump estimated his net worth in 2007 to be over $4 billion and that in his opinion that figure was “a very conservative number.” A better figure, he thought, would be six billion if you counted in his brand value.

From that same WSJ piece, The Donald kind of likened himself to well, others. When asked if he ever exaggerated statements about his properties, he said he thought everybody did. “Who wouldn’t?”

On Donald, how very uncool of you.

But my very favorite was about how he comes up with the value of his wealth. This apparently is all done in his head. No pencil, paper, spread sheet or slide rule needed. He said that he does “mental projections.”

Hum. Sounds like fuzzy math to me.