Flesh-colored gap in the space-time continuum

An item on Doonesbury's Mud Line sent me to the Atlantic website to read Molly Ball's August 13, 2015 article "Donald Trump and the Search for the Republican Soul" (www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/donald-trump-and-the-search-for-the-republican-soul/401192/).  A good article, main memorable by the a great quip,  flesh-colored gap in the space-time continuum."

Credit is hereby given to Ms Ball.

Donald Trump, God's gift to comedians, is a true phenomenon.  (David Letterman lamented having left his late night talk show 2 weeks before the Donald announced his candidacy.)  Rational beings, in my belief, would regard Trump as an exceptionally wealth clown with a surprising limited vocabulary worth of a few chortle-inducing sideshow.

That he isn't, or because he's been the front-runner in the polls for the Republican nomination for President, (polls show have him as the front runner with 32% of likely Republican voters) makes me wonder if all this noise is because no voting has yet taken place.  I look forward to the primaries where levers get pulled.  (Metaphors may be changing.  Voting may be when pen meets paper.)

There was a recent piece on WNYC radio this morning in which a magazine author (didn't get the names and can't find it on their web site) argued that Trump was a failure as a businessman.  The argument was that had Trump put the $40 million he inherited in 1974 into the general stock market (equivalent of an S&P market index fund) he would have more money than he has with all his business dealings.

My simple check is that the author is wrong.  In 1974 the S&P was in the mid 80's to the mid-90's.  The high for this year was 2063.  A hypothetical standard investment would have increased a shade under 24 times.  So $40 million times 24 is $960 million.  Not a trivial sum, but not a billion which now seems to be the benchmark for serious money.