President Trump Can’t Even Deal With These Financial Disclosure Forms …

How rich is venal New York City-based contractor Donald Juarez Trump?

Apparently he’s so rich that the United States Government has yet to design a financial disclosure form adequate to accommodating an ocean of wealth his size.

Just ask him,

Today, Donald J. Trump filed his Personal Financial Disclosure (PFD) forms with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). This report was not designed for a man of Mr. Trump‟s massive wealth.

How bad are these forms though, really? Mitt Romney filled them out and he’s got a few shekels…

For instance, they have boxes once a certain number is reached that simply state $50 million or more. Many of these boxes have been checked. As an example, if a building owned by Mr. Trump is worth $1.5 billion, the box checked is “$50,000,000 or more.”

$50 mil limit? That’s gross.

Mr. Trump‟s net worth has increased since the more than one year old financial statement produced at his presidential announcement. Real estate values in New York City, San Francisco, Miami and many other places where he owns property have gone up considerably during this period of time. His debt is a very small percentage of value, and at very low interest rates. As of this date, Mr. Trump‟s net worth is in excess of TEN BILLION DOLLARS.

PRESIDENT TRUMP IS SO RICH THAT HE HAS TO DISCLOSE THE SIZE OF HIS HUGE FORTUNE VAGUELY – AND WITHOUT EVIDENCE – IN ALL CAPS!

But since he didn’t actually include the FEC from with the statement, and the FEC doesn’t have to make it public for 30 days, we can only speculate on whether or not The Donald is engaging in more of his patently subtle humblebragging.

Unless “Make America Great Again” would like to tickle us with a feather…

Mr. Trump‟s income for the year 2014, as reported in the PFD statement, is $362 million dollars (which does not include dividends, interest, capital gains, rents and royalties).

Oh, sounds juicy enough.

In addition, he was successful in choosing multiple stocks which were sold in January 2014. Even though stock market purchases are not something that Mr. Trump has focused on in the past, and while only a small part of his net worth, 40 of the 45 stocks purchased went up in a relatively short period of time, creating a gain of $27,021,471, not including those stocks still remaining in the portfolio which currently have an unrealized gain of over $22 million (schedule attached).

The attached schedule does show The Donald to be a stock wizard, but it also discloses that he is invested in few mutual and hedge funds in addition to relatively smallish accounts with Deutsche Bank and Barclays.

As to the funds, Trump is trumping a combined $60 million across Baron Funds, MidOcean Credit Opportunities, Oppenheimer, BlackRock, three separate funds managed by Paulson Co., and two funds at Angelo Gordon (where fees collected might have gone into paying the salary of Chris Christie’s wife Mary Pat, who until recently was a managing director at the firm).

There are a lot of big numbers flying around Trump’s “curated” disclosure statement, but upon a few readings it becomes clear that today’s statement is just the latest piece of cheap lingerie shed in the bizarre burlesque that is the Trump campaign.

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Coren connects with BBC2

If you want an example, here’s a question from the first episode in the new series. What connects Quintuple troth, Distress Signal, 1963 Lincoln Memorial Speech and an 1815 Belgian Battle?

In fact, the show is so highbrow, it took its title from the epigraph of EM Forster’s novel Howards End, and in its early days, contestants selected questions by choosing a letter from the Greek alphabet. At the beginning of Series Four, Coren Mitchell announced on air that the Greek letters were being dropped due to viewer complaints that it was too pretentious – and replaced with Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Even Coren Mitchell herself admitted that she would probably struggle as a contestant. She told student newspaper Cherwell: “I can come across all Jeremy Paxman on air – but by the time the shows are on TV, I can’t answer any of the questions that I asked in the recording two months before.”

So far, so forbidding. But in fact, Only Connect turned out to be one of the most addictive quizzes on TV. Maybe it’s the Connecting Walls, in which the teams have to beat the clock to sort clues into groups, the sense of achievement when you get a question right, or just the opportunity to marvel at how clever the contestants are, but the programme became a hit.

And in 2014, we received proof of its popularity when it made the jump from BBC Two to BBC Four.

At the time, Coren Mitchell sounded a note of caution – with a Greek mythology reference thrown in for good measure. “I and the rest of the Only Connect team are hugely excited about our Icarus-like flight towards the sun of mainstream broadcasting. If our wings start melting, I’ll just flap harder.”

The opening episode sees the Operational Researchers taking on the Cluesmiths – and who knows? If this latest run is a hit, maybe a move to teatime BBC1 isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

Rookies (ITV, 9pm)

THE Met: Policing London may have ended last week, but ITV are filling the gap with another documentary series charting the work of the UK’s cops.

Filmed over the course of a year, Rookies follows trainee officers in Lincolnshire Police, charting their progress as they venture out onto the streets under the watchful eyes of experienced veterans. In the first episode, 26-year-old Jack finally moves out of the family home and away from his worried parents, while 35-year-old Dee finds the long unsociable hours actually brings her closer to her loved ones – especially her estranged father.

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen: Cracking China (BBC2, 9pm)

WITH his foppish dress sense and even more flamboyant taste in interior decoration, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen was arguably the break-out star of the hugely successful Changing Rooms.

His fame helped him to launch his own range of cushions and picture frames, which he sells through a well-known catalogue, but in the current economic climate, even household names face difficulties shifting their wares.

Luckily, Llewelyn-Bowen thinks he has spotted a potential new market, as he tries to start a business selling to emerging middle classes of China and Mexico. However, instead of sticking to home decor, he is instead branching out into lingerie, and this documentary follows him in the build up to the launch.

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