It is a long standing truism, that bullshit can baffle brains. It is also evident that inherited wealth and leverage can delude many and make fools look impressive, at least for a while.
This first hand observation and assessment of Trump’s son-in-law, cum right-hand-man-in the Oval office, Jared Kushner, by Elizabeth Spiers, the former editor-in-chief of New York Observer who worked for him for 18 months is worth a read. See: “I worked for Jared Kushner and he is not the right man for his senior white house job”:
“Kushner’s claim to business knowledge, beyond admiring Silicon Valley, boils down to his work for his family’s commercial real estate company, which is hardly comparable to a government institution. And if industry dynamics are not transitive across the board, expertise isn’t, either.
On that count, I’m not even sure how to quantify Kushner’s expertise, anyway. Yes, he ran the company – which he inherited, not uncommon in New York’s dynastic, insular real estate world. But he was sure he had the goods. When I worked for him, I wasn’t sure he had a realistic view of his own capabilities since, like his father-in-law, he seemed to view his wealth and its concomitant accoutrements as rewards for his personal success in business, and not something he would have had in any case. To me, he appeared to view his position and net worth as the products of an essentially meritocratic process.
Yet when Kushner Co. bought 666 5th Avenue for $1.8 billion in 2007, it was the largest transaction for a commercial real estate building in Manhattan’s history. Had the financing gone south, as it nearly did, it probably would have destroyed the family’s fortune. The building is heavily in debt now and in need of new investors to let Vornado, a real estate firm that owns 49.5 percent of the building, get out; a tentative arrangement with Chinese insurance giant Anbang fell apart this week.”
;
