Monday, April 3, 2017

How Smart are Jared and Ivanka Kushner?


I keep on seeing in the comments and elsewhere reference to the intelligence of  Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner. But how does one reach this conclusion?

They certainly aren't as publicly bombastic as Donald but outside of that there is nothing that provides a clue that suggests they are anything more than non-deep thinking people of average intelligence. As far as I can tell they pull off celebrity with style but that is about all we know.

Consider:

Here is an interesting take by Elizabeth Spiers, who worked for Jared:
I don’t even know 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 didn’t think 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 it, get out; discussions with Chinese insurance giant Anbang fell apart this past week.

Is this good dealmaking? I don’t know.
And then there is the fact that Jared got hoodwinked into hiring, for his media operation the Observer, John Schindler, the most vicious anti-Trump journalistic attack dog in the country.

As for Ivanka, she has copied her father's branding technique by promoting a kind of Paris Hilton for the office fashion sense. Outside of that, she appears to have adopted every crazed politically correct position this side of Black Lives Matter.

What's scary is that the word is out that these two can influence Donald. So we now have Jared being invited by the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, to Iraq.

And German Chancellor Angela Merkel has invited Ivanka to Berlin to some wacko Women's Economic Summit.

This is how you influence policy in America. We have no clue how this will turn out.

-RW 

Also see: A Rare Video of Jared Kushner Speaking Publicly

3 comments:

  1. fills columns with some nice looking people rather than the old and gray secondly this is probably trumps kids getting their 101 in government work

    ReplyDelete
  2. When Bill Ford took the reins of Ford Motor Company in 1999 he almost immediately gave his blessing to some of the most sleep inducing automobiles ever conceived that were saddled with truly wretched transmissions and engines. Ford was saved by a the genius of Alan Mullally who bet the farm on his extremely ambitious reorganization that saved the company from being burned to the ground by an imbecile.

    I think the Chinese bankers sized up little Jared's real estate holdings and saw a lead anchor that will sink Jared Kushner's reputation in short order. Jared Kushner is the second coming of Bill Ford.

    As for Ivanka Trump, I have to be honest, her well documented relationship with her father makes me extremely uneasy. My wife and I worked very hard to make sure our daughters were independent, grounded, and extremely intelligent. My observations of Donald Trump lead me to believe he views women in a completely different way. I believe Ivanka was raised to serve the needs of wealthy men, and is little more than a cloistered concubine.

    Bottom line, we are screwed!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The guy running the country behind the scenes resides at 666 5th Avenue. Let that sink in.

    ReplyDelete