THE DONALD

As if the Donald clan had not trouble enough coping with Donald Duck, our great name has now been appropriated by Mr Trump, widely known as “The Donald”. I cannot say that my joy is unconfined at this development as Donald Trump is not wholly admirable and yet he may emerge (I joke not!) as a serious contender for the presidency of the United States.

The Donald in full flow

Donald Trump was born in 1946 (so he is 69) in Queens, New York City to Fred Trump, who was to become a successful New York residential property developer. His paternal grandparents were of German origin (they had Anglicised their name from Drumpf) and his mother was born Mary Anne MacLeod from Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland who had emigrated to the USA. As father Fred prospered, Donald moved to private Kew-Forest School in Queens. An obstreperous youngster, once expected to join the army, Donald helped out in the real estate office. He attended Fordham University in the Bronx and then move to Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania to study the real estate business, where he graduated in 1968. So Trump’s educational credentials are quite sound, even if sometimes he appears to have forgotten much of what he must have learned.

Trump Tower on 5th Avenue, New York

There is no denying that Trump is a talented property developer and has pulled off several business coups. In 1977 he bought the dilapidated Commodore Hotel at Grand Central. It had been a very successful operation but it declined with the railways. Trump, taking advantage of the parlous finances of NYC, negotiated favourable planning permissions, gutted and renovated the hotel and relaunched it in 1986 as the gleaming Grand Hyatt with his signature reflective glass façade. It is now worth many hundreds of $millions. Similarly when in 1980 the prestigious department store Bonwit Teller on 5^th Avenue went out of business, Trump bought the site, ignored a requirement to preserve the façade and erected the original glitzy Trump Tower, with its famous water cascade, housing retail on the lower floors, offices above, including that of the Trump Organisation, and some amazingly expensive apartments. Trump’s empire went through a sticky time in the early 1990s with 4 of his companies in administration after the foolish acquisition of the Taj Mahal Casino. He was grossly over-borrowed and in time his lenders took a large haircut and The Donald had to sell his yacht and his airline. Yet Donald bounced back.

Trump conducts his business in a blaze of publicity and egotistical pronouncements. He claims to be one of the richest men in America, worth, he says, $10bn, Forbes thought it was more like $4bn and others estimate $2.9bn. Whatever, property valuation is an inexact science and Trump is said to own 2million sq ft of property in New York City, so he is worth a bob or two. Nowadays he franchises the Trump name and brand very profitably and there are Trump Towers globally in which Donald has no ongoing financial interest. He has fallen for the usual rich man’s playthings, often unprofitably, American football clubs, two golf resorts in Scotland and beauty pageant promotion.

His glamorous love-life attracts popular interest and he has a taste for exotic models for wives: Ivana (1977-91), Maria Maples (1993-1999) and Melania (2005 – present).

 

Ivana

Maria

                                               

Melania

           

Trump became a nationally recognised face when he hosted the popular TV programme The Apprentice from 2003 -15. It gave him many opportunities to inflate his own and disparage others’ business acumen. Latterly he was supposedly receiving from NBC $3m per appearance. He left the show to pursue his political career, he said, hastened by NBC dropping him anyhow after he made rude remarks about Mexicans “bringing drugs and bringing crime and their rapists” to the US.

Trump could simply be categorised and marginally tolerated as a typically colourful American tycoon. However he has chosen to enter politics as a Republican Presidential hopeful and standards for that office should be high and transparent.

Trump runs on the Republican ticket but at heart he is a populist. He shares the current GOP revulsion of “large government” but his most frequent tirades are aimed at high taxes, Obamacare and illegal immigration from Latin America. There is little evidence that these policies/prejudices have been thought through. Trump shines as a platform orator but is noticeably weaker as a participant in a debate with well-informed opponents. Yet the public go for his “we can do it” philosophy and his claim that he has actually done it in business terms resonates well. He says with characteristic modesty that he will be “the best jobs President that God ever created”.

Trump rants about illegal Mexican immigrants

He plays the racist anti-immigrant card constantly and this might be thought unwise in melting-pot America. But its reception is complex. Plenty hard-working Mexicans, for example, fear an uncontrolled influx of their fellow-countrymen as threatening to their own livelihoods. These Mexicans value America way ahead of their ancestral Mexico to which they have no wish to return. Trump’s simplistic notion that all illegal Mexicans can and should be rounded up and sent home is not dismissed as nonsensical although his pledge that Mexico will pay for a new border wall probably is!

Trump embodies the dissatisfaction seen elsewhere in the West with under-performing political elites. As he articulated it, “We’re tired of being pushed around, kicked around our country and being led by stupid people.” He echoes the complaints of the dissatisfied and the marginalised of all the world – what he calls “the fed-up crowd”. He revels in being an outsider, with no favours to repay, as most of his financing so far has come from his own pocket. The other Republican candidates are competent but not thrilling – including laid-back and intelligent Ben Carson, the black neurosurgeon currently leading in Iowa, (don’t wake him up! jeers Donald), Carly Fiorina, ex CEO of HP, who out-debated Trump earlier but has since faded, and Jeb Bush dynastic ex-Governor of Florida. Someone said Jeb looks like a kale-eating vegan when up against the daily diet of red meat from Trump. There is no doubt that Donald is the character in the race, and Americans love a celebrity.

Regularly Trump shows his nasty side. For years he led the ugly mob of “birthers” determined to prove that President Obama was born outside the USA (in fact he was born in Hawaii) and hence ineligible to hold office. More recently Trump outraged many by sneering at war hero John McCain: “He’s not a war hero……I like heroes who were not captured” In many countries Trump’s remarks would have put him beyond the Pale of respectability and electability. To city sophisticates Trump’s consistently high poll ratings are inexplicable as at first glance he is a loud-mouthed ignoramus with an eccentric hair-piece. On second glance too – hear him on foreign affairs, confused about geography, and elementary history but frankly Middle America cares nothing if Trump cannot tell a Sunni from a Shia.

If by some stroke of fortune Trump wins the Republican nomination, he would almost certainly be pitted against Hillary Clinton for the Democrats. Hillary is well-briefed, experienced in high office and much admired by many, even if her personality is rather chilly. But Trump would be no walk-over. Hillary carries a heavy load of political baggage from her days in Arkansas, her term as First Lady supporting Bill and as Secretary of State in troubled times, especially in the Middle East. Moreover she is a woman and no American has broken through that Presidential glass ceiling. The world would, alas, not be a safer place if The Donald were taking the Oath in January 2017.

SMD

26.10.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

HENRY CLAY FRICK - CONTROVERSIAL PHILANTHROPIST

                

America produces Captains of Industry of every shape and flavour as we have seen recently with Steve Jobs, Donald Trump and Dick Fuld. Few of them are plaster saints and in the 19^th and early 20^th century, roughly in The Gilded Age, a collection of highly acquisitive individuals dominated the US business world (“Robber barons” to their enemies)’ One such was Henry Clay Frick said in 1892 to have earned the accolade as “the most hated man in America” and the target that year of a determined assassination attempt. Yet he died in his bed in 1919 a highly respected connoisseur of art and benefactor of his nation, a transformed man indeed.

Henry Clay Frick

Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) was born of Mennonite German stock in Southern Pennsylvania. His grandfather was a successful distiller but his father’s business ventures were not fruitful and his upbringing was relatively poor. With cousins, Henry set up a coking business supplying the rapidly growing steel industry in his state. He prospered and moved to a large house in Pittsburgh. He soon bought out his cousins and he met Scots-born Andrew Carnegie just getting into his stride as one of America’s leading steelmakers. Frick and Carnegie became commercial partners and earned riches together, although their relationship was often rocky.  

Frick knew all the leading lights in Pittsburgh and he invited 60 of them to join the South Fork Club, an exclusive social and fishing resort he had created on a lake within a redundant dam, holding back the Little Conemaugh River 14 miles up-river from the town of Johnstown. The Club was tardy in its repairs to the dam, the largest earthen dam in America. After a storm, the dam broke in 1889 and 2,209 people were killed, one of the worst civil calamities ever to strike America. Frick swore his friends to silence about the neglected repairs: they led and financed much of the relief operation. The Club denied any liability and won its case. The law was tightened up subsequently but Frick was fortunate to escape this Johnstown Flood episode unpunished.

In his role as partner of Carnegie, Frick was in charge of the Homestead steel mill, near Pittsburgh. Labour relations had been difficult as Homestead’s introduction of the Bessemer steel smelting technique undermined the importance of the traditional artisan steelworkers. A confrontation between staunchly anti-union Frick and the striking men provoked violence. The men were armed and Frick, with Carnegie’s support, sent in 300 armed guards from Pinkerton’s detective agency. There were various skirmishes leading to 12 deaths; the Pinkerton men surrendered, but the state militia intervened in favour of the employers. Then a Russian anarchist with no connection to the union burst into Frick’s office, shot him twice and knifed him. Public opinion moved against the men and the strike ended. The unions cast Frick as the villain of the piece and unions were not fully recognised in law until FDR’s time.

After all this conflict it is not surprising that Frick decided to leave Pittsburgh and concentrate on New York by 1905. He was to fall out finally with Carnegie but may have been satisfied with the $30 million he received in recompense. He was also the Chairman of, and largest stockholder in Penn Central and an enormously rich man.

The Frick Collection building on Park Avenue and E. 70th Street, New York

                     

Frick had been a keen collector of American paintings in Pittsburgh and in his vast house in Boston, but in common with other rich men he turned his thoughts to a great collection of Old Masters and European furniture. There are strong echoes of the Wallace Collection in Hertford House, London in Frick’s taste and display. The Wallace is the larger collection but Frick’s paintings are more than a match.

He had bought a block in Manhattan opposite Central Park and he built there a magnificent neo-classical building, designed to display his collection. It was completed by 1914 but Frick only lived there 5 years, dying in 1919. His collection suited his personal tastes – he liked beauty in all its forms, portraits, landscapes - he would wander around the paintings at night - he was less interested in wars or mythology.

So the visitor sees wonderful works by Vermeer. Titian, Rembrandt, Hals and Holbein (the celebrated portraits of persecutors Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell), lovely pieces by Veronese and El Greco. My cherished Rococo period has a ravishing Fragonard Room and delights from Boucher and Tiepolo. English painters are much in evidence with rows of Gainsboroughs, Romneys and Turners. Nothing upsets the eye, or perhaps challenges the intellect overmuch, and the paintings are complemented with exquisite French 18^th century furniture, Limoges enamels and Sevres porcelain. One leaves deeply satisfied, as if by a great feast.

The Secret Meeting by Fragonard

Autumn by Boucher

                          

The Harbour of Dieppe by J W M Turner

Frick’s bequest of his collection to the nation after his wife died in 1931, was an act of great generosity. Many of his kind of businessman in America followed to some degree Carnegie’s dictum: “The man who dies rich, dies dishonoured!” Thus endowments flowed from the likes of Rockefeller,  Mellon, J P Morgan and Vanderbilt.

Philanthropy still flourishes in America, one of her most attractive feature. Bankers, hedge fund managers, big pharma moguls, cyber-kings and other multi-talented persons open their wallets with generous abandon. In my banking days, I knew one such, the late Dr Mortimer Sackler, a confirmed Anglophile, whose endowed galleries grace The Met in New York, The National Gallery in London and more modest establishments in Oxbridge. He was a most charming man bringing beauty to our world, just as Henry Clay Frick created a bright jewel with his wonderful Collection.

SMD

22.10.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

---

 [SD1]

THE LEFT STIRS

A wave of Disillusion is sweeping the Western world with many electors turning their backs on conventional ideas and traditional shibboleths. Some of this insurrectionary sentiment will no doubt be a 9-day wonder and old battle-lines will reappear. But there are several issues which gnaw at the consciences of a wide public and the political class has been notably slow or ineffective in addressing them.

The tipping point for disillusion was the Financial Crisis which first struck in 2007 and became a global nightmare in 2008. All confidence in the integrity and competence of leading bankers, insurers, mortgage providers, central bankers and politicians evaporated in a matter of months. New faces have been substituted but the guilty from the past have not been punished: their conduct was not judged criminal though their recklessness and greed affected every household in the West. As the past is raked up, people react with disgust at the behaviour of those in Wall Street, the City and in Frankfurt whom they once esteemed. Nor has this conduct much improved as a spate of hefty fines for misrepresentation, rate-rigging and misconduct continues to flow. The public are still regarded by the financiers as sheep to be sheared.

In the US, many financial institutions failed or had to be rescued. Vast amounts of taxpayers’ money were mobilised in this stabilising effort but in essence the old elite was protected. Obscene remuneration packages are still prevalent.

Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner, saviours/stooges of the old order

The gap between the super-rich (“the billionaires”) and the middle class is quickly widening. It is not to indulge in the politics of envy to question how tolerable this phenomenon may be. I watched Bernie Sanders the self-proclaimed “Socialist Democrat” debating on TV with Hillary Clinton, and his admittedly un-costed programme of re-imposing Glass-Stiegel, introducing comprehensive welfare, abolishing student loans and staying out of Middle East entanglements seemed sensible enough to me and struck a chord with the enthusiastic audience. Hillary will easily win the Democratic nomination, but Bernie pulls her leftwards – God save us from a dumbo Donald Trump presidency!

In Britain we talk of the “loony Left” with much justification and I have no feel as to how long Jeremy Corbyn will remain Labour leader. But he is the real thing ideologically and that thrills his supporters. The electoral pendulum will swing Left in due course. Tory reduction in tax credits for the poor is a risky strategy, easily depicted as uncaring and selfish, while deficit reduction is necessary but politically unsexy. The new Living Wage is a good counterweight but employers hate it. The Tories are probably safe enough until 2020 but their majority is thin and their backbenchers notoriously undisciplined. Disagreements over Europe may yet split the party – Brexit seems an imperative to me - and open the door to the renascent Left under Corbyn and his coterie. Corbyn too crusades against social inequality and unaffordable housing, serious issues requiring urgent solutions.

The UK's putative masters - John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn and Tom Watson

Europe is in an appalling mess. It has all the hallmarks of a 1960s model car which has failed to adapt to the 2015 world. Protectionist and statist, Europe is falling behind her competitors: France, nominally socialist, is a busted flush struggling to keep up economically. Once mighty Germany is sullied by corruption abroad and corporate cheating at home. Her leadership is absurdly overrated as U-turn succeeds somersault over Ukraine, energy policy and mass immigration. Angela Merkel, like infinitely superior Margaret Thatcher, will be succeeded by some dim John Major figure but one day the Left will rule with unknowable but perilous consequences on the Rhine. Mediterranean Europe seethes under economically illiterate policies imposed by remote Brussels panjandrums like Schaeuble, Dijsselbloem and Juncker.

Dijsselbloem, Juncker and Schaeuble, Europe's grim triad

Years of blatant corruption from the conservative and socialist parties in Greece have made then unelectable, allowing radical leftist SYRIZA under Alexis Tsipras to fill the vacuum. The EU hate and fear this government and thought they had crushed it for ever when Tsipras was forced to knuckle under to the austerity diktats of the EuroGroup. However Tsipras strolled to a comfortable victory in the 20 September election, managed to dump his more extreme supporters and will be in charge for at least 4 more years. He faces a massive task to reform and clean up Greece. Tsipras remains a man of the Left and SYRIZA has the capacity to embarrass Europe on issues as diverse as mass Muslim immigration, debt forgiveness and the pursuit of tax evaders, bribe-givers and politicians on the take throughout Europe.

The Left nudges us all in some positive directions. I do not see Reds under the Bed or Barbarians at the Gate. The West simply needs to bring fresh thinking to perennial problems, to listen to the people and respect their sovereignty.

SMD

17.10.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

A WONDERFUL TOWN

New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town,

The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down

The people ride in a hole in the ground,

New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town!

Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin in On the Town (1949)

My childhood notions of New York were formed by the iconic film and song from On the Town. We first visited in 1984 and again in 1985, both on business (and expenses!) and have not been back since, a 30 year interval. This time we are visiting two of our sons, who recently followed their careers here, one living in smart East mid-town Manhattan, near Sutton Place, the other in delightful Brooklyn Heights, where we are staying. Both are charitably eager to show their decrepit parents their favourite places!     

Brownstones in leafy Brooklyn Heights

I had rather forgotten how dynamic New York is. Even after only 12 days, all the clichés ring true, teeming streets, powerful buildings, busy people but we have been treated everywhere with noticeable civility, even by the notorious passport and customs officers at JFK! We have done some corny touristy things – the Staten Island Ferry to see Miss Liberty up close, eating hotdogs, learning our way round the (easy enough) subway. The Metropolitan Museum of Art still proudly displays her incomparable collection but we also patronised the substantial Brooklyn Museum and the evocative Tenement Museum. New Yorkers know how to eat and we have consumed massive ribeye and Porterhouse steaks, delectable moist brisket, barbecued chicken, pizza to kill for, toothsome New England oysters, Caribbean mahi mahi fish and scallops etc, which I have washed down with decent American draught beer.

Above all the locals are chatty, quickly engaging obvious tourists like us in conversation – and what an ethnically diverse lot they are! Here in Brooklyn, a black man on the local subway, a former sailor at the US base at the Holy Loch recalled my native Scotland; another gave us careful directions, a third gave us his sales pitch as a medical man: Russian ladies at the dry cleaners were curious about London: a ticket-office man with a Salonika mother reminisced about Greece to my lovely wife and her elaborate headscarf deceived some Hasidic Jews into believing we were fellow orthodox members. A cheerful taxi driver had a huge beard and turban straight from Bengal, an American-Italian security guard and former cop quizzed us on Europe and a waitress from Kazakhstan at a Polish-American bistro wanted to visit London, while Chinese, Korean and Arabic shops abound. Whatever their ethnic origins, all these people were most proud of being Americans, integrated into the warp and weave of their nation. Good luck to them. Our British emphasis, by contrast, on multi-cultural diversity is probably a mistake.

Politics do not much intrude. Republican shenanigans over the Speaker of the House and congressional leadership are reported but do not cause much excitement. The pronouncements of Donald Trump cause hilarity here – but deep devotion in the mid-West populace. President Obama wrings his hands over gun control following even more college shootings and is castigated for being outwitted by brutal Putin on Syria; too early to call that one. Baseball and American football cast a more potent spell than any of this.

Like all large nations, the US has its problems – of inequality, of economic dangers and of unwelcome international commitments. But Americans have a generous and inclusive spirit. They strive for self-improvement in an unselfconscious way. I was struck by the massive doors of the Brooklyn Public Library depicting characters from American literature and classical mythology.

Brooklyn Library Doors

Alongside the doors is an inscription:

Here are enshrined the longing of great hearts

And noble things that tower above the tide.

The magic word that winged wonder starts

The garnered wisdom that never dies.

On other walls are inscribed quotations about books from Carlyle, Bacon, Conrad, Alexander Smith, Goethe and Shakespeare. Unfashionable perhaps, but replete with the American spirit.

This spirit is what gives the Statue of Liberty her power, symbolising freedom, and with what emotion the waves of immigrants must have heard of her inscription;

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless tempest-tost to me,
I lift the lamp beside the golden door!

A wonderful town indeed.       

                                                          

SMD

11.10.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015