What do you think?
Rate this book
Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again
Donald J. Trump has just five words for the politicians and so-called leaders in Washington,
It s Time to Get Tough
President Obama has been a disaster for America. In four short years, he s wrecked our economy, saddled our children with more debt than America managed to rack up in 225 years, and gone around the world apologizing for our country—as if the greatest nation in the world needs to apologize for being a land of opportunity and freedom, which we were before Obama became president.
Now, America looks like a broken country—stripped of jobs, stripped of wealth, stripped of respect. And what does President Obama do about it? He plays nice with a China that is doing everything it can to destroy our economy, while refusing to stand up for America with Middle Eastern oil mobsters who think they can hold us hostage through higher prices at the pump, and chucking billions in “stimulus money to his friends and supporters while letting the rest of us foot the bill.
This can t go on. And if Donald J. Trump has anything to say about it, it won t.
In his new blockbuster book, Time to Get Tough , Trump has the answers America has been looking for, an agenda for making America number one again,
It s Time to Get Tough
President Obama has been a disaster for America. In four short years, he s wrecked our economy, saddled our children with more debt than America managed to rack up in 225 years, and gone around the world apologizing for our country—as if the greatest nation in the world needs to apologize for being a land of opportunity and freedom, which we were before Obama became president.
Now, America looks like a broken country—stripped of jobs, stripped of wealth, stripped of respect. And what does President Obama do about it? He plays nice with a China that is doing everything it can to destroy our economy, while refusing to stand up for America with Middle Eastern oil mobsters who think they can hold us hostage through higher prices at the pump, and chucking billions in “stimulus money to his friends and supporters while letting the rest of us foot the bill.
This can t go on. And if Donald J. Trump has anything to say about it, it won t.
In his new blockbuster book, Time to Get Tough , Trump has the answers America has been looking for, an agenda for making America number one again,
256 pages, Hardcover
First published December 5, 2011
About the author
Donald J. Trump
205 books1,340 followersDonald John Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump received a Bachelor of Science in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, and his father named him president of his real estate business in 1971. Trump renamed it the Trump Organization and reoriented the company toward building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. After a series of business failures in the late twentieth century, he successfully launched side ventures that required little capital, mostly by licensing the Trump name. From 2004 to 2015, he co-produced and hosted the reality television series The Apprentice. He and his businesses have been plaintiff or defendant in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, including six business bankruptcies.
Trump won the 2016 presidential election as the Republican Party nominee against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton while losing the popular vote. During the campaign, his political positions were described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist. His election and policies sparked numerous protests. He was the first U.S. president with no prior military or government experience. A special counsel investigation established that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to favor Trump's campaign. Trump promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist and many as misogynistic.
As president, Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted military funding toward building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, and implemented a policy of family separations for migrants detained at the U.S. border. He weakened environmental protections, rolling back more than 100 environmental policies and regulations. He signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials, used political pressure to interfere with testing efforts, and spread misinformation about unproven treatments. Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. He met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times but made no progress on denuclearization.
Trump refused to concede after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud, and attempted to overturn the results by pressuring government officials, mounting scores of unsuccessful legal challenges, and obstructing the presidential transition. On January 6, 2021, he urged his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, which many of them then attacked, resulting in multiple deaths and interrupting the electoral vote count.
Trump is the only American president to have been impeached twice. After he tried to pressure Ukraine in 2019 to investigate Biden, he was impeached by the House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted by the Senate in February 2020. The House impeached him again in January 2021 for incitement of insurrection. The Senate acquitted him in February. Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history.
Since leaving office, Trump has continued to dominate the Republican Party and is a candidate in the 2024 Republican presidential primarie
Trump received a Bachelor of Science in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, and his father named him president of his real estate business in 1971. Trump renamed it the Trump Organization and reoriented the company toward building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. After a series of business failures in the late twentieth century, he successfully launched side ventures that required little capital, mostly by licensing the Trump name. From 2004 to 2015, he co-produced and hosted the reality television series The Apprentice. He and his businesses have been plaintiff or defendant in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, including six business bankruptcies.
Trump won the 2016 presidential election as the Republican Party nominee against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton while losing the popular vote. During the campaign, his political positions were described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist. His election and policies sparked numerous protests. He was the first U.S. president with no prior military or government experience. A special counsel investigation established that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to favor Trump's campaign. Trump promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist and many as misogynistic.
As president, Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted military funding toward building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, and implemented a policy of family separations for migrants detained at the U.S. border. He weakened environmental protections, rolling back more than 100 environmental policies and regulations. He signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials, used political pressure to interfere with testing efforts, and spread misinformation about unproven treatments. Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. He met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times but made no progress on denuclearization.
Trump refused to concede after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud, and attempted to overturn the results by pressuring government officials, mounting scores of unsuccessful legal challenges, and obstructing the presidential transition. On January 6, 2021, he urged his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, which many of them then attacked, resulting in multiple deaths and interrupting the electoral vote count.
Trump is the only American president to have been impeached twice. After he tried to pressure Ukraine in 2019 to investigate Biden, he was impeached by the House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted by the Senate in February 2020. The House impeached him again in January 2021 for incitement of insurrection. The Senate acquitted him in February. Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history.
Since leaving office, Trump has continued to dominate the Republican Party and is a candidate in the 2024 Republican presidential primarie
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 130 reviews
August 1, 2015
You know, I did not care for Donald Trump and never really paid attention to what the media had to say about him in the past, but with all the media coverage and pretty much Trump has dominated the news it has awoken in me curiosity to look deeper than what the media is reporting.....because we all know the media only reports limited information! And because of this, I read his book in two days. I've also listened to his UNCUT speeches And boy I like what he has to say! As much as I disagree with Trump’s statements about Mexicans/Mexico, the fact is Donald Trump did not commit a crime to speak his mind. In my opinion he exaggerated; the majority of illegals are not what Trump described. There are good and bad people in every race/nationality. Call him whatever you want; hate him or not, but he has constitutional freedom rights just like any American to speak their mind, whether we like it or not or agree/disagree. We need to realize as Americans to be careful what we wish for. We want to silence those who disagree or do not like us, but yet have the right to express our own opinions, including insults, like many have done on social media. Americans, including myself are sick and tired of the same old BS from politicians. It’s refreshing to have a NON-POLITICIAN run for public office. Illegal immigration is not the only issue our country faces!
February 24, 2012
Who read this piece of garbage and gave it more than one star? I wouldn't even give it one star if there were a way to give it a lower rating. Trump needs to learn how to calculate percentages of the national debt, how the legal system works, and how international tariffs work, to name just a few things.
February 23, 2018
Still can't believe that this shallow, vain, self-centered, ignorant idiot is the president of the USA!!!
December 13, 2016
First of all, I read this book as part of a challenge to "read a book written by someone whose political stance you disagree with." So I went into it with a hostile attitude, I admit that. I struggled to get through it all, but I did...probably only because the actual "book" was only 67% of the content according to Kindle. The rest was acknowledgments and references and sources. Even though many of the cites are from what I would call questionable sources.
The book is just poorly written. It reads like a Trump speech--full of "I'm so great" (he's great at everything he does, it sounds like) and then full of name-calling President Obama. The grammar and word flow is terrible. I know that since the book was written, it's come out that his speech writer actually did most of the writing, but I'm sure he had to write it such that Trump would approve it. The book goes through paragraphs of rhetoric without substantiation, and then will cite some sources, but often not relevant to what was just said. (For example, Trump spent pages and pages talking about how Obama's policies 'gave away everything to the Chinese' and then cited a statistic that "China's currency manipulation and other unfair trade practices helped China's crude steel production jump from 15% of world production in 2002 to a jaw-dropping 47% in 2008." Does he not realize that Bush was President during those years and that Obama didn't even take office until January of 2009? Was he expecting Obama to clean up Bush's mess immediately? (The book was published about 2.5 years after Obama took office). Add to this the fact that Trump admits to knowing all about China's way of doing business because "I've done hundreds of deals with them"...in the same chapter where he calls China "our enemy"...is he not seeing the irony of those statements?
It was things like that which really diminished the credibility of the book. Even when he tried to cite statistics and references, they were off-kilter and skewed and of course came from heavily pro-GOP sources. There was nothing here that I didn't expect--it was a rehashing of his political speeches, points he tried to make at the debates and the like. Much of the rhetoric he spewed about Obama had been vindicated now, after Obama has had 8 years in office. (For example, "We are currently paying $85 a barrel for oil; with the right leadership, we could get that price down to $40-50/barrel." On Nov. 8, 2016, the day of the election, a barrel of crude was $46.50. Of course Trump didn't mention that during the campaign!)
He also flopped out some out and out lies, saying "Obama needs to wake up, stop taking so many vacations--I've never seen anything like it!--and quit messing around!" In reality, Obama took fewer vacation days than most modern Presidents, including 3 times LESS than his predecessor, GW Bush. He could have taken the last 3 months of his Presidency off on vacation and still not had as much vacation time as Bush!
In short....I struggled to finish the book. Aside from being written at a third grade level (I'm sure so his supporters can read it) and poorly written at that, the man is just scary. When the man who is now the leader of the free world has said, "If any country in the Middle East won't sell us their oil at fair market price, we have every right to take it" it sends chills down my spine. I'm glad I only borrowed the book from the library. I'm trying to find out if I can expunge it from my borrowing record!
The book is just poorly written. It reads like a Trump speech--full of "I'm so great" (he's great at everything he does, it sounds like) and then full of name-calling President Obama. The grammar and word flow is terrible. I know that since the book was written, it's come out that his speech writer actually did most of the writing, but I'm sure he had to write it such that Trump would approve it. The book goes through paragraphs of rhetoric without substantiation, and then will cite some sources, but often not relevant to what was just said. (For example, Trump spent pages and pages talking about how Obama's policies 'gave away everything to the Chinese' and then cited a statistic that "China's currency manipulation and other unfair trade practices helped China's crude steel production jump from 15% of world production in 2002 to a jaw-dropping 47% in 2008." Does he not realize that Bush was President during those years and that Obama didn't even take office until January of 2009? Was he expecting Obama to clean up Bush's mess immediately? (The book was published about 2.5 years after Obama took office). Add to this the fact that Trump admits to knowing all about China's way of doing business because "I've done hundreds of deals with them"...in the same chapter where he calls China "our enemy"...is he not seeing the irony of those statements?
It was things like that which really diminished the credibility of the book. Even when he tried to cite statistics and references, they were off-kilter and skewed and of course came from heavily pro-GOP sources. There was nothing here that I didn't expect--it was a rehashing of his political speeches, points he tried to make at the debates and the like. Much of the rhetoric he spewed about Obama had been vindicated now, after Obama has had 8 years in office. (For example, "We are currently paying $85 a barrel for oil; with the right leadership, we could get that price down to $40-50/barrel." On Nov. 8, 2016, the day of the election, a barrel of crude was $46.50. Of course Trump didn't mention that during the campaign!)
He also flopped out some out and out lies, saying "Obama needs to wake up, stop taking so many vacations--I've never seen anything like it!--and quit messing around!" In reality, Obama took fewer vacation days than most modern Presidents, including 3 times LESS than his predecessor, GW Bush. He could have taken the last 3 months of his Presidency off on vacation and still not had as much vacation time as Bush!
In short....I struggled to finish the book. Aside from being written at a third grade level (I'm sure so his supporters can read it) and poorly written at that, the man is just scary. When the man who is now the leader of the free world has said, "If any country in the Middle East won't sell us their oil at fair market price, we have every right to take it" it sends chills down my spine. I'm glad I only borrowed the book from the library. I'm trying to find out if I can expunge it from my borrowing record!
September 9, 2015
I was curious about Trump's positions when he rose in popularity over the summer. This book has all the details you could want about Trump's plans for America, should he become president. It includes everything from tax reform to trade deals and foreign policy. He has his ducks in a row, as everything is cited and footnoted to support his policies.
The book is easy and quick to read, since the font is large and the lines are one-and-a-half or double spaced. I brought it with me on a camping trip, and it was an enjoyable past time. I didn't feel bored or overwhelmed with boring details. He gets to the point quickly, and you can hear his distinctive voice in your head as you read.
If you are curious what Trump is all about, pick up this book. I got the 2011 version (he is going to release an updated 2015 version this fall) used on Amazon for very cheap. The original hardcover price was about $27...not sure if I'd pay that price for it.
Worth your time, if you are into politics.
The book is easy and quick to read, since the font is large and the lines are one-and-a-half or double spaced. I brought it with me on a camping trip, and it was an enjoyable past time. I didn't feel bored or overwhelmed with boring details. He gets to the point quickly, and you can hear his distinctive voice in your head as you read.
If you are curious what Trump is all about, pick up this book. I got the 2011 version (he is going to release an updated 2015 version this fall) used on Amazon for very cheap. The original hardcover price was about $27...not sure if I'd pay that price for it.
Worth your time, if you are into politics.
September 30, 2012
There are a couple things very apparent when reading "Time To Get Tough: Making America #1 Again" by Donald Trump. One, Trump is extremely pro-America, and two, Trump is very against President Obama and the Democratic party. With that said, if you are a democrat, and you like Obama and his policies, you will not like this book. If you are conservative, don't care for the democratic party and Obama, agree with the tea-party, etc., you will most likely really enjoy reading Donald Trump slam the President and what he's done these last three years in office.
The book is pretty much what you would expect from Donald Trump if you've watched any of his televised interviews. He is very pro-America and very pro-Donald Trump. I don't mind his bragging, because he has worked hard and achieved quite a bit, so he has the right to brag a bit. I like Trump, even before "The Apprentice," and I enjoy the show. I also tend to agree with his political views, so I enjoyed reading "Time To Get Tough." Unfortunately, the solutions to our country's problems are not quite as clear cut and simple as Trump makes them out to be in this book. However, I do agree with the basic premise of many of his ideas and think they could get our country moving in the right direction.
With that said, I will say that some of Trump's positions could be viewed as Bullying, or "Might Makes Right" with his thought of taking oil from the Middle East in return for all we've done for them. While some may not agree with this approach, I would imagine those are the same people who don't agree with many aggressive positions. But I think Trump is right when he says we have to stand up to them with force, because if we don't, they will continue to walk over us.
The issues Trump addresses in this book include getting tough, something he believes Obama isn't; taking the oil as I mentioned above; tax China and get tough with them because they are the enemy and we need to save American jobs; tax less and let small businesses grow; reduce waste and spending; strengthen American muscle on a global scale; curb social programs so they help people as a safety net, not a hammock; repeal Obamacare; get tough on illegal immigrants; build the America our children deserve. He also has an Afterword in which he discusses the press, the presidency and a few other things.
The book contains nearly 250 footnotes, so it is not just Trump's opinions, but he does back them up with research. No, I have not checked all of these sources, but they are there for the person who wants to further research some of The Donald's ideas or where they may have come from.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It is a quick read, and if you are unhappy with the current president and the way the country is going, it makes you feel good thinking of these simple (as I said, maybe too simple) answers to our problems. If you are a republican, you'll enjoy it, if a democrat, don't get it because you won't like it.
The book is pretty much what you would expect from Donald Trump if you've watched any of his televised interviews. He is very pro-America and very pro-Donald Trump. I don't mind his bragging, because he has worked hard and achieved quite a bit, so he has the right to brag a bit. I like Trump, even before "The Apprentice," and I enjoy the show. I also tend to agree with his political views, so I enjoyed reading "Time To Get Tough." Unfortunately, the solutions to our country's problems are not quite as clear cut and simple as Trump makes them out to be in this book. However, I do agree with the basic premise of many of his ideas and think they could get our country moving in the right direction.
With that said, I will say that some of Trump's positions could be viewed as Bullying, or "Might Makes Right" with his thought of taking oil from the Middle East in return for all we've done for them. While some may not agree with this approach, I would imagine those are the same people who don't agree with many aggressive positions. But I think Trump is right when he says we have to stand up to them with force, because if we don't, they will continue to walk over us.
The issues Trump addresses in this book include getting tough, something he believes Obama isn't; taking the oil as I mentioned above; tax China and get tough with them because they are the enemy and we need to save American jobs; tax less and let small businesses grow; reduce waste and spending; strengthen American muscle on a global scale; curb social programs so they help people as a safety net, not a hammock; repeal Obamacare; get tough on illegal immigrants; build the America our children deserve. He also has an Afterword in which he discusses the press, the presidency and a few other things.
The book contains nearly 250 footnotes, so it is not just Trump's opinions, but he does back them up with research. No, I have not checked all of these sources, but they are there for the person who wants to further research some of The Donald's ideas or where they may have come from.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It is a quick read, and if you are unhappy with the current president and the way the country is going, it makes you feel good thinking of these simple (as I said, maybe too simple) answers to our problems. If you are a republican, you'll enjoy it, if a democrat, don't get it because you won't like it.
March 13, 2017
Every American Should Read This!
This book explains so much. I've always wondered why we've squandered our resources and been taken advantage of by other countries when we were supposed to be the greatest. We've made a lot of mistakes and Donald Trump highlights the most recent ones the have put us in debt that is unbearable. We've went from being great to being poor. A lot of decisions can be explained very well in dollars and cents and Donald Trump is definitely the man to do such a thing. We look stupid, he says, and I've thought that my whole life. I've wondered how we could spoil the greatest gift imaginable- a free country. Donald Trump is presumably upset at what has happened to America. It really explains to me his behavior in the presidential race and this book explains exactly why. Not only that, he has solutions too.
This book explains so much. I've always wondered why we've squandered our resources and been taken advantage of by other countries when we were supposed to be the greatest. We've made a lot of mistakes and Donald Trump highlights the most recent ones the have put us in debt that is unbearable. We've went from being great to being poor. A lot of decisions can be explained very well in dollars and cents and Donald Trump is definitely the man to do such a thing. We look stupid, he says, and I've thought that my whole life. I've wondered how we could spoil the greatest gift imaginable- a free country. Donald Trump is presumably upset at what has happened to America. It really explains to me his behavior in the presidential race and this book explains exactly why. Not only that, he has solutions too.
April 3, 2017
Comical read considering he spends his entire time bashing Obama for trivial things compared to the crap he has pulled on this country since his first day in office. Good book to prove he is a hypocrite and idiotic
May 15, 2016
This is a short book (I listened to it in a day while doing yard work) and it gives a good overview of A) what Trump's opinions are and B) what kind of person he is. It's a good thing to read if you feel woefully uninformed (as I do). (Note: it was written in 2011, right before the last election, when Trump was thinking of running for president but decided not to).
Trump's Opinions (a summary of Trump's points / my commentary in italics)
Foreign Policy Regarding Oil
We should a) force Iraq to give us some of their oil (this is just because we spent a lot of money liberating them, and if we leave, Iran will just take it all anyway), b) sue OPEC (the coalition of oil-producing countries that currently colludes to fix oil prices in violation of all anti-trust laws... this would require passing the "NOPEC" bill, which was passed but vetoed by Bush in 2008 because of fears of "retaliatory action"), c) reduce restrictions to promote domestic oil production. These three things will gain / save America a ton of money to help balance the budget.
I'm skeptical that forcing Iraq to give us oil is justifiable in any way... it would be a dangerous policy to say, "We decided you needed liberation, then liberated you, so now you pay us", and one which could quickly lead to us "liberating" other oil-rich countries. OPEC anti-trust collusion does sound bad... but I need to get more info to have an opinion.
Foreign Policy Regarding China
China manipulates currency (undervalues the currency so that people want to buy from / outsource to China) and takes our jobs. We should tax China's products by 25% until they set a real market value on their currency. They're also building their military and hiding it and attacking the US with corporate espionage.
The point about undervaluing currency seems fairly legit, and the 25% tax sounds like a decent idea, but I have literally no information about this issue other than what Trump gave, so I need to do more research on it.
Taxes
A fairly typical republican / Reagan-type opinion: lower taxes will stimulate growth and actually raise revenue for the government, high taxes on corporations are stupid and incentivize outsourcing to other countries, etc. Specific tax system proposed: 0% corporation tax (instead of 39%), individual taxes of 1% for <$30k a year, 5% for $30k-$100k, 10% for $100k to $1m, 15% for >$1m, eliminate "death tax" of up to 35%.
I think the principles are sound, but am not educated enough to comment on the specific plan.
Solving our Debt
44% of our budget is Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. We should keep these (like Ronald Reagan said). The first thing to help is to stimulate the economy (lower taxes). The second is to crack down on fraud and waste... private businesses do things way more efficiently than the government. Actually the first thing to do is to get lots of money with better policies regarding China and OPEC.
Not much of a specific plan here, but I got the sense that Trump would treat the US more like a business that needs to be profitable and use foreign relations to maximize profitability.
Military
We should build up our military. China is a real threat. We have to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons at all costs. We have to allow our soldiers to shoot back when Pakistan shoots at them. We have to "take the oil" / demand payment when people want aid from us or military protection from us... we're not a charity.
Hard to comment on this... it strikes a "heck yeah, America!" chord but also makes it sound like Trump would be fairly likely to start some wars.
Welfare
Welfare needs reform badly. It should be "a safety net, not a hammock". Huge amounts of waste occur, and the lack of accountability encourages people towards poverty, not away from it (similar opinion to Ben Carson and most Republicans, (quotes Reagan as saying, "Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.") but also to FDR, who he quotes as saying, "Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. it is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is a violation of the traditions of America". Trump praises the Welfare Reform act that Clinton signed and proposes more of the same (specifically, drug testing for all welfare recipients).
Seems pretty reasonable.
Obamacare
Lots of predictions about what Obamacare would do (I guess it was about to go into effect) and criticism of the idea of forcing people toward buying a government product, the small-business squelching it would do, etc.
Illegal Immigration
Crime caused by illegal immigrants is a huge problem (cites lots of statistics). Housing non-citizens in US prisons is a huge burden on our budget. The US's policies regarding legal citizenship are stupid; we are one of only two countries that allows citizenship if you are born in the US; everyone else bases citizenship on whether you would be a high contributor to the country. We should not be taking the "undesirables" from other countries, we should be making qualifications for only the highest contributors to become citizens. 5-point Trump plan: 1) secure our borders (wall, virtual or real, + more guards), 2) enforce our current laws on deportation / etc. 3) overturn ICE recommendations for illegal immigrant detention facilities (which are resort-like / luxurious), 4) oppose the DREAM act and stop giving in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants but not to out-of-state citizens 5) (forgot to include it?).
I need to form a better opinion on this. Enforcing our laws seems like a good idea, supporting non-citizen criminals in our prisons seems like a bad idea. While I get the "set the bar for citizenship high" principle, I'm not sure how it jives with the ""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 my lamp beside the golden door!" principle.
What kind of person Trump is
A big thread seems to be a "all's fair in business", "do it if you can get away with it", "the ends justify the means" attitude. When explaining that he is not anti-Chinese, he says that all the dishonest things China is apparently doing to us (manipulating currency, corporate espionage, etc.) are understandable and smart, and that he would do the same if he could. "If we could get away with it against them, I would strongly encourage us to do so.".
Another thread is arrogance / self-obsession. A huge section of the book (an afterword) are about all the people that have said bad things about Trump, all the TV shows he's been on, all the compliments he's received... basically an opportunity to demonstrate how popular and talented he is and "set the record straight" on any points of besmirched honor.
A final thread is practicality / competency. Despite the blustering, I do get the impression that Trump is a get-stuff-done sort of guy, in both the best and worst sense of the word (i.e. competent but willing to take questionable steps to accomplish his goals).
Trump's Opinions (a summary of Trump's points / my commentary in italics)
Foreign Policy Regarding Oil
We should a) force Iraq to give us some of their oil (this is just because we spent a lot of money liberating them, and if we leave, Iran will just take it all anyway), b) sue OPEC (the coalition of oil-producing countries that currently colludes to fix oil prices in violation of all anti-trust laws... this would require passing the "NOPEC" bill, which was passed but vetoed by Bush in 2008 because of fears of "retaliatory action"), c) reduce restrictions to promote domestic oil production. These three things will gain / save America a ton of money to help balance the budget.
I'm skeptical that forcing Iraq to give us oil is justifiable in any way... it would be a dangerous policy to say, "We decided you needed liberation, then liberated you, so now you pay us", and one which could quickly lead to us "liberating" other oil-rich countries. OPEC anti-trust collusion does sound bad... but I need to get more info to have an opinion.
Foreign Policy Regarding China
China manipulates currency (undervalues the currency so that people want to buy from / outsource to China) and takes our jobs. We should tax China's products by 25% until they set a real market value on their currency. They're also building their military and hiding it and attacking the US with corporate espionage.
The point about undervaluing currency seems fairly legit, and the 25% tax sounds like a decent idea, but I have literally no information about this issue other than what Trump gave, so I need to do more research on it.
Taxes
A fairly typical republican / Reagan-type opinion: lower taxes will stimulate growth and actually raise revenue for the government, high taxes on corporations are stupid and incentivize outsourcing to other countries, etc. Specific tax system proposed: 0% corporation tax (instead of 39%), individual taxes of 1% for <$30k a year, 5% for $30k-$100k, 10% for $100k to $1m, 15% for >$1m, eliminate "death tax" of up to 35%.
I think the principles are sound, but am not educated enough to comment on the specific plan.
Solving our Debt
44% of our budget is Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. We should keep these (like Ronald Reagan said). The first thing to help is to stimulate the economy (lower taxes). The second is to crack down on fraud and waste... private businesses do things way more efficiently than the government. Actually the first thing to do is to get lots of money with better policies regarding China and OPEC.
Not much of a specific plan here, but I got the sense that Trump would treat the US more like a business that needs to be profitable and use foreign relations to maximize profitability.
Military
We should build up our military. China is a real threat. We have to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons at all costs. We have to allow our soldiers to shoot back when Pakistan shoots at them. We have to "take the oil" / demand payment when people want aid from us or military protection from us... we're not a charity.
Hard to comment on this... it strikes a "heck yeah, America!" chord but also makes it sound like Trump would be fairly likely to start some wars.
Welfare
Welfare needs reform badly. It should be "a safety net, not a hammock". Huge amounts of waste occur, and the lack of accountability encourages people towards poverty, not away from it (similar opinion to Ben Carson and most Republicans, (quotes Reagan as saying, "Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.") but also to FDR, who he quotes as saying, "Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. it is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is a violation of the traditions of America". Trump praises the Welfare Reform act that Clinton signed and proposes more of the same (specifically, drug testing for all welfare recipients).
Seems pretty reasonable.
Obamacare
Lots of predictions about what Obamacare would do (I guess it was about to go into effect) and criticism of the idea of forcing people toward buying a government product, the small-business squelching it would do, etc.
Illegal Immigration
Crime caused by illegal immigrants is a huge problem (cites lots of statistics). Housing non-citizens in US prisons is a huge burden on our budget. The US's policies regarding legal citizenship are stupid; we are one of only two countries that allows citizenship if you are born in the US; everyone else bases citizenship on whether you would be a high contributor to the country. We should not be taking the "undesirables" from other countries, we should be making qualifications for only the highest contributors to become citizens. 5-point Trump plan: 1) secure our borders (wall, virtual or real, + more guards), 2) enforce our current laws on deportation / etc. 3) overturn ICE recommendations for illegal immigrant detention facilities (which are resort-like / luxurious), 4) oppose the DREAM act and stop giving in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants but not to out-of-state citizens 5) (forgot to include it?).
I need to form a better opinion on this. Enforcing our laws seems like a good idea, supporting non-citizen criminals in our prisons seems like a bad idea. While I get the "set the bar for citizenship high" principle, I'm not sure how it jives with the ""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 my lamp beside the golden door!" principle.
What kind of person Trump is
A big thread seems to be a "all's fair in business", "do it if you can get away with it", "the ends justify the means" attitude. When explaining that he is not anti-Chinese, he says that all the dishonest things China is apparently doing to us (manipulating currency, corporate espionage, etc.) are understandable and smart, and that he would do the same if he could. "If we could get away with it against them, I would strongly encourage us to do so.".
Another thread is arrogance / self-obsession. A huge section of the book (an afterword) are about all the people that have said bad things about Trump, all the TV shows he's been on, all the compliments he's received... basically an opportunity to demonstrate how popular and talented he is and "set the record straight" on any points of besmirched honor.
A final thread is practicality / competency. Despite the blustering, I do get the impression that Trump is a get-stuff-done sort of guy, in both the best and worst sense of the word (i.e. competent but willing to take questionable steps to accomplish his goals).
January 5, 2018
Well. It is over. I'd like to say that I took better notes than Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, but this one was harder to listen to while at work without me needing a break after half an hour. I listened to this mostly while driving and so my notes are unfortunately lacking. No surprise here though, there are a lot of false statements and bended "half truths" that people can easily fall for when they do not do their own research and believe everything said by Trump.
I research everything. Even when my candidate (or anyone) of choice claims something I agree with I still find at least 2 or 3 sources to back up that statement. Maybe I'm a super nerd, but mostly I think it is due to not wanting to be wrong. Not in the sense that I believe everything I say is right and I need to be right, but I have a personal responsibility to spread the facts/data/truth even if I thought something different.
Anyways, this book was basically a rip on President Obama and was written during his first term. It warns the public about how dangerous a second term for Obama will be. Ooops it happened and we can compare his predictions to what actually happened between 2013-2017. Trump hates on Obama, republicans, OPEC, China, The Middle East etc. I prefer to see constructive criticism and more professional statements, which this book definitely lacks as well as a high reading level. Compared to Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, it has a lower reading level and you can tell it was eithermaybe? Trump who wrote this one, or a different ghost writer. A big BIG BIG problem I had with this book was the repetition. If I have to hear him say "It's time to get tough!" one more time I might scream. There is an artistic way to have repetition as a motif and this is not the way to do it. It's almost a filler to make the book longer or to remind the reader, "Hey! Remember you're angry!" Speaking of anger, the tone is super aggrieved and resentful. This does work great when looking at how a reader who agrees with Trump and is mad at Obama would be enthralled with each chapter. But, I think my complement mainly goes to Malcom Hillgartner and his narration since it captures the tone so well and he has an excellent voice.
Trump claims Obama took more vacations than other presidents; he didn't. Bush took more and surprise Trump has currently taken more in one year than Obama in both terms and also Trump's have cost more.
Source
Trump claims Obama added more debt. Specifically, that he added more than ALL other presidents combined. More complicated answer, but that is MOSTLY false due to debt being cumulative as well as his first term was Bush's budget and plan. As well as inheriting multiple problems the U.S. was dealing with at the time which contributed to the debt (War on Terror/September 11th, Hurricane Katrina, the Recession).
Source
Trump claims "tens of millions of gallons crude oil leak into the ocean naturally from the sea floor" so the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill was "no big deal." Wrong again, I did the math also:
160,000 Metric tonnes of natural oil leaks = 176369.809748 U.S. tons = 5,600,571.372 gallons per year for the entire ocean
BP Oil spill = 210,000,000 U.S. gallons in 87 days OR 881,034,482.759 gallons per year ONLY for the Gulf of Mexico
2,413,793.103 gallons per day for BP
15,344.0316 gallons per day naturally
natural oil leaking each year is only 0.635% of the amount that was released during the 87 days of the Deepwater Horizon spill.
And I'm not even going into volume yet. Obviously the volume of the entire ocean is larger than the Gulf. Looking at just surface area, the world ocean is 361,132,000 square kilometers and the Gulf is 1,550,000 square kilometers. Meaning that the Gulf of Mexico is 0.43% of the entire ocean surface area and had so much more oil dumped in that small space than the entire ocean receives each year. Okay, so math wins this time! And that is the end of notes I took in which I could accurately research.
Overall, this book was much less tolerable than "Crippled." My only real positive is that is would definitely do a good job at enraging those who dislike Obama and that the narration was great. Otherwise, the notes I took on these "facts" *surprise surprise* show that he indeed lied and twisted his words to manipulate the opinions of his followers.
I research everything. Even when my candidate (or anyone) of choice claims something I agree with I still find at least 2 or 3 sources to back up that statement. Maybe I'm a super nerd, but mostly I think it is due to not wanting to be wrong. Not in the sense that I believe everything I say is right and I need to be right, but I have a personal responsibility to spread the facts/data/truth even if I thought something different.
Anyways, this book was basically a rip on President Obama and was written during his first term. It warns the public about how dangerous a second term for Obama will be. Ooops it happened and we can compare his predictions to what actually happened between 2013-2017. Trump hates on Obama, republicans, OPEC, China, The Middle East etc. I prefer to see constructive criticism and more professional statements, which this book definitely lacks as well as a high reading level. Compared to Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, it has a lower reading level and you can tell it was either
Trump claims Obama took more vacations than other presidents; he didn't. Bush took more and surprise Trump has currently taken more in one year than Obama in both terms and also Trump's have cost more.
Source
Trump claims Obama added more debt. Specifically, that he added more than ALL other presidents combined. More complicated answer, but that is MOSTLY false due to debt being cumulative as well as his first term was Bush's budget and plan. As well as inheriting multiple problems the U.S. was dealing with at the time which contributed to the debt (War on Terror/September 11th, Hurricane Katrina, the Recession).
Source
Trump claims "tens of millions of gallons crude oil leak into the ocean naturally from the sea floor" so the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill was "no big deal." Wrong again, I did the math also:
160,000 Metric tonnes of natural oil leaks = 176369.809748 U.S. tons = 5,600,571.372 gallons per year for the entire ocean
BP Oil spill = 210,000,000 U.S. gallons in 87 days OR 881,034,482.759 gallons per year ONLY for the Gulf of Mexico
2,413,793.103 gallons per day for BP
15,344.0316 gallons per day naturally
natural oil leaking each year is only 0.635% of the amount that was released during the 87 days of the Deepwater Horizon spill.
And I'm not even going into volume yet. Obviously the volume of the entire ocean is larger than the Gulf. Looking at just surface area, the world ocean is 361,132,000 square kilometers and the Gulf is 1,550,000 square kilometers. Meaning that the Gulf of Mexico is 0.43% of the entire ocean surface area and had so much more oil dumped in that small space than the entire ocean receives each year. Okay, so math wins this time! And that is the end of notes I took in which I could accurately research.
Overall, this book was much less tolerable than "Crippled." My only real positive is that is would definitely do a good job at enraging those who dislike Obama and that the narration was great. Otherwise, the notes I took on these "facts" *surprise surprise* show that he indeed lied and twisted his words to manipulate the opinions of his followers.
November 24, 2015
Note -- this review does get a bit political. If you're liberal, feel free to skip over it (as I do when I see a liberal post. I just don't need the frustration!).
So, we're less than a year from electing a new president. I like to know all I can about my options. I've read (and reviewed) Ben Carson's biography, Gifted Hands. When a friend loaned me Donald Trump's book, Time to Get Tough: Make America Great Again!, I was happy to read it.
This isn't Trump's autobiography; it's more his thoughts on various political topics. It was written in 2011, when he briefly ran for president, so things have probably changed a bit since then, but I feel like it's still a good basic look at the policies he espouses.
Starting out, I wasn't sure what to think. I respect Trump as a businessman, but he seemed a bit grandiose and perhaps more like an entertainer than a president. After reading the book, I'm more impressed with him. We'll see how things go, but I'd definitely vote for him. I have a few reservations, but when those creep in, I just have to think about how the presidency is going currently. Honestly, I don't think we could do worse. As the book states, "Obama was a leftist experiment that has failed and gone horribly wrong." I do think a dramatic change is needed to get America back on course.
His views on immigration, foreign policy, entitlement spending, etc. seem on-target to me. It's refreshing as well to read someone speak to the issues we face in a commanding, no-nonsense way that makes it sound like we actually COULD emerge from our current troubles.
Many things in the book were interesting -- one being that Trump outlines how differently Canada deals with immigration from how we do. Canadians start by asking potential immigrants how they would support the development of a strong, prosperous Canadian economy. They are awarded points based on how they'll add to the economy. Contrast that with the US system, where a large part of someone's eligibility is based on whether they're related to someone currently in the country. No wonder we are expending so much on immigrants -- and the ones we're discussing are the *legal* ones. There are many, many more who are here illegally.
Apart from the book, I watched Trump and his family interviewed recently on 20/20. I have to say that I was really impressed with him in the interview. Melania came across well, and his kids are just WOW. Very impressive, smart, and not seeming entitled (as they could easily be in their situation).
So, we're less than a year from electing a new president. I like to know all I can about my options. I've read (and reviewed) Ben Carson's biography, Gifted Hands. When a friend loaned me Donald Trump's book, Time to Get Tough: Make America Great Again!, I was happy to read it.
This isn't Trump's autobiography; it's more his thoughts on various political topics. It was written in 2011, when he briefly ran for president, so things have probably changed a bit since then, but I feel like it's still a good basic look at the policies he espouses.
Starting out, I wasn't sure what to think. I respect Trump as a businessman, but he seemed a bit grandiose and perhaps more like an entertainer than a president. After reading the book, I'm more impressed with him. We'll see how things go, but I'd definitely vote for him. I have a few reservations, but when those creep in, I just have to think about how the presidency is going currently. Honestly, I don't think we could do worse. As the book states, "Obama was a leftist experiment that has failed and gone horribly wrong." I do think a dramatic change is needed to get America back on course.
His views on immigration, foreign policy, entitlement spending, etc. seem on-target to me. It's refreshing as well to read someone speak to the issues we face in a commanding, no-nonsense way that makes it sound like we actually COULD emerge from our current troubles.
Many things in the book were interesting -- one being that Trump outlines how differently Canada deals with immigration from how we do. Canadians start by asking potential immigrants how they would support the development of a strong, prosperous Canadian economy. They are awarded points based on how they'll add to the economy. Contrast that with the US system, where a large part of someone's eligibility is based on whether they're related to someone currently in the country. No wonder we are expending so much on immigrants -- and the ones we're discussing are the *legal* ones. There are many, many more who are here illegally.
Apart from the book, I watched Trump and his family interviewed recently on 20/20. I have to say that I was really impressed with him in the interview. Melania came across well, and his kids are just WOW. Very impressive, smart, and not seeming entitled (as they could easily be in their situation).
September 22, 2016
I am biased about Donald Trump (he is the dumbest person to win a major party nomination in my lifetime).
But the book is an easy read that gives people a decent idea of what the guy believes (or believed a few years ago when it was published; lots of shifting has taken place since then).
Also, all books by presidential candidates suck because they are propaganda. Trump's fits in well in this genre: no better, no worse.
But let's be clear: this guy is not smart. The part that stood out to me was how he was showing his problem solving skills by describing how he recognized that the chairs in a room were too big, and if smaller chairs were in the room, more people could fit comfortably in the room. WTF?!?! And this was Trump's real entrance into the presidential political arena. He was able to fit more people in a room!
America will get the leader it deserves, and if he becomes my president, so be it. I will hope that all Americans prosper from his leadership. But this book did little to make me feel better about that outcome.
Beyond all that, there is very little new here. There are few new ideas in politics anymore. The bulk of the book could have been written by Limbaugh, Hannity, or any other right-wing demagogue. In fact, they already proposed most of the ideas in this book. Whatever. If that's your brand of poison, you'll love this book. If you have an IQ above 50 and want real policy discussions and don't want ideologues running your lives, you'll need to look elsewhere.
But the book is an easy read that gives people a decent idea of what the guy believes (or believed a few years ago when it was published; lots of shifting has taken place since then).
Also, all books by presidential candidates suck because they are propaganda. Trump's fits in well in this genre: no better, no worse.
But let's be clear: this guy is not smart. The part that stood out to me was how he was showing his problem solving skills by describing how he recognized that the chairs in a room were too big, and if smaller chairs were in the room, more people could fit comfortably in the room. WTF?!?! And this was Trump's real entrance into the presidential political arena. He was able to fit more people in a room!
America will get the leader it deserves, and if he becomes my president, so be it. I will hope that all Americans prosper from his leadership. But this book did little to make me feel better about that outcome.
Beyond all that, there is very little new here. There are few new ideas in politics anymore. The bulk of the book could have been written by Limbaugh, Hannity, or any other right-wing demagogue. In fact, they already proposed most of the ideas in this book. Whatever. If that's your brand of poison, you'll love this book. If you have an IQ above 50 and want real policy discussions and don't want ideologues running your lives, you'll need to look elsewhere.
November 1, 2015
Trump is strong in his positioning and does not waste time getting to the point. He is ruthless in his accusations here supplying the Trump style entertainment we have come to expect.
The issues he focuses on here are critical to the future of the American government but never addressed in Washington or commentated on for fear of political correctness.
While ~~most~~~ all of the ideas sound outrageous at first it comes off as part of this shock value, attention grabbing tactic. Once you see the explanation, meaning behind the sound bite, and plan it makes decent common sense.
That said this is far from an endorsement just appreciation for dragging difficult topics into our periphery, explaining them while as well as offering a solution. Most people can tell a problem when they see it, few can explain it and even less have the confidence to suggest a solution
The issues he focuses on here are critical to the future of the American government but never addressed in Washington or commentated on for fear of political correctness.
While ~~most~~~ all of the ideas sound outrageous at first it comes off as part of this shock value, attention grabbing tactic. Once you see the explanation, meaning behind the sound bite, and plan it makes decent common sense.
That said this is far from an endorsement just appreciation for dragging difficult topics into our periphery, explaining them while as well as offering a solution. Most people can tell a problem when they see it, few can explain it and even less have the confidence to suggest a solution
June 16, 2017
An Older Trump Book Yet Loaded with Insights
TIME TO GET TOUGH was published in late 2011 when President Barak Obama was getting ready to run for a second term of office. The contents of TIME TO GET TOUGH is still relevant today (2017) because you hear the business thinking of Donald J. Trump who eventually became the President of the United States. His thoughts about the value of oil and other issues are included in this well-done book. I heard the audio book cover to cover.
The Afterword in this book is worth hearing for a summary of the contents—but also for the insights about how Donald Trump thinks about the media and handles the media. This book has worthwhile information for every listener. I recommend it.
TIME TO GET TOUGH was published in late 2011 when President Barak Obama was getting ready to run for a second term of office. The contents of TIME TO GET TOUGH is still relevant today (2017) because you hear the business thinking of Donald J. Trump who eventually became the President of the United States. His thoughts about the value of oil and other issues are included in this well-done book. I heard the audio book cover to cover.
The Afterword in this book is worth hearing for a summary of the contents—but also for the insights about how Donald Trump thinks about the media and handles the media. This book has worthwhile information for every listener. I recommend it.
Shelved as 'the-rump'
April 10, 2023
If i had a tweeter account, i'd gladly give it up just to send this sincere wish to him.
September 1, 2015
Trump’s Game Plan …
I’ve listened to Trump’s bellowing for decades (who hasn’t) and I have always separated his role as an entertainer/blowhard from that of the genius businessman (even though these roles seem to merge at times). While he has threatened to run for the Presidency before, his willingness to follow-through on that threat warranted me to take deeper look into his political philosophy. If anyone doubts that the man has any ideas on how to fix the problems facing this country, they need to read TIME TO GET TOUGH. With this book, Trump clearly addresses the problems he believes are plaguing the United States and pointedly details what needs to be done to fix them … in true Trump fashion, of course.
I am basing my review on the 2011 edition of this book. While the updated edition reflects Trump’s position as an official Presidential candidate, I found the original edition interesting in that his take on issues in 2011, as well as his solutions, are quite relevant today.
TIME TO GET TOUGH speaks to readers in the same manner as “The Apprentice” came across to viewers … a brutal mixture of bluster and bravado meticulously processed into sharp quips designed to insult, anger, motivate and above all, take notice. If anything, Trump is a master at using whatever tact is necessary for people to listen to him, like it or not. With this book, Trump vociferously expresses his disdain toward the leadership and policies of Obama leading up to the 2012 election. Now that the country has experienced a second Obama term, many of Trump’s opinions in 2011 appear quite visionary, especially his take on China, entitlements, immigration and the purpose/use of our military. I found Trump taking a practical approach to solving all the issues he presents. Sure, there is the trademark insult here and there, but I wasn’t turned-off by his blunt-speak. In fact, the one aspect of Trump’s Presidential candidacy that I find most refreshing is his refusal to not speak like a politician (lie) to appease certain groups. The frustration exhibited by Trump in TIME TO GET TOUGH is palpable and considering this frustration has festered four years after he wrote this book clearly explains why he finally decided to run: he feels the stagnant pool of career politicians (Republican and Democrat) aspire only to serve themselves and their political parties, not the American people.
Trump makes his points quite clear and uses a diverse array of sources to support his position. What I like about the book is that Trump supports many of his ideas with examples of his own successes which showcase his ability to saw through red tape and politics to produce quality results in short order and at a fraction of the cost (the ice skating rink project in New York City is a great example). The book is peppered with examples of such successes and it proves that Trump is a man who can put together an action plan and deliver. Regardless of how I’ve seen various media outlets or other Republican candidates challenge the authenticity of his political conservatism, TIME TO GET TOUGH reveals his affection for Ronald Reagan and his governing principals (arguably, Reagan’s policies were significant building blocks to Trumps mega-wealth). From a political standpoint, conservatives, libertarians and opinionated people in general will probably appreciate the author’s candid rhetoric and political posture. Liberals, career politicians (Republican and Democrat) and political elites will likely not care for Trump’s desire to reverse most of Obama’s defining achievements and his personal pot-shots at various people associated with these groups (Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Carl Rove, Barack Obama, etc.). In general, Trump doesn’t hold back when it comes to expressing his opinion (good or bad) of specific individuals … I actually found these little tidbits to be enjoyable breaks from the general monotony associated with politically-themed books. One thing that cannot be argued, Trump doesn’t hide his feelings about anything (he even provides a clear explanation of the bankruptcy issues that have plagued him over the years).
Regardless of one’s opinion of Donald Trump as an entertainer, businessman or possible President, TIME TO GET TOUGH exhibits the man’s willingness to identify and solve problems. I sometimes have to remind myself that aside from all the media and self-hype is a man who is serious-enough to be such a big success in high-stakes global business ventures. Reading this book reveals how serious and knowledgeable Trump is on economic, domestic and foreign policy. It also serves as a reasonable argument that maybe it’s time to give someone outside the political-class an opportunity to take the helm of the US … Trump certainly makes his case with TIME TO GET TOUGH.
I’ve listened to Trump’s bellowing for decades (who hasn’t) and I have always separated his role as an entertainer/blowhard from that of the genius businessman (even though these roles seem to merge at times). While he has threatened to run for the Presidency before, his willingness to follow-through on that threat warranted me to take deeper look into his political philosophy. If anyone doubts that the man has any ideas on how to fix the problems facing this country, they need to read TIME TO GET TOUGH. With this book, Trump clearly addresses the problems he believes are plaguing the United States and pointedly details what needs to be done to fix them … in true Trump fashion, of course.
I am basing my review on the 2011 edition of this book. While the updated edition reflects Trump’s position as an official Presidential candidate, I found the original edition interesting in that his take on issues in 2011, as well as his solutions, are quite relevant today.
TIME TO GET TOUGH speaks to readers in the same manner as “The Apprentice” came across to viewers … a brutal mixture of bluster and bravado meticulously processed into sharp quips designed to insult, anger, motivate and above all, take notice. If anything, Trump is a master at using whatever tact is necessary for people to listen to him, like it or not. With this book, Trump vociferously expresses his disdain toward the leadership and policies of Obama leading up to the 2012 election. Now that the country has experienced a second Obama term, many of Trump’s opinions in 2011 appear quite visionary, especially his take on China, entitlements, immigration and the purpose/use of our military. I found Trump taking a practical approach to solving all the issues he presents. Sure, there is the trademark insult here and there, but I wasn’t turned-off by his blunt-speak. In fact, the one aspect of Trump’s Presidential candidacy that I find most refreshing is his refusal to not speak like a politician (lie) to appease certain groups. The frustration exhibited by Trump in TIME TO GET TOUGH is palpable and considering this frustration has festered four years after he wrote this book clearly explains why he finally decided to run: he feels the stagnant pool of career politicians (Republican and Democrat) aspire only to serve themselves and their political parties, not the American people.
Trump makes his points quite clear and uses a diverse array of sources to support his position. What I like about the book is that Trump supports many of his ideas with examples of his own successes which showcase his ability to saw through red tape and politics to produce quality results in short order and at a fraction of the cost (the ice skating rink project in New York City is a great example). The book is peppered with examples of such successes and it proves that Trump is a man who can put together an action plan and deliver. Regardless of how I’ve seen various media outlets or other Republican candidates challenge the authenticity of his political conservatism, TIME TO GET TOUGH reveals his affection for Ronald Reagan and his governing principals (arguably, Reagan’s policies were significant building blocks to Trumps mega-wealth). From a political standpoint, conservatives, libertarians and opinionated people in general will probably appreciate the author’s candid rhetoric and political posture. Liberals, career politicians (Republican and Democrat) and political elites will likely not care for Trump’s desire to reverse most of Obama’s defining achievements and his personal pot-shots at various people associated with these groups (Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Carl Rove, Barack Obama, etc.). In general, Trump doesn’t hold back when it comes to expressing his opinion (good or bad) of specific individuals … I actually found these little tidbits to be enjoyable breaks from the general monotony associated with politically-themed books. One thing that cannot be argued, Trump doesn’t hide his feelings about anything (he even provides a clear explanation of the bankruptcy issues that have plagued him over the years).
Regardless of one’s opinion of Donald Trump as an entertainer, businessman or possible President, TIME TO GET TOUGH exhibits the man’s willingness to identify and solve problems. I sometimes have to remind myself that aside from all the media and self-hype is a man who is serious-enough to be such a big success in high-stakes global business ventures. Reading this book reveals how serious and knowledgeable Trump is on economic, domestic and foreign policy. It also serves as a reasonable argument that maybe it’s time to give someone outside the political-class an opportunity to take the helm of the US … Trump certainly makes his case with TIME TO GET TOUGH.
July 31, 2022
Very similar to his earlier book, The America We Deserve, this one largely serves as a manifesto or testament of Trump's political vision for the United States. Otherwise, and unlike the aforementioned book, Time to Get Tough is a partisan hit-piece against Obama, aimed at swaying voters in the leadup to the 2012 election. His criticisms against Obama, however fair inaccurate they may be, is the book's weakest aspect. It's basically just Trump being Trump, making out everything the Democrats did as a "total disasster". You see the same unwillingness towards any concession of competence in Trump as we all later saw directed against him from the mainstream media and most political pundits.
The most interesting aspect of this book is that, though it was published nearly five years before he actually became president, his ideas and his ideological motivations prove him to have been consistent when he actually stepped into the White House. I am not saying this as a Trump apologist: I was, for a time, a fan of his, but mostly for the fact that he caused all the worst people to lose their minds for a little while (well, not a little while really, because it's still going on, and arguably getting worse). I also think - conservative and so more partial though I am - that he makes a convincing, non-radical case for the changes he wants enacted in America.
All those utter morons predicting World War III, and thinking he was Hitler reincarnated, ought to have read the book to learn, from the guy himself, what his policies were likely to look like. Dumb assholes can't even recognise that when both Obama and Biden were up there denouncing gay marriage, Trump was already a passive supporter of the change.
On a final side-note, I often come across accusations that Trump had his books ghost-written for him. At first I was pretty open to that idea - it does not seem a large stretch of the imagination. And, unfortunately, that does apparently happen with many big-name conservatives, whose names are merely attached to right-wing publications. But I don't know ... reading this book, I found it to be full of that classic Trumpian bombast, his sometimes hilarious, sometimes head-scratching arrogance, where you can't quite figure out if he's that much of a narcissist, or is purposely trying to sound like an asshole just to ruffle feathers. There's also that usual lack of diplomatic spirit, which I find to be one of the more convincing cases against someone like him actually being the "leader of the free world". It's funny but also reckless, they way he refers to the Chinese every time as "our enemies".
So sure, I reckon he probably at least gets some help for the final edit. But this sounds like Donald Trump through and through. If it isn't him, then the ghost-writer ought to be commended.
I like Biden being president only so far as he is a walking smear campaign against his own party; I hate the Democrats more broadly. But nor am I much of a fan of the Republicans; I think Trump has had his time and served his purpose - God honestly bless him for getting Barrett and Kavanaugh into the Supreme Court. But American politics is such a shit show now, I find it hard to really care all that much who leads the nation anymore. Either way, half the country will be spewing hatred and conspiracies, enacting violence on the streets, costing the American taxpayer millions in phoney investigations and inquiries, and making a mockery of the idea that America was ever considered a great nation.
I did love America, but like a beloved relative who has acquired severe dementia, it is no longer what it used to be. It's scary to be around now, always screaming nonsense and abuse at those who only want what's best for it. And despite the guilt in saying such a thing, I feel the sooner it dies, the sooner its miseries - and ours - will be alleviated.
The most interesting aspect of this book is that, though it was published nearly five years before he actually became president, his ideas and his ideological motivations prove him to have been consistent when he actually stepped into the White House. I am not saying this as a Trump apologist: I was, for a time, a fan of his, but mostly for the fact that he caused all the worst people to lose their minds for a little while (well, not a little while really, because it's still going on, and arguably getting worse). I also think - conservative and so more partial though I am - that he makes a convincing, non-radical case for the changes he wants enacted in America.
All those utter morons predicting World War III, and thinking he was Hitler reincarnated, ought to have read the book to learn, from the guy himself, what his policies were likely to look like. Dumb assholes can't even recognise that when both Obama and Biden were up there denouncing gay marriage, Trump was already a passive supporter of the change.
On a final side-note, I often come across accusations that Trump had his books ghost-written for him. At first I was pretty open to that idea - it does not seem a large stretch of the imagination. And, unfortunately, that does apparently happen with many big-name conservatives, whose names are merely attached to right-wing publications. But I don't know ... reading this book, I found it to be full of that classic Trumpian bombast, his sometimes hilarious, sometimes head-scratching arrogance, where you can't quite figure out if he's that much of a narcissist, or is purposely trying to sound like an asshole just to ruffle feathers. There's also that usual lack of diplomatic spirit, which I find to be one of the more convincing cases against someone like him actually being the "leader of the free world". It's funny but also reckless, they way he refers to the Chinese every time as "our enemies".
So sure, I reckon he probably at least gets some help for the final edit. But this sounds like Donald Trump through and through. If it isn't him, then the ghost-writer ought to be commended.
I like Biden being president only so far as he is a walking smear campaign against his own party; I hate the Democrats more broadly. But nor am I much of a fan of the Republicans; I think Trump has had his time and served his purpose - God honestly bless him for getting Barrett and Kavanaugh into the Supreme Court. But American politics is such a shit show now, I find it hard to really care all that much who leads the nation anymore. Either way, half the country will be spewing hatred and conspiracies, enacting violence on the streets, costing the American taxpayer millions in phoney investigations and inquiries, and making a mockery of the idea that America was ever considered a great nation.
I did love America, but like a beloved relative who has acquired severe dementia, it is no longer what it used to be. It's scary to be around now, always screaming nonsense and abuse at those who only want what's best for it. And despite the guilt in saying such a thing, I feel the sooner it dies, the sooner its miseries - and ours - will be alleviated.
March 20, 2016
Time To Get Tough by Donald Trump is a very informative book on how to fix the country to make America great again. Throughout the book, he offers specific plans to fix America and make this country return to its prosperous glory days. The book delves into several key issues and he offers his insight and opinions on these issues including, immigration, Obamacare, foreign policy, the economy, and the American Dream. Written before the 2012 election, he warns people of reelecting Obama and makes the case for not voting for him. “If we keep on this path, if we reelect Barack Obama, the America we leave our kids and grandkids won’t look like the America we were blessed to grow up in”(4). The writing style is very blunt and straightforward. He talks very directly and does not hold back on anyone or anything. His writing style is witty and smart but also very funny at times. He makes lots of jokes and insults in his book towards various people, mostly at Obama. “The economic idiocy of this presidency has been truly astounding”(81). He makes statements like this to insult people while telling the blunt truth. I really enjoyed the book. I think it offered smart and realistic reforms on how to reform Washington and make America great again. I like that the book contains no fluff and gets to the point. The book does a great job of explaining the problems and what Trump would do to fix the specific problems. I enjoyed the little bits of humor woven in. The book is clear and concise to understand. He tells it as it is. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in politics or someone who has been keeping up with the 2016 Presidential race. I would also recomend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about the candidates.
January 17, 2017
"We've all heard a million times: "We need illegal immigrants because they are willing to do jobs Americans just won't." To that one I say, "Says who?" We have 25 million citizens who need jobs, and 7 million illegal immigrants holding American jobs. Do the math. If illegal aliens weren't holding these jobs, American citizens would, because these jobs need to be filled, and guess what? Those jobs would pay more than they do now, because illegal low-wage workers drive down wage rates. Even the Washington Post has conceded that "an influx of immigrants has helped depress the incomes of low-skilled workers in recent decades, many economists agree." (Donald J. Trump, Making America #1 Again, Page 142)
Be prepared to hear a lot of Obama bashing in this book. However, Trump does have some solid points about the Obama administration. I think that he hit the nail on the head when he said that America is a capitalist country and not a socialist country and that Obama is trying to turn it into a socialist country, which it is not.
Trump praises the good he sees and confronts the bad. If you challenge him though, be prepared for retaliation because he doesn't let people get a way with insulting him.
I think Trump will be good economically 100% for America and will be able to use his tough skin to confront the problems that other politicians just don't have the guts to confront. I will say, that I don't think he will be one to run with the socialism and globalism agenda of Obama.
Be prepared to hear a lot of Obama bashing in this book. However, Trump does have some solid points about the Obama administration. I think that he hit the nail on the head when he said that America is a capitalist country and not a socialist country and that Obama is trying to turn it into a socialist country, which it is not.
Trump praises the good he sees and confronts the bad. If you challenge him though, be prepared for retaliation because he doesn't let people get a way with insulting him.
I think Trump will be good economically 100% for America and will be able to use his tough skin to confront the problems that other politicians just don't have the guts to confront. I will say, that I don't think he will be one to run with the socialism and globalism agenda of Obama.
January 2, 2016
This is an insightful book and an easy read. With all of the media coverage on Donald Trump today, I was curious about his platform and details of his plan for action. This book is backed by over 250 footnotes of research and addresses topics such as oil, China, government spending, immigration, homeland security, etc... My only negative remark is that it did not address the education system and focused on the economy; however, I'm told his newest book spends a chapter addressing the topic. This is a great book and easy read for anyone curious about his potential policies and plan for implementation.
January 19, 2016
This is a great book for those who do not follow the news every day but want to know what's going on in the world. I also admire Trump's ability to just tell it like it is - no softening the truth, no flowery words. And, the guy managed to get solid plans on about 180 pages of paper, which Obama is still fumbling to articulate after 4 years. There were a few assertions in the book that i noticed were missing citaitons, and I would have been a lot more impressed if he took his ideas to task by running for president, which he didnt. Anybody can put ideas on paper and then not attempt to do anything about them. Maybe 2016...
July 21, 2015
Well written, with very specific recommendations to solve our many problems. He includes many citations, he is not just a bloviator. He can speak with authority and knowledge on many of our biggest issues. Written before the 2012 election, what Trump has to say is still very relevant. What I find particularly interesting is how much worse things have gotten in the last 3 years - terrorism, economy, illegal immigration, healthcare, our position in the world.
August 10, 2016
Há há. Đọc hết quyển sách mới biết Trump viết quyển này từ năm 2011 và chủ yếu là để công kích Obama. Đọc xong mới thấy chính trị Mỹ nó vui. Cuốn sách ngoài việc update một chút thời sự cho lần bầu cử sắp tới nó cũng cung cấp một số thông tin thú vị về thực trạng nước Mỹ thời hiện đại qua con mắt nhìn của một người bảo thủ. Cơ mà Trump cũng điên thật ... Há há.
March 21, 2017
Trump has been Trump for Many Years
Donald Trump lays out his vision of what is right and wrong in the US and how to fix what is wrong. While this book was written 7 years ago, Trumps beliefs have not substantially changed nor have his solutions. This is a good book to read to understand what President Trump is doing and why he is doing it.
Donald Trump lays out his vision of what is right and wrong in the US and how to fix what is wrong. While this book was written 7 years ago, Trumps beliefs have not substantially changed nor have his solutions. This is a good book to read to understand what President Trump is doing and why he is doing it.
January 30, 2019
the more I read about our brilliant President, the more I fall in love with the man. He is super intelligent and not afraid to tell it like it is. He has made it into the highest of social circles, producing the finest products. People love his words. In 2011, the Apprentice was the #1 show in the 10:00pm time slot; Trump announced a presidential bid and campaigned across media and the White House Correspondents dinner; And He designed a ballroom for the White House for $100 million.
Response to chapters:
i.1-3. We have progressed from agrarian society to the industrial society and are now in a new technological based society. How have normal social conventions changed? We have yet to find that out.
Take romance as an example of our cluelessness in this new age. In agrarian society, men would travel for weeks across hundreds of miles to inspect a maiden. If his tastes were satisfied, he would immediately think to arrange a dowry for marriage before having to the make the weeks long journey home.
In the industrial age, the idea of romance was introduced to the world in the French Revolution. When women met a prospective husband, she did not have to show off her best homemaking skills as in agrarian society. Rather, women created some ideal romantic fascination to loll over in their mate choice. Mate choice was no longer based primarily on parental diplomatic relations; women had a hand in their marriage.
We still have no idea how romance will evolve with social media, its in-depth profiles and hand-selected prime angle snapshots into our lives.
[The president is the commander in chief, appoints judges, and can sign and veto bills. He is also the Dealmaker in chief.] He outlines the political and economic climate for international trade deals. Look at our enemy China. We built China's economy, sustained for them double digit growth yearly over 30 years, and how do they show their appreciation? With a measly agreement to buy annually $45 billion
of our exports. In 2009, we had a $209 billions trade deficit. In 2011, a $340 billion deficit. Lost money is lost jobs. We are getting hustled by the Chinese. We cannot allow this spineless negotiating to continue. In our globalized technological age, the president must create deals to keep America strong, and the fulcrum of all the Worlds hope.
Ok, so how do we fix this trade disaster we find ourselves in? China has 1. 1.3 billion people, 2. lower self-reported earnings to devalue their currency, producing and selling goods and services at a price we cannot compete with, 3. can produce a shirt for $3, where $20 is a conservative estimate for a pro-Union shirt made in the US Before Amazon and China. How do we manage this competitive difference?
Answer: 1. shift our econ focus from manufact deals to others. -> inc china import tariffs to spread the cost of CH goods to consumers. Buoy US goods currently exporting overseas. Goods produced collaboratively with China, manufacturers should increase prices with gov subsidies supply pinch.
2. Stronger Intellectual Protection in China-US joint ventures. They are stealing our technology at an outstanding rate. Militarily and industrially, agreements to share US tech designs are nearly transparent. If this continues, China will pass US as the #1 economy in 10 years, and we will have to answer to their governing style.
We are losing to China. When you look at high school test scores in Math, US top city is 25th of 34 countries, Shanghai is 1st. They are also 1st in reading and science. At the same time, the US makes the heartbreaking announcement, 40% of urban Latino and black HS students do not graduate.
Our Dealmaker in Chief must hammer out and fix our expanding $21.97 trillion debt.
Obama averaged $6 billion dollars of debt accumulation/year.
Oil is a cash cow. All goods depend on oil. All prices change with the price of oil. When you buy milk, oil builds the container, ships it to the store, and brings it home. Founded in 1960 in Baghdad, Afghanistan, OPEC was created with the ideal of controlling the supply of oil production with the aim of longevity and price controls. The result was illegitamate collusion, charging $80 for a barrel of oil that costs $15 to produce.
OPEC set a floor of oil prices at $85 a barrel (42 gallons), yet sell for $3,4,5 a gallon. Rising prices confound Gauss' competitive exclusion principle that only one competitor can exist at a certain price in a niche. OPEC collusion has caused oil prices to soar.
A: 1. start mining oil domestically. we are sitting on the biggest reserve of natural gas in the and have enough oil to sustain us for 70 years, but Obama has planned to keep these stores as an emergency fund and let these tyrants have their way with our money.
2. charge Iraq and other OPEC nations for occupation.
3. We should sue OPEC for antitrust violations and collusion. Break up OPEC and bring prices closer to their cost of production. If we got prices down to even $40 a barrel, the US debt would decrease $400 billion a year. Cap and trade on emissions as Obama implemented will only drive US oil prices higher. When US companies pay a tax, it isn't the companies its the consumers and employees that feel it worst. $100 million less that GE or Quadcomm has is $100 million less funds available for jobs. This ends as less price-competitive goods on the global market. Obama has no idea how trade works. He thinks taxes can stimulate growth. In reality, this forces people to put their money into nontaxable bonds. Cutting taxes allows the consumer more wiggle room to inject his funds into the economy.
Why do we have 30K troops in South Korea? They have 700k army themselves. If we do provide protection for them, why are we footing the bill for it.
He chose to enter and end wars in Iraq, Libya, and Iran at the tune of $1.5 trillion each. They say, "the spoils go to the victors". But when Obama ended Iraq's war with bloodthirsty dictator Sadam Hussein, we "gave them the keys and left". We are not the world's policemen. But if we have become that role, we have to send a clear message that it comes with a cost."
Obama sends in a diplomat to Iraq to request a share of their oil reserves as payment for ending the war. The Prime Minister releases that they will never pay for the war, so Obama's pawn ups and leaves. Representatives of the US should be like the titanium-spine negotiators on Wall Street, who shed his blood in the boardroom before conceding to he sitting at the other end of the table. We need diplomats who will piss on the opposing negotiators' possessions before bending to their request. Demand payments for our protection and make faulting on your request a serious offense.
Diplomats are leaving without finish a deal in Iraq. Change begins at the top. Therefore, we must demand stronger negotiating.
Response to 4: why social democratization ruins the economy and job growth. Microlvl: corporate tax cuts will be a boon to job and good supply curves. Incentivize corporate movement domestically where the best workers are. In the US. His failed green job stimulus packages sent $500 million dollars to venture capitalists, Solandra and others, only to go bankrupt before Obama left office. Green job "stimulation" is not a bad growth plan.
Response to 5: $4 billion budget deficit. We have been overspending poorly, flushing money down the drain. federal aid (healthcare and retirement) & military =~70% of spending. Fed spending should be managed like a business would. All expenses used tightly and effeciently with regard to space,time, and money.
Response to 8: Obama increased social security and welfare benefit spending by $226 billion. Where 1 in 55 people had welfare, when Welfare reform in the Reagan era granted welfare to more than just families living under the poverty line. Under Obama, this became 1 of 76 welfare criteria, and 1 in 7 people are on disability, unemployment benefits, or some other form of welfare. Stories of ensuing welfare fraud have spread. A man in Florida filed 1000 social security claims to the tune of $100 million collective funds before getting caught. A man in Louisiana was found to have been turning his Food Stamps into money to use at strip clubs. America is the only country where a poor person can be obese. The majority of Americans under the poverty line are provided air con, microwave, car, satellite; half to a third have Personal computers, video game systems, internet, and TiVo.
Response to 9: Obama made a number of economically unsound immigration policy. Uncontrolled immigration costs the US$110 billion/year. Welfare and education costs for illegals totals $70 billion. Incarceration costs take up the rest of the load.
Mexican immigrants cannot communicate with prison guards or the judges that sentence them. They are treated poorly in the prison system and do not reform as other inmates do. They become cyclically incarcerated because of a driving charge, which could easily have been avoided with citizenship and institutionalized driving school required for a license. Once they are in jail, they have a criminal record, get slapped with bigger penalties in successive charges, and now 1/3 of our prison population is Latino and 3/4 of these incarcerated Latinos are illegal immigrants with multiple charges, one being illegal and whatever else they were charged with. Americans foot the $20+ billion bill.
Obama has made an atrocity of ICE detainment centers; Obama gives the detained 6 months to obtain a work permit and amnesties families whose kids are accepted into college degrees while here. In Texas, it is cheaper for an illegal immigrant to put her child to college than for an American poor/middle class to do the same. He has turned ICE detainment centers into ones pleasing to the eye with pictures on the wall, plants on its facade on foyer, in addition to every reintegration program one can think of. In their 6 months hold, ICE detainees are given phone use, computer training, occupational assistance access with reference to technical certification, air con, food, drink, and a place to sleep. Obama's DREAM act is costing us dearly. If it is our job to educate and train Mexicans, Mexicans should pay for this service.
If we aren't policing immigrants within our borders, we should do it our borders. Have stricterr borders with edu/job requirements to encourage a Singaporean-like brain drain. We can follow Canada's immigration model of having to qualify according to a 67 point/100 index. Acc to this index, every month of job history grants you one point, a college degree grants 25 points, and skilled labor scales faster than unskilled labor.
Obama was the most liberal and socalist president we have had. His policies must be reformed. -$6billion GDP/day is not sustainable.
Response to chapters:
i.1-3. We have progressed from agrarian society to the industrial society and are now in a new technological based society. How have normal social conventions changed? We have yet to find that out.
Take romance as an example of our cluelessness in this new age. In agrarian society, men would travel for weeks across hundreds of miles to inspect a maiden. If his tastes were satisfied, he would immediately think to arrange a dowry for marriage before having to the make the weeks long journey home.
In the industrial age, the idea of romance was introduced to the world in the French Revolution. When women met a prospective husband, she did not have to show off her best homemaking skills as in agrarian society. Rather, women created some ideal romantic fascination to loll over in their mate choice. Mate choice was no longer based primarily on parental diplomatic relations; women had a hand in their marriage.
We still have no idea how romance will evolve with social media, its in-depth profiles and hand-selected prime angle snapshots into our lives.
[The president is the commander in chief, appoints judges, and can sign and veto bills. He is also the Dealmaker in chief.] He outlines the political and economic climate for international trade deals. Look at our enemy China. We built China's economy, sustained for them double digit growth yearly over 30 years, and how do they show their appreciation? With a measly agreement to buy annually $45 billion
of our exports. In 2009, we had a $209 billions trade deficit. In 2011, a $340 billion deficit. Lost money is lost jobs. We are getting hustled by the Chinese. We cannot allow this spineless negotiating to continue. In our globalized technological age, the president must create deals to keep America strong, and the fulcrum of all the Worlds hope.
Ok, so how do we fix this trade disaster we find ourselves in? China has 1. 1.3 billion people, 2. lower self-reported earnings to devalue their currency, producing and selling goods and services at a price we cannot compete with, 3. can produce a shirt for $3, where $20 is a conservative estimate for a pro-Union shirt made in the US Before Amazon and China. How do we manage this competitive difference?
Answer: 1. shift our econ focus from manufact deals to others. -> inc china import tariffs to spread the cost of CH goods to consumers. Buoy US goods currently exporting overseas. Goods produced collaboratively with China, manufacturers should increase prices with gov subsidies supply pinch.
2. Stronger Intellectual Protection in China-US joint ventures. They are stealing our technology at an outstanding rate. Militarily and industrially, agreements to share US tech designs are nearly transparent. If this continues, China will pass US as the #1 economy in 10 years, and we will have to answer to their governing style.
We are losing to China. When you look at high school test scores in Math, US top city is 25th of 34 countries, Shanghai is 1st. They are also 1st in reading and science. At the same time, the US makes the heartbreaking announcement, 40% of urban Latino and black HS students do not graduate.
Our Dealmaker in Chief must hammer out and fix our expanding $21.97 trillion debt.
Obama averaged $6 billion dollars of debt accumulation/year.
Oil is a cash cow. All goods depend on oil. All prices change with the price of oil. When you buy milk, oil builds the container, ships it to the store, and brings it home. Founded in 1960 in Baghdad, Afghanistan, OPEC was created with the ideal of controlling the supply of oil production with the aim of longevity and price controls. The result was illegitamate collusion, charging $80 for a barrel of oil that costs $15 to produce.
OPEC set a floor of oil prices at $85 a barrel (42 gallons), yet sell for $3,4,5 a gallon. Rising prices confound Gauss' competitive exclusion principle that only one competitor can exist at a certain price in a niche. OPEC collusion has caused oil prices to soar.
A: 1. start mining oil domestically. we are sitting on the biggest reserve of natural gas in the and have enough oil to sustain us for 70 years, but Obama has planned to keep these stores as an emergency fund and let these tyrants have their way with our money.
2. charge Iraq and other OPEC nations for occupation.
3. We should sue OPEC for antitrust violations and collusion. Break up OPEC and bring prices closer to their cost of production. If we got prices down to even $40 a barrel, the US debt would decrease $400 billion a year. Cap and trade on emissions as Obama implemented will only drive US oil prices higher. When US companies pay a tax, it isn't the companies its the consumers and employees that feel it worst. $100 million less that GE or Quadcomm has is $100 million less funds available for jobs. This ends as less price-competitive goods on the global market. Obama has no idea how trade works. He thinks taxes can stimulate growth. In reality, this forces people to put their money into nontaxable bonds. Cutting taxes allows the consumer more wiggle room to inject his funds into the economy.
Why do we have 30K troops in South Korea? They have 700k army themselves. If we do provide protection for them, why are we footing the bill for it.
He chose to enter and end wars in Iraq, Libya, and Iran at the tune of $1.5 trillion each. They say, "the spoils go to the victors". But when Obama ended Iraq's war with bloodthirsty dictator Sadam Hussein, we "gave them the keys and left". We are not the world's policemen. But if we have become that role, we have to send a clear message that it comes with a cost."
Obama sends in a diplomat to Iraq to request a share of their oil reserves as payment for ending the war. The Prime Minister releases that they will never pay for the war, so Obama's pawn ups and leaves. Representatives of the US should be like the titanium-spine negotiators on Wall Street, who shed his blood in the boardroom before conceding to he sitting at the other end of the table. We need diplomats who will piss on the opposing negotiators' possessions before bending to their request. Demand payments for our protection and make faulting on your request a serious offense.
Diplomats are leaving without finish a deal in Iraq. Change begins at the top. Therefore, we must demand stronger negotiating.
Response to 4: why social democratization ruins the economy and job growth. Microlvl: corporate tax cuts will be a boon to job and good supply curves. Incentivize corporate movement domestically where the best workers are. In the US. His failed green job stimulus packages sent $500 million dollars to venture capitalists, Solandra and others, only to go bankrupt before Obama left office. Green job "stimulation" is not a bad growth plan.
Response to 5: $4 billion budget deficit. We have been overspending poorly, flushing money down the drain. federal aid (healthcare and retirement) & military =~70% of spending. Fed spending should be managed like a business would. All expenses used tightly and effeciently with regard to space,time, and money.
Response to 8: Obama increased social security and welfare benefit spending by $226 billion. Where 1 in 55 people had welfare, when Welfare reform in the Reagan era granted welfare to more than just families living under the poverty line. Under Obama, this became 1 of 76 welfare criteria, and 1 in 7 people are on disability, unemployment benefits, or some other form of welfare. Stories of ensuing welfare fraud have spread. A man in Florida filed 1000 social security claims to the tune of $100 million collective funds before getting caught. A man in Louisiana was found to have been turning his Food Stamps into money to use at strip clubs. America is the only country where a poor person can be obese. The majority of Americans under the poverty line are provided air con, microwave, car, satellite; half to a third have Personal computers, video game systems, internet, and TiVo.
Response to 9: Obama made a number of economically unsound immigration policy. Uncontrolled immigration costs the US$110 billion/year. Welfare and education costs for illegals totals $70 billion. Incarceration costs take up the rest of the load.
Mexican immigrants cannot communicate with prison guards or the judges that sentence them. They are treated poorly in the prison system and do not reform as other inmates do. They become cyclically incarcerated because of a driving charge, which could easily have been avoided with citizenship and institutionalized driving school required for a license. Once they are in jail, they have a criminal record, get slapped with bigger penalties in successive charges, and now 1/3 of our prison population is Latino and 3/4 of these incarcerated Latinos are illegal immigrants with multiple charges, one being illegal and whatever else they were charged with. Americans foot the $20+ billion bill.
Obama has made an atrocity of ICE detainment centers; Obama gives the detained 6 months to obtain a work permit and amnesties families whose kids are accepted into college degrees while here. In Texas, it is cheaper for an illegal immigrant to put her child to college than for an American poor/middle class to do the same. He has turned ICE detainment centers into ones pleasing to the eye with pictures on the wall, plants on its facade on foyer, in addition to every reintegration program one can think of. In their 6 months hold, ICE detainees are given phone use, computer training, occupational assistance access with reference to technical certification, air con, food, drink, and a place to sleep. Obama's DREAM act is costing us dearly. If it is our job to educate and train Mexicans, Mexicans should pay for this service.
If we aren't policing immigrants within our borders, we should do it our borders. Have stricterr borders with edu/job requirements to encourage a Singaporean-like brain drain. We can follow Canada's immigration model of having to qualify according to a 67 point/100 index. Acc to this index, every month of job history grants you one point, a college degree grants 25 points, and skilled labor scales faster than unskilled labor.
Obama was the most liberal and socalist president we have had. His policies must be reformed. -$6billion GDP/day is not sustainable.
September 19, 2015
Time to Get Tough by Donald J. Trump
“Time to Get Tough" is a plea for action. A man that needs no introduction, billionaire Donald J. Trump reveals his political views with a focus on the economy. This progressive-minded reviewer will illustrate as fairly as possible the positives and negatives of this book. This direct 226-page book includes twenty-six chapters, a conclusion, postscript, and an epilogue.
Positives:
1. A well-written, direct and accessible book.
2. I’m sure Mr. Trump had help writing this book but it does reflect his no-holds barred personality and interesting political views.
3. The book flows well from chapter to chapter. Each chapter covers a political issue and begins with a chapter-related quote.
4. Readers will gain a better understanding on how Trump stands on important political issues with an emphasis on the economy. “Restoring American wealth will require that we get tough. The next president must understand that America’s business is business. We need a president who knows how to get things done, who can keep America strong, safe, and free, and who can negotiate deals that benefit America, not the countries on the other side of the table. A president doesn’t “create” jobs, only businesses can do that. But he can help create an environment that allows the rest of us—entrepreneurs, small businessmen, big businessmen—to make America rich.”
5. I like his ideas on the OPEC. “So number one, we take the oil through the cost-sharing plans that even the GAO says are smart and feasible. Two, we hit OPEC in the wallet and rein them in by signing into law the bipartisan NOPEC law. And the third thing we need to do is to take advantage of one of our country’s chief assets—natural gas.”
6. The impact of economic decisions. “In the world of economics, there are no such things as ‘solutions,’ only tradeoffs. Every action has a consequence. Every decision has an upside and a downside. So you make smart decisions that minimize harm and maximize freedom.”
7. His views on dealing with China. “China presents three big threats to the United States in its outrageous currency manipulation, its systematic attempt to destroy our manufacturing base, and its industrial espionage and cyber warfare against America.”
8. Curious anecdotes spruced throughout the book. “The company’s owners, David Hughes and Jae Lee, realized that there’s tons of the special kind of wood you have to use to make chopsticks in southern Georgia. They realized they could make their chopsticks in America for cheaper than they could in China. Better still, they knew they could create more American jobs that way. So they make the chopsticks in Georgia and ship them to China!”
9. A look on corporate taxes. “For example, Ireland’s corporate tax rate is 12.5 percent. America’s? We’re the second highest in the world, just behind Japan at a ridiculous 39 percent. That means businessmen can save up to 26.5 percent in taxes just by relocating their business abroad. And they are—in droves. In fact, the international average corporate tax rate is 26 percent.”
10. Trumps views on taxes. “If we want jobs in America, we need to enact my five-part tax policy: kill the death tax, lower the tax rates on capital gains and dividends, eliminate corporate taxes in order to create more American jobs, mandate a 15 percent tax for outsourcing jobs and a 20 percent tax for importing goods, and enact the 1-5-10-15 income tax plan.”
11. Views on how to save Social Security and Medicaid. “It’s not unreasonable for people who paid into a system for decades to expect to get their money’s worth—that’s not an “entitlement,” that’s honoring a deal. We as a society must also make an ironclad commitment to providing a safety net for those who can’t make one for themselves.”
12. The merits of negotiating smarter.
13. The importance of a strong defense and his seven core principles of a credible American foreign policy doctrine. “Our Founding Fathers got it. They understood that nothing good in life—religious freedom, economic freedom, freedom of speech—can be enjoyed if people fear for their physical safety.”
14. A look at out of control welfare spending. “Since Johnson launched his mythical quest for a government-run utopia, welfare spending has skyrocketed 13 times the amount spent in 1964 (in inflation adjusted dollars). Back then, welfare spending accounted for 1.2 percent of GDP. Today, it’s almost 6 percent.”
15. Poverty. “Out-of-wedlock birth rates are not only one of the greatest generators of poverty but of inequality in America. Twenty-nine percent of white children are born to a single mother (a figure that’s far too high), but 72 percent of black children are born out of wedlock.”
16. On repealing Obamacare. “Destroying the world’s finest health-care system so that Obama can have his socialized medicine program is reckless and foolish. The proper way to bring the cost of health-care down is to make insurance companies compete nationally and get defensive medicine under control through serious tort reform that includes loser pays provisions.”
17. The hot-button issue of immigration and Trump’s 5-point plan... “The root cause of all the welfare payments to illegal aliens is the so-called “anchor baby” phenomenon, which is when illegal immigrant mothers have a baby on American soil. The child automatically becomes an American citizen, though this was never the intention of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
18. His views on how to make America great again.
19. An excellent afterword in which Trump addresses a handful of issues.
20. Notes included.
Negatives:
1. Climate change denier. We must base our decisions on the best science available. Mr. Trump along with many conservatives are on the wrong side of science.
2. Tone and style is off putting, what did you expect from Mr. Trump? “Our leaders are rather, to put it succinctly, stupid.”
3. “Obama needs to wake up, stop taking so many vacations (I’ve never seen anything like it), and quit messing around.” Really? It’s my understanding that the president has taken a lot fewer days than his most recent predecessors.
4. Quite a few low blows to our president. “They know Obama’s instincts are to apologize, grovel, and retreat.” Showing restraint is a virtue.
5. “Prevent federal funding of abortions through welfare programs.” This will only ensure that the cycle of poverty continues; it’s best to fund Planned Parenthood, empower women to make their own choices and provide them the tools necessary to do so. It’s time we respect women’s reproductive rights.
6. Drug testing welfare recipients is intrusive, disrespectful and unnecessary.
7. Talks a lot about welfare spending but a lot less on corporate subsidies (in his defense he does chastise oil companies).
8. “Absolutely. The GOP needs to learn how to get tough and out-negotiate Obama and his big spending allies in Washington. They also need to learn the art of using the right tone and language.” Speechless.
9. A bit repetitive.
10. No formal bibliography.
In summary, as right-wing books go this is slightly above average. The book focuses mainly on Trump’s views on the economy and how to make America great again. There are compelling points made in this book. Clearly, Trump knows how to make money but do those business principles translate over to politics? I think some principles still work but different dynamics are at play. The book is brief and worth reading, this progressive (tone aside) found much to like about this book.
Further right-wing suggestions that will help you get acquainted with their views: “A Time for Truth” by Ted Cruz, “American Dreams” by Marco Rubio, “Unintimidated” by Scott Walker, “Rising to the Challenge” by Carly Fiorina, “Taking a Stand” by Rand Paul, “What I Believe” and “One Nation” by Ben Carson, “Immigration Wars” by Jeb Bush, “God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy” by Mike Huckabee, “Fed Up!” by Rick Perry, “Blue Collar Conservatives” by Rick Santorum, and “Our Lost Constitution” by Mike Lee.
“Time to Get Tough" is a plea for action. A man that needs no introduction, billionaire Donald J. Trump reveals his political views with a focus on the economy. This progressive-minded reviewer will illustrate as fairly as possible the positives and negatives of this book. This direct 226-page book includes twenty-six chapters, a conclusion, postscript, and an epilogue.
Positives:
1. A well-written, direct and accessible book.
2. I’m sure Mr. Trump had help writing this book but it does reflect his no-holds barred personality and interesting political views.
3. The book flows well from chapter to chapter. Each chapter covers a political issue and begins with a chapter-related quote.
4. Readers will gain a better understanding on how Trump stands on important political issues with an emphasis on the economy. “Restoring American wealth will require that we get tough. The next president must understand that America’s business is business. We need a president who knows how to get things done, who can keep America strong, safe, and free, and who can negotiate deals that benefit America, not the countries on the other side of the table. A president doesn’t “create” jobs, only businesses can do that. But he can help create an environment that allows the rest of us—entrepreneurs, small businessmen, big businessmen—to make America rich.”
5. I like his ideas on the OPEC. “So number one, we take the oil through the cost-sharing plans that even the GAO says are smart and feasible. Two, we hit OPEC in the wallet and rein them in by signing into law the bipartisan NOPEC law. And the third thing we need to do is to take advantage of one of our country’s chief assets—natural gas.”
6. The impact of economic decisions. “In the world of economics, there are no such things as ‘solutions,’ only tradeoffs. Every action has a consequence. Every decision has an upside and a downside. So you make smart decisions that minimize harm and maximize freedom.”
7. His views on dealing with China. “China presents three big threats to the United States in its outrageous currency manipulation, its systematic attempt to destroy our manufacturing base, and its industrial espionage and cyber warfare against America.”
8. Curious anecdotes spruced throughout the book. “The company’s owners, David Hughes and Jae Lee, realized that there’s tons of the special kind of wood you have to use to make chopsticks in southern Georgia. They realized they could make their chopsticks in America for cheaper than they could in China. Better still, they knew they could create more American jobs that way. So they make the chopsticks in Georgia and ship them to China!”
9. A look on corporate taxes. “For example, Ireland’s corporate tax rate is 12.5 percent. America’s? We’re the second highest in the world, just behind Japan at a ridiculous 39 percent. That means businessmen can save up to 26.5 percent in taxes just by relocating their business abroad. And they are—in droves. In fact, the international average corporate tax rate is 26 percent.”
10. Trumps views on taxes. “If we want jobs in America, we need to enact my five-part tax policy: kill the death tax, lower the tax rates on capital gains and dividends, eliminate corporate taxes in order to create more American jobs, mandate a 15 percent tax for outsourcing jobs and a 20 percent tax for importing goods, and enact the 1-5-10-15 income tax plan.”
11. Views on how to save Social Security and Medicaid. “It’s not unreasonable for people who paid into a system for decades to expect to get their money’s worth—that’s not an “entitlement,” that’s honoring a deal. We as a society must also make an ironclad commitment to providing a safety net for those who can’t make one for themselves.”
12. The merits of negotiating smarter.
13. The importance of a strong defense and his seven core principles of a credible American foreign policy doctrine. “Our Founding Fathers got it. They understood that nothing good in life—religious freedom, economic freedom, freedom of speech—can be enjoyed if people fear for their physical safety.”
14. A look at out of control welfare spending. “Since Johnson launched his mythical quest for a government-run utopia, welfare spending has skyrocketed 13 times the amount spent in 1964 (in inflation adjusted dollars). Back then, welfare spending accounted for 1.2 percent of GDP. Today, it’s almost 6 percent.”
15. Poverty. “Out-of-wedlock birth rates are not only one of the greatest generators of poverty but of inequality in America. Twenty-nine percent of white children are born to a single mother (a figure that’s far too high), but 72 percent of black children are born out of wedlock.”
16. On repealing Obamacare. “Destroying the world’s finest health-care system so that Obama can have his socialized medicine program is reckless and foolish. The proper way to bring the cost of health-care down is to make insurance companies compete nationally and get defensive medicine under control through serious tort reform that includes loser pays provisions.”
17. The hot-button issue of immigration and Trump’s 5-point plan... “The root cause of all the welfare payments to illegal aliens is the so-called “anchor baby” phenomenon, which is when illegal immigrant mothers have a baby on American soil. The child automatically becomes an American citizen, though this was never the intention of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
18. His views on how to make America great again.
19. An excellent afterword in which Trump addresses a handful of issues.
20. Notes included.
Negatives:
1. Climate change denier. We must base our decisions on the best science available. Mr. Trump along with many conservatives are on the wrong side of science.
2. Tone and style is off putting, what did you expect from Mr. Trump? “Our leaders are rather, to put it succinctly, stupid.”
3. “Obama needs to wake up, stop taking so many vacations (I’ve never seen anything like it), and quit messing around.” Really? It’s my understanding that the president has taken a lot fewer days than his most recent predecessors.
4. Quite a few low blows to our president. “They know Obama’s instincts are to apologize, grovel, and retreat.” Showing restraint is a virtue.
5. “Prevent federal funding of abortions through welfare programs.” This will only ensure that the cycle of poverty continues; it’s best to fund Planned Parenthood, empower women to make their own choices and provide them the tools necessary to do so. It’s time we respect women’s reproductive rights.
6. Drug testing welfare recipients is intrusive, disrespectful and unnecessary.
7. Talks a lot about welfare spending but a lot less on corporate subsidies (in his defense he does chastise oil companies).
8. “Absolutely. The GOP needs to learn how to get tough and out-negotiate Obama and his big spending allies in Washington. They also need to learn the art of using the right tone and language.” Speechless.
9. A bit repetitive.
10. No formal bibliography.
In summary, as right-wing books go this is slightly above average. The book focuses mainly on Trump’s views on the economy and how to make America great again. There are compelling points made in this book. Clearly, Trump knows how to make money but do those business principles translate over to politics? I think some principles still work but different dynamics are at play. The book is brief and worth reading, this progressive (tone aside) found much to like about this book.
Further right-wing suggestions that will help you get acquainted with their views: “A Time for Truth” by Ted Cruz, “American Dreams” by Marco Rubio, “Unintimidated” by Scott Walker, “Rising to the Challenge” by Carly Fiorina, “Taking a Stand” by Rand Paul, “What I Believe” and “One Nation” by Ben Carson, “Immigration Wars” by Jeb Bush, “God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy” by Mike Huckabee, “Fed Up!” by Rick Perry, “Blue Collar Conservatives” by Rick Santorum, and “Our Lost Constitution” by Mike Lee.
June 26, 2022
You can tell Trump really did write most of the book because it is written the way he speaks, take that as you will.
Some take aways,
Trump believes that the military should operate as a protection racket. Countries that want protection of our soldiers, they should pay for it. Particularly in the middle east... where we initiate military action.
Trump believes the family unit is very important. And as such women should take their rightful place in the home... where they belong.
Trump believes OPEC is a monopoly, and this is bad, global supply chain be damned.
Trump believes Obama is an idiot. That appears to be all he thinks about Obama.
Trump believes he himself is an excellent deal maker, and his deals are the best. No one else makes deals as well as he does.
Trump believes China is cheating at global economics. They are manipulate their currency to put the rest of the world at a disadvantage, and they are doing so particularly to spite the US.
Trump does not believe in climate change.
Trump believes Mexico is sending criminals illegally to the US so we can imprison them here on the tax payer's dime.
Trump believes it's unfair he should have to stop hosting the Apprentice to run for president.
Trump owns many golf courses and hotels around the world.
It really should have surprised no one how his presidency went, he spelled out his platform right here in his book, word for word, before he ran. He did not deviate from this playbook at all in four years.
Some take aways,
Trump believes that the military should operate as a protection racket. Countries that want protection of our soldiers, they should pay for it. Particularly in the middle east... where we initiate military action.
Trump believes the family unit is very important. And as such women should take their rightful place in the home... where they belong.
Trump believes OPEC is a monopoly, and this is bad, global supply chain be damned.
Trump believes Obama is an idiot. That appears to be all he thinks about Obama.
Trump believes he himself is an excellent deal maker, and his deals are the best. No one else makes deals as well as he does.
Trump believes China is cheating at global economics. They are manipulate their currency to put the rest of the world at a disadvantage, and they are doing so particularly to spite the US.
Trump does not believe in climate change.
Trump believes Mexico is sending criminals illegally to the US so we can imprison them here on the tax payer's dime.
Trump believes it's unfair he should have to stop hosting the Apprentice to run for president.
Trump owns many golf courses and hotels around the world.
It really should have surprised no one how his presidency went, he spelled out his platform right here in his book, word for word, before he ran. He did not deviate from this playbook at all in four years.
Read
February 10, 2019Очень интересно, что книга написана в США ещё в 2011-2012 годах. Однако по ней можно проследить действия президента США за последние 2 года. Как политик, выглядит что он делает то, что утверждал необходимо сделать. Люди в разных странах жалуются что у политиков обещания часто расходятся с делами. Автор этой книги выглядит как человек своего слова. Есть мнение что он непредсказуем. А согласно этой книге, он походу движется по плану, который описал за четыре года до президентства. Человек однозначно неординарный.
July 1, 2019
Quản lý đất nước theo cách của 1 nhà kinh tế, là dù thế nào thì cũng đặt mục tiêu lợi ích lên hàng đầu:))
Là 1 công dân nc khác thì mình ko ủng hộ tí nào:)) nhưng nếu là ng Mỹ chắc mình cũng ủng hộ ông Trump mất:))
Là 1 công dân nc khác thì mình ko ủng hộ tí nào:)) nhưng nếu là ng Mỹ chắc mình cũng ủng hộ ông Trump mất:))
August 7, 2022
Trump was right. Period.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 130 reviews