Shady accounting underpins Trump’s wealth … The GOP nominee is rich. But how rich depends on odd accounting and subjective criteria … Donald Trump claims he is worth $10 billion — but financial experts dispute that. -Politico 

Is Donald Trump less wealthy than claimed?

And if so, as the above Politico article excerpt suggests, then perhaps this complicates his political motivations. Perhaps, indeed, he set about becoming president to raise his profile and increase his marketability.

We’ve published a number of articles now on Trump, some questioning his motivations. Recently, we suggested that if his free-market sentiments are sincere and if he wants to avoid foreign wars, his presidency might prove beneficial.

However, as a rule, politics have a negative impact on people and systems. Even when there are positive aspects to a political candidate’s positions, negative elements eventually surface.

Ronald Reagan was determinedly pro-business and freedom, yet he redid the US’s progressive tax system to make it more onerous and spent additional trillions on the US military.

Trump’s situation is complicated by differing positions he seems to take. His rhetoric shifts.

Sometimes he sounds nearly libertarian and then in other instances he sounds quite authoritarian.

He wants to make it a lot easier to sue journalists, for instance. And he also wants to spend a lot more on the military, even while criticizing foreign wars.

A main element of his campaign rhetoric is that he became a candidate because he wanted to “make America great again.”

This would tend to preclude other, more personal reasons for becoming a candidate such as increasing his commercial profile or becoming a more influential business figure as a result of political success.

This is positive, if true. Less self-interest may generate more beneficial public results.

More:

Donald Trump claims a net worth of more than $10 billion and an income of $557 million. But he appears to get there only by overvaluing properties and ignoring his expenses.

POLITICO spoke with more than a dozen financial experts and Trump’s fellow multimillionaires about the presumptive Republican nominee’s latest financial statement. Their conclusion: The real estate magnate’s bottom line — what he actually puts in his own pocket — could be much lower than he suggests.

The article quotes a hedge fund manager as saying, “I know Donald; I’ve known him a long time, and it gets under his skin if you start writing about the reasons he won’t disclose his returns. You would see that he doesn’t have the money that he claims to have and he’s not paying much of anything in taxes.”

Another manager asked why Trump was selling securities to raise cash.

“If he is swimming in so much cash for all his holdings, why is he selling? … ”

Trump’s tax returns would go a long way to clearing up his financial status, but he won’t release them.

Recently Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, said in an interview with The Huffington Post that Trump might not ever release his returns.

Trump is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Who knows at this point what his motivations are for running or what he will do if elected.

Conclusion: Our bottom-line conclusion is the same as always. Take control of your own life as much as possible. Don’t wait for the political system to change or make things better. That is a long-shot at best.