Hillary Clinton says she and Bill were 'dead broke'

[OutHouse]

"Fail" because you're unable to make meaningful rebuttal to Steamer's point?

there is no rebuttal. i asked him to prove it and he failed, its as simple as that.

 

[Exterous]

"MortgageS" "HouseS"

Oh dear, our private island started to get expensive, trying to build that castle just in the right spot almost drained our bank!

Oh dear - how will we possibly survive with only the following guaranteed benefits??!!

-$200,000 a year pension
-Up to $1,50,000 for the transitioning of the former POTUS and VP to pay for office space, office staff, communication, printing
-$96,000 a year to pay for personal staff (not counting security)
-Free office space
-Free business travel
-Free secret service protection
-Free medical treatment at any military hospital

So very broke

Apparently a friend gave them a big loan to help them out and that's how they started repaying things. That's the kind of thing you do when you can't pay your bills. Most people in such a situation don't have friends that can help them to such an extent but that's not really relevant to how broke they were.

I am willing to bet that loan was from a friend because they could get a better interest rate by going through the friend than from a bank. When regular people are broke they don't have either option.

Maybe for the Clintons "broke" was an exaggeration, but I still think it's stupid to act like just because you made a lot of money or even still are making a lot of money that you can't be in really bad shape financially. If anything you'll have opportunities to accrue far more severe debt than the average person. I'd much rather have no money than make $500k a year while owing millions. It happens to athletes, it happens to movie stars, it even happens to business execs, and while it might not be a common person's problem it's hardly enviable.

Your analogies to movie stars and athletes are not exactly accurate given the added perks the POTUS gets retirement, not to mention guaranteed speaking and book deals. Besides - its one thing to have those issues and its another completely to go on national tv and try to score political\sympathy points for it

 

[werepossum]

Whether you're broke or not is about how much money you have and much debt you're in, not how much money you make. Just look at how many NFL players end up bankrupt not long after their career is over, despite having recently made millions. Anyone can make poor financial decisions. Doesn't make them worthy of pity though.

The article shows outright that the Clintons had more debt than assets. It says about $500k debt when it should say at least $500k because that's the difference between the maximum and minimum possible assets and debts respectively. Then they say that actually they had a lot more assets because they owned multi-million dollar homes, when the fact is they just bought those houses so their actual equity would be barely more than the down payments. And we have no idea what those down payments were. Besides, it's not like you can convert a house into cash instantly, so I think Hillary's claim that they struggled to pay their immediate bills is plausible. Whether or not Bill was sure to get many millions of deals in the future is entirely moot unless someone wanted to bankroll him right then.

Not sure why Hillary would even bring this up though, it just makes it look like her family had poor financial management. Even if they were hit hard by unexpected legal bills.

Under that definition virtually everyone buying a house is dead broke, which apparently has the same flexibility of definition as more well known brain twisters such as the meaning of the words "alone" or "is".

Should really be a major distinction between "I'm dead broke!" and "I don't yet have on hand more money than I can spend!".

 

[Conscript]

It wasn't technically incorrect, just politically stupid. Similar to Romney's 47% comment. He's not wrong, the 47% who rely on the government tit would never vote for him no matter what.

 

[Cozarkian]

I said someone bankrolling him to pay his bills. The bank giving him a mortgage for his house was not that in the least.

All loans, including mortgages, are upfront payments based on an expectation of future income. If your usage of the word bankrolling was consistent with its English-language definition, then the mortgage was bankrolling.

Why are you putting this as if they bought those houses during the period where Hillary said they were broke?

Because they were. Read the article. The first house was purchased in 1999, the second in December 2000, mere weeks before they left the white house. So when Hillary said she was broke when she left the white house, it's because they just put up $855,000 in cash and secured a $1,995 million mortgage, barely a month ago.

They racked up a lot of debt quickly because of tremendous legal fees, probably after they got the houses.

Unless they racked up those legal fees in the last month of his Presidency, then no they chose to spend $855,000 on a house down-payment instead of paying down existing legal fees. The only explanation is they weren't worried about a future source of income to pay off those fees and the new mortgage.

Apparently a friend gave them a big loan to help them out and that's how they started repaying things.

Source, please. Even if it is true, who cares? They had between 2.28 and 10.6 million debt in 2000 and earned $9.2 million in 2001 and $9.8 million in 2002, so they absolutely didn't need a friend. http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/09/politics/clinton-speeches/index.html

That's the kind of thing you do when you can't pay your bills.

Hillary and Bill were so confident that they could pay their bills that they assumed almost $2 million in debt in December 2000. That's not the kind of thing you do when you are "dead broke," or even partially-alive broke.

Maybe for the Clintons "broke" was an exaggeration, but I still think it's stupid to act like just because you made a lot of money or even still are making a lot of money that you can't be in really bad shape financially. If anything you'll have opportunities to accrue far more severe debt than the average person. I'd much rather have no money than make $500k a year while owing millions. It happens to athletes, it happens to movie stars, it even happens to business execs, and while it might not be a common person's problem it's hardly enviable.

Of course you can be in bad shape financially even if you are wealthy. But if the Clintons are so stupid that they took out a ~$2 million dollar mortgage and made a ~$880K downpayment on a house when they were dead broke, then they are two of the dumbest people alive. I don't think they are two of the dumbest people alive, so I'm going to go with they weren't dead broke.

 

[OutHouse]

lol @ john stewards bit comparing Biden and hillary in a poor-off.

"why do these two think we need a hobo for president" hahahahahhaah