> But I believe that the official 5% unemployment rate is lying with statistics

It's not lying with statistics, there is a definition for who is considered employed and who isn't. It's important to track who has decided they want to work but aren't (unemployed) compared to those who aren't employed and are not looking (retired, caring for a relative/child). These are well defined terms[1] that are used in the unemployment and labor force participation[2] numbers. From what I can tell, if a person has not looked for a job in 4 weeks, then they are considered not participating. But it's not done there, they also ask if they have looked in the last 12 months, and why they stopped, to try to identify people marginally attached.

Note, there is some thought that this could be the baby-boomers retiring[3], which account for larger demographic than others through a quirk of history.

Employment has a fairly complex definition in this respect. Do I think the participation rate matters? Yes. Do I think we are necessarily back where we were before the recession? No. Do I think we are in a recession? Definitely not, based on GDP growth[4]. That much of this growth isn't going to help those that need it is a separate problem, and not necessarily helped by focusing on the employment rate. Quality of employment matter a lot.

> Net, on unemployment, I don't think that the real rate, with a reasonable definition, is 5% or anywhere near that. Maybe Trump's 20% is correct or even too low. So, one hope for the economy, deficit, standard of living, etc. is to get the "labor force participation rate" up, way up.

The problem is none of these numbers are qualified. If you don't accept the definition of unemployment put out by the US government, that's fine, but you can't credibly quote another number, using different criteria, without defining that criteria. Does 20% include everyone that could work? Quite a few (93.3% of those not in the labor force) don't want to work[5].

> For the point that there wasn't anything in the TU courses couldn't find in Trump books, okay. Quite generally there isn't much of any value in education not already in books. So, that situation about has to hold for TU also.

True, but I think it's a bit different if you are the person who wrote the books,and you also have a course for thousands of dollars to teach you "real-estate secrets", then I don't think it's wrong to expect that you have something worth that extra money, otherwise the implication is that there's something new and actually secret that you are imparting, not the same old information you've already published.

> Maybe there was some content in the courses.

I don't doubt there was some content in the courses. There has to be something for people not to immediately report them as frauds (but not much, people don't want to believe they just spent thousands on a very bad investment). The problem is that the purpose of the courses was not to teach, but to try to pump them for more money, which is made clear by the handbooks and procedures the teachers were meant to follow.

> To me, TU looks like an example of my guess about how Trump has done a lot of his smaller businesses...

If you're making a case that he'll increase corruption in government by not correctly vetting those he chooses to work on a problem, and giving very little oversight, you're making a good case. ;)

> So, instead of Trump I should have backed one of the 16 Republican candidates he beat?

I'm not espousing you choose a particular candidate, just that you look critically at all of them, and all their claims. For me, this places Trump at the bottom. I don't like how he rides negative sentiment for popularity, and I don't like how

> I liked them less than Trump -- have no reason to trust them any more than Trump. I should vote for Hillary or Bernie? They can sound sincere, too, but to me the details, such as I can find them, look a lot worse than Trump's

I'mnot a big fan of Clinton, but I see her more as a career politician that has a hard time connecting to the populace, but as someone that does intend to do good.

Bernie is probably the most sincere politician any of us have seen in decades. Unfortunately, some of his ideas aren't really feasible. It's moot now.

> and I agree that Hillary is a terrible crook and should go to jail for her violations of the rules and laws about handling classified information.

I think as a career politician she's focused more on doing what works to get stuff done, and that probably entails ignoring what she saw as some of the smaller, unimportant rules both on purpose and through ignorance. What I think is likely, is that after this happened, a scary amount of congressmen and senators that had previously unused government email addresses all of a sudden started using them. That she used one isn't damning to me at all. That she may have covered up stuff after the fact is troubling, and could quite possibly be true. I at least expect my politicians to be competent enough not to be caught (heh), given that I think they all have things to hide, not matter how small (how many laws do you break driving to the store?). Trump doesn't get a pass on this though, the only group I have less trust in to admit wrongdoing instead of cover it up is Corporate America.

> So, one reason I have on my computer as primary sources what Trump said is to have, for later, means to write critical blog posts, with the primary sources and solid references, if Trump fails to deliver on his promises. Thin soup if Trump is lying. Not a lot of recourse.

That's a good reason! I tend to think he'll check moderate his claims later though, so he can always point to the more moderate version and say "hey, that's not what I was saying at the end". It doesn't really matter if he's vocal about it. As it is, he's known for having a multitude of (sometimes conflicting) stances on issues[6]. I tend to think that lets people choose the stance the agree most with and assume that's what he means, and ignore variations they may not agree with, regardless of when the fall on a timeline.

> So, what can I do? What can any citizen or voter do? What did voters do for Ike, FDR, ..., Lincoln, ... Washington?

Look at past public (governmental) service. Washington was a general in the revolution, and a leading figure. Lincoln was a Congressman. FDR was a Senator. Each had quite a while in public service before becoming President. I think that's a very important way to determine what type of politician one will be as President, because I don't think high level political offices like all these listed are like any other job. The pressures are different, the power is different. I would have much fewer reservations about Trump if he'd been in some public office for a while and his behavior there could be used to counteract his public persona, which doesn't instill confidence in my regarding his abilities to work with others as a politician.

> After all that, I've got my startup to work on.

Fair enough. Good luck!

1: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#nilf

2: http://www.bls.gov/bls/cps_fact_sheets/lfp_mock.htm

3: http://qz.com/286213/the-chart-obama-haters-love-most-and-th...

4: http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-growth-rate/table/by-year

5: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/11/14/more-and-mor...

6: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/full-list-dona...