This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
Donald Trump’s admitted federal tax evasion, frequent refusal to pay those he hires and many bankruptcies have imparted a key singular message to his kids: Let the poor, common plebes deal with your money problems for you.
In a recent interview with Business Insider, when asked how she acquired her business acumen and savvy, Trump’s daughter and now-campaign surrogate Ivanka answered, “I had a whole lot of lemonade stands growing up, which were helpful in learning about business on the most fundamental level.”
For more on that story, the outlet turned to the Trump heiress’s 2009 book, "The Trump Card." In it, Ivanka explains how nailing down a place to set things up was an initial challenge.
"First of all, my mother wasn't about to let us set up shop with a lemonade stand at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street,” she told the news source, “and to do so in the lobby of Trump Tower would have been just a little too precious, don't you think?"
Instead, they set up shop in front of their home in Greenwich, Conn. — on a very wealthy street with almost no foot traffic and thus no potential customers.
"The only trouble with this arrangement was our location — not a typical Trump problem," she wrote in the book. "We were at the end of a cul-de-sac in an affluent community of spacious homes on sprawling properties. In every other respect, this was a prime spot, but it was a dead zone for aspiring lemonade magnates."
The trio of kids — Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric — were supposed to recoup and pay back the funds their parents had given them as seed money. How to possibly get those funds running a business that’s all supply and no demand? Why, just get The Help to pay for it! I’m sure they want to fork over their earnings to the rich kids they work for, and that they totally spent that money willingly, without fear that they had to buy it or they might be in trouble with the bosses.
Ivanka writes that Trump employees "took pity on us and dug deep for their spare change.” The trio of Trump mini-titans got the family’s driver, their bodyguard and members of the house staff to buy up their product until they were in the black.
"We made the best of a bad situation, I guess,” Ivanka says, obliviously handing the credit for the lemonade stand’s success to her and her siblings’ "wily charms and persuasive marketing skills,” instead of the hired help who chipped in to give money that ultimately went right back into their rich boss’s pocket, “a lesson we'd utilize again and again as we moved on in business.”
I’m sure the lemonade was probably not more than $0.25 a cup. Still, it’s likely at least one staffer gave those funds begrudgingly, considering the situation.
(h/t Business Insider)
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