Building wealth: Truth or consequences

Above the strains of "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" and beneath the fragments of light spilling from an enormous crystal chandelier, 244 fortune hunters file into a Toronto hotel ballroom on a cold and dim February morning. They're here to brighten their financial futures through Donald Trump's "Way to Wealth" seminar, which, according to materials promoting this event, will reveal the secrets of real estate investing and business management.

Could it possibly be so simple? You bet, says "personal Trump instructor" Rick Brown, upon taking the stage and congratulating attendees on the "tremendous step forward" they've taken. It's not long before Brown is unleashing a flurry of tidy platitudes from the stage, such as "Money's a game; you know the rules, you win." He also confides that most people's biggest mistake in the business world is to fail to give themselves a "consequence," defined roughly as an investment of time or money in an objective, such that one's failure to work toward that objective will result in a material loss.


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