I beat up on Donald Trump today, and much of the criticism I have received goes roughly: “Well, he made a great deal of money, so he must have something going on.”

There are obvious problems with that line of argument, most of which can be brought into very sharp focus by thinking of the many centimillionaires and billionaires who should not be president: Barbra Streisand, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Vince McMahon, Mark Zuckerberg, George Lucas, etc. Liberace was worth more than $100 million back in the 1970s, when $100 million really meant something.

But let’s say that making a pile of money is in itself a qualification for political office. Shouldn’t we scale the billionaires’ political ambitions to their actual financial success? Take Michael Bloomberg, whose net worth is about ten times that of Donald Trump. If the $35 billion man’s fortune qualifies him to be mayor of New York, and if Trump’s money is his main qualification, then shouldn’t he be running for mayor of Columbus, Ohio, instead of the presidency?

If we’re going to be about bottom lines, then let’s really look at the bottom line. Charles and David Koch could buy Donald Trump twenty times between the two of them and still be billionaires, and the most David Koch ever has run for was vice president, on the Libertarian party ticket, in 1980. That was, incidentally, the Libertarian party’s best-ever presidential showing, with more than 1 percent of the vote: The Fed-fearing Libertarian faithful came out in force for a man with the middle name “Hamilton.”

A great fortune is a splendid thing to have, but it is not in itself a recommendation for the presidency. Surely the fact that he is Canadian is not the only reason that Justin Bieber (net worth $200 million) should not be president of these United States.