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Trump's finances (NO POLITICS!)


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I'll be interested to see who steps up to refinance his maturing debt, and at what price (not that it will be publicly announced)
He has a following (cultish, but still a following) and he will likely try to capitalize and monetize their loyalty.

Now that he is once again a private citizen, he won't release his tax records (like he was ever really going to do that), but they are discoverable in litigation; some will say he hid from litigation behind Presidential immunity, others will say it is a witchhunt. It should be fascinating to watch this unfold, and expand the chasm between loyalists and realists.

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33 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

I'll be interested to see who steps up to refinance his maturing debt, and at what price (not that it will be publicly announced)
He has a following (cultish, but still a following) and he will likely try to capitalize and monetize their loyalty.

Now that he is once again a private citizen, he won't release his tax records (like he was ever really going to do that), but they are discoverable in litigation; some will say he hid from litigation behind Presidential immunity, others will say it is a witchhunt. It should be fascinating to watch this unfold, and expand the chasm between loyalists and realists.

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He, indeed, has a cult but I don't believe that base is made up of players in high finance.  Most of his cult gets payday loans. 

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8 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

trump needs to find new income sources to offset the growing losses. Losing his public voice would seem to cut out most options.

I would think that finding someone else to fund a tv news network but giving Trump major ownership in exchange for his name, is the best bet.

Or do what every politician does. Release a ghost written book and collect the millions of dollars "speaking fees". 

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11 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

trump needs to find new income sources to offset the growing losses. Losing his public voice would seem to cut out most options.

I would think that finding someone else to fund a tv news network but giving Trump major ownership in exchange for his name, is the best bet.

Like say, an ally who was recently pardoned that ran a propoganda network in service of trumps presidential run and administration and who has ties to deep pockets? 

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1 minute ago, Captainant said:

Like say, an ally who was recently pardoned that ran a propoganda network in service of trumps presidential run and administration and who has ties to deep pockets? 

Exactly. If only Trump knew someone...

im not claiming this network is going to happen especially on cable tv. But a website, video services and a tie in with a social media site is a possibility.

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7 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

He, indeed, has a cult but I don't believe that base is made up of players in high finance.  Most of his cult gets payday loans. 

Regardless of his debts, tax obligations, or otherwise, it'll definitely be interesting to see how the Trump Org will be able to make the branding switch (if they still plan to do so) from catering to the Robin Leach "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" crowd to those who wish they were.

I seem to recall that there were plans to brand a lower-end hotel chain targeted toward a different domestic demographic, but I don't remember how that played out. I think they're still betting on having an upscale shine in emerging international markets.

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2 hours ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Or do what every politician does. Release a ghost written book and collect the millions of dollars "speaking fees". 

Back Up In Your Ass With The Insurrection by Donald J Trump, foreword by Willie D. 

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1 hour ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Or do what every politician does. Release a ghost written book and collect the millions of dollars "speaking fees". 

He needs tens or hundreds of millions.   That’s why I think he wants to run again, even if he doesn’t think he can win.   

But there are laws on campaign contributions - hell, he raked in something like $150 million after last November, but he can’t just use that for personal gain.  First, his companies have to bill his campaign, and then it has to survive scrutiny from the feds. 

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Yeah, the kind of debt he has maturing...he can't cover with a book tour.  You can make "pay off your mistress" money doing that, not "pay off Deutsche Bank" kinda money.  His best three options are skim from a library fund, skim from a legal fund to "continue our challenge to the stolen election", and skim from "help us seed the new American Patriot Party PAC."  All three of those can bring in a healthy 9-figure sum, of which his family can take most.  I don't see any other angle.  

For those of you thinking nobody should give a shit about his business/financial future...have you looked around the United States lately?  This country has paid handsome sums to watch business documentaries about the business failures of dozens of industry titans.  I spent 6 hours watching "The Browser Wars" just to see behind the scenes at Netscape even though I'm about as interested in tech as I am the spinach wars.  Our nation is constantly intrigued by business successes/underdogs, and spectacular business failures.  Those of you saying this is a nothingberder...I promise you right now...there's something in your netflix queue or your amazon book wishlist about American Business Failure or Success.  And you're gonna tell me with a straight face that it's crazy people would follow the future business dealings of the Trump Family?  What the fuck are you smoking?  20 years later, I'm still following the Clinton Foundation in excruciating detail because of fraud/shakedowns.  We still discuss the fall of Blockbuster Video in my McCombs FIN class.  Yeah, we're probably gonna gloss over a former U.S. President going back into the hotel business and the taxes therein.  

You guys would fein shock if we followed Lance Armstrong opening up a Pharmacy or Bernie Madoff starting a financial literacy non-profit.  Dumb as we are, America loves a good case study in what not to do.  

DTposter, "Who gives a shit?  It's a non-story that only involves billions of dollars and a former U.S. President.  Don't matter none, waste of time!" 

Dtposterwife, "Honey, I DVR'd 'Billion Dollar Buyer' marathon!"  

DTposter, "Oh, I'll be right there...now there's a good use of my time to delve into business dealings that truly effect my real life!"  

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3 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

trump needs to find new income sources to offset the growing losses. Losing his public voice would seem to cut out most options.

I would think that finding someone else to fund a tv news network but giving Trump major ownership in exchange for his name, is the best bet.

 

The theories of how he replaces income have all been about continuing the campaign donation model.

  • Legal defense fund (carry over from the election investigations)
  • Political Action Committee trading endorsements (or not attacking) for contributions
  • New Party
  • Library fund
  • Media company - This one is interesting because it insulates him from the editorial rights of the private platforms he has been using.  Question is can he get critical mass and what is the monetization plan.  Advertisers outside of Trumpy Bear and myPillow might be hard to come by and a subscription model does not seem like something his followers would do.  Maybe the olds.
  • New book and appearances

Whatever he does he will incorporate another rallying cry.  His story arc has been birtherism, fake media, globalists, my freedoms (masks and guns) and election fraud.  What will his new rally cry be, an extension of election fraud?  I think it will be shorter lived than birtherism because it can be disproven easily (not that birtherism wasn't).  He will probably move back to globalism and immigration fears.

If I was guessing I would think the political endorsement/extortion game would be his best money maker.  Some could go to the library and some to the PAC so he can launder it through other holdings.

Edited by TexasEd
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4 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

trump needs to find new income sources to offset the growing losses. Losing his public voice would seem to cut out most options.

I would think that finding someone else to fund a tv news network but giving Trump major ownership in exchange for his name, is the best bet.

 

The Comedy Channel is already taken.

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1 hour ago, TexasEd said:

The theories of how he replaces income have all been about continuing the campaign donation model.

  • Legal defense fund (carry over from the election investigations)
  • Political Action Committee trading endorsements (or not attacking) for contributions
  • New Party
  • Library fund
  • Media company - This one is interesting because it insulates him from the editorial rights of the private platforms he has been using.  Question is can he get critical mass and what is the monetization plan.  Advertisers outside of Trumpy Bear and myPillow might be hard to come by and a subscription model does not seem like something his followers would do.  Maybe the olds.
  • New book and appearances

Whatever he does he will incorporate another rallying cry.  His story arc has been birtherism, fake media, globalists, my freedoms (masks and guns) and election fraud.  What will his new rally cry be, an extension of election fraud?  I think it will be shorter lived than birtherism because it can be disproven easily (not that birtherism wasn't).  He will probably move back to globalism and immigration fears.

If I was guessing I would think the political endorsement/extortion game would be his best money maker.  Some could go to the library and some to the PAC so he can launder it through other holdings.

A tax free foundation seems to be the best slush fund route available to crooked politicians.

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13 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

A tax free foundation seems to be the best slush fund route available to crooked politicians.

I think a lot of his NY state issues are tied to the Trump Foundation.  Florida might be more forgiving but the IRS will still be involved.

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Yeah, but a 501c3/501c4 falls under a fair amount of scrutiny.  Obviously you can still grift the shit out of it as is the case of the Trump Foundation & the Clinton Foundation (both have paid 7 figure penalties for misuse of funds).  But it's not an attractive risk-reward.  It's a high probability of getting caught for the ability to maybe only steal in the tens of millions as opposed to the nearly $1.0b needed to make the crime worthwhile.  

I think Library is the most obvious.  Everybody gets one, even 1-termers.  You have the physical construction which you can grift (old hat for some), you have the ongoing G&A and event programming, and there's no limit or oversight as to the gifts you can collect to "finish out" the facility.  Somebody just wants to give you $50mm for interactive kiosks and to endow a chair in Border Wall Studies...they can do that and both their gift and your use of it would go almost completely unchecked as you walk off with $40mm of it.  

Second most obvious is the Super PAC to seed and grow the new American Patriot Party.  The beauty of the PAC model is what many Americans don't realize...those groups collect money year-around and in-between cycles unlike candidate-specific PAC's that usually just ramp up in the months prior to an election (2022 or 2024).  The traditional PAC model is pay as you go, they're spending the money as fast as they can bring it in.  A handful of really powerful PAC's like American Crossroads or America Rising have the benefit of larger donor bases and can sit on cash between election cycles and sometimes even invest it in fixed income portfolios or money markets to make a little extra juice.  There's really no limit, except for the PAC's investment policy statement, as to what they can invest their funds in while not in active sources-and-uses mode.  Some pro-choice PAC could collect $100mm in 2021 and instead of spending it on pro-choice candidate races in 2022 for Congress, they could invest it all in a chain of pizza places where the customer makes their own pies.  And if they lost all that money, oh well---nothing really prohibited them for trying to grow your donation.  A cursory accredited investor/risk tolerance one-page worksheet that's barely FINRA/SEC approved is all that stands between a 9-figure PAC with your money and them blowing it all on hookers and blow.  

Likewise, a Patriot Party PAC could easily collect $1.0bn between now and the 2024 Presidential cycle.  And instead of straight-up stealing from it, Trump could use the bulk of the funds to serve as the equity piece or co-invest or collateral on debt facility to go out and do a few more real estate "projects."  His donors would hail this as a brilliant business move, him growing the PAC money using his business savvy.  In 2024, with much of his debt paid off using the PAC cash, he declares he is going to get out of the way and let another like-minded candidate run instead, they give that person $50mm or whatever is leftover in the PAC fund to that candidate, and the rest is retired and the PAC is dissolved before people can ask more questions.  The way PAC's have to handle their money is still in its infancy and a smart guy like Trump could really take some interesting advantage of that fact.  I've seen it done already by others, though never on a scale of what I think Trump could pull off.  

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5 hours ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Or do what every politician does. Release a ghost written book and collect the millions of dollars "speaking fees". 

Tens of millions won’t help him, and he won’t be willing to engage with his blue collar supporters at book signings, and who is going to pay him any serious amount to speak?  Maybe he can give the commencement speech at liberty a few times. 

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33 minutes ago, TexasEd said:

I think a lot of his NY state issues are tied to the Trump Foundation.  Florida might be more forgiving but the IRS will still be involved.

Any big NYC developer is going to have legal issues with corruption, especially their AG’s current target.

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42 minutes ago, TexasEd said:

I think a lot of his NY state issues are tied to the Trump Foundation.  Florida might be more forgiving but the IRS will still be involved.

Not sure that it factors in at all but Florida doesn’t have state income tax and ny does.  For any above board income he does pull in. 
and ny has some draconian interpretations of income that they get a piece of, since so many nyc workers live in other states and work from home or from a local workspace. 
I guess real estate is one industry where the difference in values makes up for the tax hit. 

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31 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Tens of millions won’t help him, and he won’t be willing to engage with his blue collar supporters at book signings, and who is going to pay him any serious amount to speak?  Maybe he can give the commencement speech at liberty a few times. 

You think politicians get paid because people want to hear them speak? Oh you sweet, summer child...

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40 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Tens of millions won’t help him, and he won’t be willing to engage with his blue collar supporters at book signings, and who is going to pay him any serious amount to speak?  Maybe he can give the commencement speech at liberty a few times. 

Hmmm which school invites him first - aggy or liberty? commencement is in a few months! 

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Something I'm curious about - I heard several pundits say the whole "election fraud" thing was a plan to pay off his debts, that he netted $100s of millions doing it, and that money all goes to him personally.  How exactly does that work?  So the money comes in to help him "stop the steal," but how is that his personal money to use to pay his personal debt?

Or is that just a good story?

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10 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Something I'm curious about - I heard several pundits say the whole "election fraud" thing was a plan to pay off his debts, that he netted $100s of millions doing it, and that money all goes to him personally.  How exactly does that work?  So the money comes in to help him "stop the steal," but how is that his personal money to use to pay his personal debt?

Or is that just a good story?

He has to launder that money.

but if it’s true that Jared created a slew of shell companies to take advantage of the PPP program, then I’m sure one or more of them could become a consulting firm or something and bring in donation money. 

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^

this does an okay job of explaining it, not great:  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-fundraising-insigh/donations-under-8k-to-trump-election-defense-instead-go-to-president-rnc-idUSKBN27R309

First the RNC keeps theirs.  Beyond that, it's not hard for the Trump family to keep most of what's left over.  The only illusion necessary to do so will be to continue to file the occasional claim here and there to maintain the illusion of election fraud allegations.  Again, this is just a stopgap move.  Going forward, the real business opportunities are the Library Fund and the Patriot Party PAC.  Those are the serious money-makers.  That, and movie rights.  

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1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Yeah, but a 501c3/501c4 falls under a fair amount of scrutiny.  Obviously you can still grift the shit out of it as is the case of the Trump Foundation & the Clinton Foundation (both have paid 7 figure penalties for misuse of funds).  But it's not an attractive risk-reward.  It's a high probability of getting caught for the ability to maybe only steal in the tens of millions as opposed to the nearly $1.0b needed to make the crime worthwhile.  

I think Library is the most obvious.  Everybody gets one, even 1-termers.  You have the physical construction which you can grift (old hat for some), you have the ongoing G&A and event programming, and there's no limit or oversight as to the gifts you can collect to "finish out" the facility.  Somebody just wants to give you $50mm for interactive kiosks and to endow a chair in Border Wall Studies...they can do that and both their gift and your use of it would go almost completely unchecked as you walk off with $40mm of it.  

Second most obvious is the Super PAC to seed and grow the new American Patriot Party.  The beauty of the PAC model is what many Americans don't realize...those groups collect money year-around and in-between cycles unlike candidate-specific PAC's that usually just ramp up in the months prior to an election (2022 or 2024).  The traditional PAC model is pay as you go, they're spending the money as fast as they can bring it in.  A handful of really powerful PAC's like American Crossroads or America Rising have the benefit of larger donor bases and can sit on cash between election cycles and sometimes even invest it in fixed income portfolios or money markets to make a little extra juice.  There's really no limit, except for the PAC's investment policy statement, as to what they can invest their funds in while not in active sources-and-uses mode.  Some pro-choice PAC could collect $100mm in 2021 and instead of spending it on pro-choice candidate races in 2022 for Congress, they could invest it all in a chain of pizza places where the customer makes their own pies.  And if they lost all that money, oh well---nothing really prohibited them for trying to grow your donation.  A cursory accredited investor/risk tolerance one-page worksheet that's barely FINRA/SEC approved is all that stands between a 9-figure PAC with your money and them blowing it all on hookers and blow.  

Likewise, a Patriot Party PAC could easily collect $1.0bn between now and the 2024 Presidential cycle.  And instead of straight-up stealing from it, Trump could use the bulk of the funds to serve as the equity piece or co-invest or collateral on debt facility to go out and do a few more real estate "projects."  His donors would hail this as a brilliant business move, him growing the PAC money using his business savvy.  In 2024, with much of his debt paid off using the PAC cash, he declares he is going to get out of the way and let another like-minded candidate run instead, they give that person $50mm or whatever is leftover in the PAC fund to that candidate, and the rest is retired and the PAC is dissolved before people can ask more questions.  The way PAC's have to handle their money is still in its infancy and a smart guy like Trump could really take some interesting advantage of that fact.  I've seen it done already by others, though never on a scale of what I think Trump could pull off.  

 

A lot of words to repeat my summary :P

 

3 hours ago, TexasEd said:

If I was guessing I would think the political endorsement/extortion game would be his best money maker.  Some could go to the library and some to the PAC so he can launder it through other holdings.

 

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5 minutes ago, TexasEd said:

 

A lot of words to repeat my summary :P

 

 

I like to exhaustively lay out the grift blueprint so when it happens, the non-believers can't just shout, "FAKE NEWS."  They have to stop and think, "Oh shit, that's exactly how they said it would unfold."  

Holy shit, what if I'm "Q" and I don't even know it?  What if Quato has been living inside of me as leader of the resistance just like in "Total Recall"?  

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25 minutes ago, Lobo said:

^

this does an okay job of explaining it, not great:  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-fundraising-insigh/donations-under-8k-to-trump-election-defense-instead-go-to-president-rnc-idUSKBN27R309

First the RNC keeps theirs.  Beyond that, it's not hard for the Trump family to keep most of what's left over.  The only illusion necessary to do so will be to continue to file the occasional claim here and there to maintain the illusion of election fraud allegations.  Again, this is just a stopgap move.  Going forward, the real business opportunities are the Library Fund and the Patriot Party PAC.  Those are the serious money-makers.  That, and movie rights.  

The underlined part is where I'm lost.  I get that the various players can pay themselves hefty salaries, pay their companies service fees, pay their living expenses, etc., but you're talking "hundreds of millions" as the pundits say.  That seems harder to launder, at least quickly. 

Especially now that everyone's looking.  The stuff I saw made it seem like a given that all that cash was just going in his pocket.

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1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Yeah, but a 501c3/501c4 falls under a fair amount of scrutiny.  Obviously you can still grift the shit out of it as is the case of the Trump Foundation & the Clinton Foundation (both have paid 7 figure penalties for misuse of funds).  But it's not an attractive risk-reward.  It's a high probability of getting caught for the ability to maybe only steal in the tens of millions as opposed to the nearly $1.0b needed to make the crime worthwhile.  

I think Library is the most obvious.  Everybody gets one, even 1-termers.  You have the physical construction which you can grift (old hat for some), you have the ongoing G&A and event programming, and there's no limit or oversight as to the gifts you can collect to "finish out" the facility.  Somebody just wants to give you $50mm for interactive kiosks and to endow a chair in Border Wall Studies...they can do that and both their gift and your use of it would go almost completely unchecked as you walk off with $40mm of it.  

Second most obvious is the Super PAC to seed and grow the new American Patriot Party.  The beauty of the PAC model is what many Americans don't realize...those groups collect money year-around and in-between cycles unlike candidate-specific PAC's that usually just ramp up in the months prior to an election (2022 or 2024).  The traditional PAC model is pay as you go, they're spending the money as fast as they can bring it in.  A handful of really powerful PAC's like American Crossroads or America Rising have the benefit of larger donor bases and can sit on cash between election cycles and sometimes even invest it in fixed income portfolios or money markets to make a little extra juice.  There's really no limit, except for the PAC's investment policy statement, as to what they can invest their funds in while not in active sources-and-uses mode.  Some pro-choice PAC could collect $100mm in 2021 and instead of spending it on pro-choice candidate races in 2022 for Congress, they could invest it all in a chain of pizza places where the customer makes their own pies.  And if they lost all that money, oh well---nothing really prohibited them for trying to grow your donation.  A cursory accredited investor/risk tolerance one-page worksheet that's barely FINRA/SEC approved is all that stands between a 9-figure PAC with your money and them blowing it all on hookers and blow.  

Likewise, a Patriot Party PAC could easily collect $1.0bn between now and the 2024 Presidential cycle.  And instead of straight-up stealing from it, Trump could use the bulk of the funds to serve as the equity piece or co-invest or collateral on debt facility to go out and do a few more real estate "projects."  His donors would hail this as a brilliant business move, him growing the PAC money using his business savvy.  In 2024, with much of his debt paid off using the PAC cash, he declares he is going to get out of the way and let another like-minded candidate run instead, they give that person $50mm or whatever is leftover in the PAC fund to that candidate, and the rest is retired and the PAC is dissolved before people can ask more questions.  The way PAC's have to handle their money is still in its infancy and a smart guy like Trump could really take some interesting advantage of that fact.  I've seen it done already by others, though never on a scale of what I think Trump could pull off.  

Yeah, I get all of this - and the first paragraph kinda sounds like my point.  Are those pundits just selling too?  Seems like it.

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The money doesn't, according to the disclaimer on the donor site, doesn't have to be paid directly to lawyers, consultants, travel, legal fees, court costs, filing fees, state mandated recount costs borne by a particular campaign.  It can be paid to the "stop the steal" SPE account.  From there, it can be stewarded to pay the above legit costs with oversight/G&A paid out to the account controller with virtually no limits.  As long as last dollar out goes to something legit, I can't see how the middle quarter billion can't be siphoned off as administrative costs to pay off the people "paying off" the above costs.  It's how many PPM's work.  

Think of it just another shitty version of a PAC.  We donate $500mm because they're gonna "accomplish" political outcomes we want.  In this case, continuing to challenge state election results we think were fraudulent.  We're okay with them taking 10%, $50mm to cover the expenses of researching/backing candidates, travel, ad buys, data research, office space, cost of more fundraisers, policy research, lobbying, etc.  It's a fixed cost of business in the PAC business.  Not every dollar actually goes straight to our political desires.  Same thing with this "Stop the Steal" SPE account.  Except of the usual 5-20% cost of doing business, the family is going to take closer to 80-90% of it.  And as long as some money goes out to their political efforts, it's mostly okay.  

Karl Rove didn't buy that house in Tarrytown and spend millions remodeling it because he was laser focused on 99% of American Crossroads PAC money going to its original intent.  The "Stop the Steal" donation pool is not quite a PAC, that's its feature, not its bug.  There's even less oversight.  If you feel Bob Smith was wrongfully jailed for a crime, you can "independently" raise $100,000 to cover his appeal costs.  You can pay $10,000 out in court costs and a few hours of a good lawyer.  And just keep the rest.  As long as you weren't flying a 501c3/c4 flag.  Now your donors can come after you for funds misuse, but you were smart---you buttered them up ahead of time with swan songs of everybody doing their patriotic duty.  

His only drawback will be how much scrutiny will be on the sources-and-uses of the SPE account.  His donors will fall for it though, so he's got a fighting chance at taking the vast majority of it.  Still, it's not enough.  He's going library or legit Patriot Party PAC.  

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7 minutes ago, Lobo said:

The money doesn't, according to the disclaimer on the donor site, doesn't have to be paid directly to lawyers, consultants, travel, legal fees, court costs, filing fees, state mandated recount costs borne by a particular campaign.  It can be paid to the "stop the steal" SPE account.  From there, it can be stewarded to pay the above legit costs with oversight/G&A paid out to the account controller with virtually no limits.  As long as last dollar out goes to something legit, I can't see how the middle quarter billion can't be siphoned off as administrative costs to pay off the people "paying off" the above costs.  It's how many PPM's work.  

leased office space in empty Trump properties is the main grift

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Some people have done extremely well being all over the "development" menu from ground-up, to value-add, to brownfield/in-fill, to ground-lease/demo across myriad sectors from SF, MF, Hospitality, retail, office, mixed-use, etc.  And from all parts of the stack from non-sub debt, mezz, straight equity, as the GP, the LP, co-invest/sidecar, getting hands and equity in the mud with a JV, etc.  Usually you want to see somebody specialize, but some folks are good 'n lucky no matter where they play in the space.  

This is not one of those people.  The only other person in U.S. history to bankrupt the same casino twice is living under federal witness protection.  

How do you lose money selling steak?  Applebee's sells $9 steaks and they still netted $30mm last year.  

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7 minutes ago, Lobo said:

This is not one of those people.  The only other person in U.S. history to bankrupt the same casino twice is living under federal witness protection.  

How do you lose money selling steak?  Applebee's sells $9 steaks and they still netted $30mm last year.  

Most logical answer is you are skimming cash from the business.

 

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-tax-law-firm-ends-work-for-ex-president-11611252382

 

Quote

The law firm that handled the tax affairs of Donald Trump and his company during his presidency said it would stop representing him and his business.

The firm, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, is currently wrangling with the New York attorney general’s office over documents related to its work for the former president’s business, the Trump Organization. Led by Democratic Attorney General Letitia James, the office is conducting a civil-fraud probe into Mr. Trump’s financial dealings.

“We have had a limited representation of the Trump Organization and Donald Trump in tax-related matters,” a Morgan Lewis spokeswoman said. “For those matters not already concluded, we are transitioning as appropriate to other counsel.”

 

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18 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

I’d give him a pass on the casino bankruptcy... there were strong factors that led to that failure (proliferation of Indian casinos in the NE, for one, recession for another)..

The fuck? He bankrupted his casinos repeatedly because he was a shitty businessman. He did exactly what he told regulators he wouldn't do: take on massive debt at high interest rates.

Quote

Mr. Trump told the commission in 1988 that he could rein in expenses, because conventional lenders were lining up to give him money at low interest rates. He said he abhorred junk bonds, which were then popular, because they carried a bigger risk of default and thus came with higher interest rates.

Within months, he reversed course, issuing $675 million worth of junk bonds, with a 14 percent interest rate, to finish construction and get the Taj open. In recent interviews, Mr. Trump has said that with each financing he routinely took money out of the casinos to invest in Manhattan real estate. Total debt on the Taj exceeded $820 million.

Less than two weeks before the casino opened, Marvin B. Roffman, a casino analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott, an investment firm based in Philadelphia, told The Wall Street Journal that the Taj would need to reap $1.3 million a day just to make its interest payments, a sum no casino had ever achieved.

“The market just isn’t there,” Mr. Roffman told The Journal.

Mr. Trump retaliated, demanding that Janney Montgomery Scott fire Mr. Roffman. It did.

“It was doomed way before the start,” said W. Bucky Howard, who was promoted by Mr. Trump to president of the Taj five days after it opened, in a recent interview. “I told him it was going to fail. The Taj was underfunded.”

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

So either their association with Trump is harming their business or they're worried Trump won't pay them. He seems to only want to pay for positive results regardless of the agreement. Of course their reason in firing Trump most likely is reputation damage and fear of unpaid invoices.

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36 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

I’d give him a pass on the casino bankruptcy... there were strong factors that led to that failure (proliferation of Indian casinos in the NE, for one, recession for another)..

According to this video Trump financed $600m for the Taj Mahal at 14%, which created a scenario that it was impossible for it to even break even. This is why it filed for bankruptcy in its first year.

 

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23 hours ago, Lobo said:

You still gotta file a PPM in most cases.  There's a stack of 'em somewhere.  He just managed to avoid anybody getting at 'em for a couple decades.  

Attorney General James is not terribly interested in preserving that tradition.  

But seriously, from the way he lures LP's without co-invest and shit carry terms...I'm dying to see how he put all this together.  Politics aside, and y'all can moan as much as you want...this is going to be studied for decades as a cautionary tale.  

So you know LP's who invested with a sponsor who 1) had a bankruptcy spotted track record, 2) had no skin in the game and 3) demanded > market promote terms?

Introduce me?

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3 minutes ago, 40acredropout said:

So you know LP's who invested with a sponsor who 1) had a bankruptcy spotted track record, 2) had no skin in the game and 3) demanded > market promote terms?

Introduce me?

Yeah, we gotta get a fund together.  I think we can still strip some GP economics here before the night is out. 

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5 hours ago, Liquor and Poker said:

The underlined part is where I'm lost.  I get that the various players can pay themselves hefty salaries, pay their companies service fees, pay their living expenses, etc., but you're talking "hundreds of millions" as the pundits say.  That seems harder to launder, at least quickly. 

Especially now that everyone's looking.  The stuff I saw made it seem like a given that all that cash was just going in his pocket.

5 hours ago, TexasEd said:

leased office space in empty Trump properties is the main grift

That's where my uneducated on the ways of all of these huge holdings self is at.

He has a lot of empty space in properties that he controls, that can be leased out, and not just office space, but space in the resorts.

Seems like one could bleed a cash-heavy PAC fairly steadily over a few years, using that method.

 

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2 hours ago, texas08 said:

popcorn.gif

Put the popcorn away and get out the notebook and start taking notes.

Surly needs to get in on this business.

We need to start a PAC dedicated to defeating fitlump in her next election, whether it be Austin City Council, or a state seat, and hosting tailgate parties, among other things, and we can host the tailgate parties as strategic sessions on defeating fitlump and electing one of our own.

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4 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

So either their association with Trump is harming their business or they're worried Trump won't pay them. He seems to only want to pay for positive results regardless of the agreement. Of course their reason in firing Trump most likely is reputation damage and fear of unpaid invoices.

The other thing that has become quite apparent is that Trump does not hesitate to involve his lawyers in criminal and quasi-criminal endeavors.

The cynical among us knew that to be true forever, but now it is clearly apparent to all sentient beings.

A lawyer or two in a white shoe firm may have been able to be complicit in the past, but now everyone in any given firm has a prick up their arse (pricked up ears) about doing business with or for Trump, apart from collection issues and appearances.

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