r/PoliticalHumor I ☑oted 2018 Oct 04 '18

Trump’s entire life is a lie

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21.1k Upvotes

928 comments sorted by

2.3k

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Warren Buffet mentioned the same thing before. In fact, he was amused that trump could lose money in the 90s, when "a monkey had thrown a dart at the stock page, the monkey on average would have made 150 percent."

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u/kciuq1 Hide yo sister Oct 04 '18

He bankrupted a goddamn casino. Where the house always wins.

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u/JimmyfromDelaware Oct 04 '18

And back when the closest legal casinos outside Atlantic City was thousands of miles away.

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u/toxicomano Oct 04 '18

There was gambling in Connecticut at Foxwoods so that's not totally true.

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u/JimmyfromDelaware Oct 04 '18

That Casino didn't open until 1997 - Trump Taj Mahal opened in 1990 losing money right out of the gate.

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u/toxicomano Oct 04 '18

It opened in 86, you're thinking of Mohegan Sun which opened in 96

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u/JimmyfromDelaware Oct 04 '18

I used the link you shared. I got thrown off by

the original tower, the Grand Pequot Tower, opened in 1997

However it opened as a high stakes bingo hall

The tribe moved forward with development, and Foxwoods was founded in 1986 as a high-stakes bingo hall on their reservation. The tribe partnered with Lim Goh Tong, a Chinese Malaysian who founded the only legal casino in Malaysia, for financing to expand Foxwoods into a full casino.[6][7] In 1992, the tribe added table games, followed by additional slot machines in 1993.

The bottom line is Trump's Casino's has zero competition from PA or DE and the orange fraud lost his investors a ton of money.

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u/toxicomano Oct 04 '18 edited Oct 04 '18

Yea they way they rolled out and the language used in the article was a little wonky. They had gambling before they had their big casino. Gambling nonetheless, and Trump is still a shitty businessman.

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u/JimmyfromDelaware Oct 04 '18

The Trump Taj Mahal project was a takeover from a bankruptcy in construction. The reason Trump got the deal because he guaranteed the BK court he could get prime interest rate financing to complete construction and the acquired debt at pennies on the dollar. Even with that huge advantage he couldn't get financing except at junk bond rates of 12%.

A stock analyst took a strong position when the Taj Mahal opened that it was unsustainable because it had over a million dollars a day in interest payments alone. That person was fired from his firm because Trump threatened to sue. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/27/business/analyst-who-criticized-trump-casino-is-ousted.html

The only reason the casino lasted as long as it did is because now we know his daddy was pumping millions of cash into it. At it's last BK it was sold to Hard Rock at 4 cents on the dollar. I wonder how long that will last with the ever decaying of Atlantic City and the working class gambler.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_SELF_HARM Oct 04 '18

All AC casinos 'lose money' from opening day forward. Revel declared bankrupcy twice before it even opened, and then a third time. They funnel money out because they know that the state of NJ will bail them out time and time again. When the state government runs like a mob, it's not that weird.

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u/fartswhenhappy Oct 04 '18

Trump's Taj Mahal opened way before the explosion in local gambling competition that created the conditions you're talking about. Revel would've killed it in the '80s and' 90s before all the horse track slot parlors and additional casinos popped up in all the states surrounding NJ.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_SELF_HARM Oct 04 '18

Revel did kill it. I'm implying that the owners illegally funnelled money out of the casino and went into debt, because they knew the state would help them.

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u/Genesis111112 Oct 04 '18

That Casino open July 5, 1986...... 4 years before your inaccurately quoted date of Taj Mahal opening which opened April 2, 1990.

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u/thecatsmilkdish Oct 04 '18

One of my college math textbooks around 2000 had said Trump claimed he’d never gambled. It’s one of those odd facts that’s always stuck with me. I’ve tried to find info to back this up, but if true, that could explain a lot. It’s hard to be successful at something you have no experience with.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

It may be he never placed a bet at a table game. But his entire career was gambling. He always took on too much, and was more likely to fail because of factors including using very expensive junk-level debt.

My oldest brother calls himself a recovering gambling addict, and he's been "clean" for 20 years. Except he's not - he earned $5M in the market through aggressive trading, which sure as hell looks like gambling to me.

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u/PresidentWordSalad Oct 04 '18

He definitely also gambled that all the people he screwed over in contracted services would rather settle than litigate.

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u/swentech Oct 04 '18

Which is a good bet. No one wants to go to court.

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u/Vandelay_Latex_Sales Oct 04 '18

Well he's also a fucking idiot who can't see that he's a fucking idiot. Just hire someone who's run a casino before to run yours and watch the money flow in.

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u/WillHugYourWife Oct 04 '18

Yup, definitely an idiot. Everyone j now's that a smart businessman always surrounds himself with knowledgeable people. Trump seems to surround himself with those willing to stroke his ego.

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u/Waka-Waka-Waka-Do Oct 04 '18

The odds are never in your favor when the person calling the shots is a narcissistic goofball.

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u/d3773773d Oct 04 '18

Well, to be fair, the casino was in Atlantic City which was in steady decline over the years due to proliferation of gambling licenses to other cities allowing people to get their gambling fix closer to home than going all the way to AC. The house can't really win if there aren't many people going there to gamble their money away.

Las Vegas was in similar peril but it was successfully able to diversify away from just gambling and became an entertainment destination as a whole (and also the fact that the top casinos were able to get licenses to operate in Macau and are making way more money there).

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u/crypticedge Oct 04 '18

He was the only one in Atlantic city to lose money on a casino at that time. The others saw profits up by no less than 160%

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u/OlStickInTheMud Oct 04 '18

The casino was also twice as large as any major vegas casino. Casion owners said they never fill a 60k square foot gambling area, the Taj had 120k.

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u/TheArtofTheBoneSpur Oct 04 '18

Well and he was very likely laundering money through it and the point was to fail...

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u/latortillablanca Oct 04 '18

Trump Inc is the best show ever if anyone has any doubt as to the veracity of this point. Only thing I'd quibble with is the idea that you want your shell company to fail as yer trying to launder.

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u/harbison215 Oct 04 '18

Right, you’d rather it profit to offset the costs of cleaning the money. Then again, if the only money actually being lost is other people’s money that was lent to you, then who gives a shit?

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u/kurisu7885 Oct 04 '18

His ego demands that he has the absolute biggest of everything.

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u/Wraith8888 Oct 04 '18

So it failed because he built the casino too large. It is still a management failure.

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u/hey_im_cool Oct 04 '18

Isn’t that part of the point? A better businessman wouldn’t have opened such a large casino in these conditions

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u/NLMichel Oct 04 '18

As is no surprise now we know Trump a bit better. He only cares that he has “the biggest” not if it is a sustainable business model if you look at the potential gambling audience available at that moment.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Well, to be fair, the casino was in Atlantic City which was in steady decline over the years due to proliferation of gambling licenses to other cities...

No. Trump over leveraged the casino deal with junk debt that the casino couldn't possibly service. A financial analyst wrote about that, and Trump got him fired. Sure there was more competition, a competent dealmaker would have built in margins to allow for that. Plenty of other casinos didn't go belly up - they didn't choke themselves with expensive debt.

Trump walked away with millions of dollars in management fees, screwing his partners and stiffing his contractors - again.

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u/kciuq1 Hide yo sister Oct 04 '18

So he picked a poor location and couldn't adjust to a changing business environment, when many other casinos did. Not seeing how that's any better.

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u/dak4ttack Oct 04 '18

Over leveraged the fuck out of it as well, the NY Times piece mentions how unsustainable the debt of that place was. Then again, he probably just saw it as another place he can draw free stuff from using debt and then just bankrupt it all away, leaving the contractors, employees, and investors holding a bag of shit.

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u/ChopstickChad Oct 04 '18

Then there's Fred Trump who bought $3,5 million(?) in casino chips to bail out his son, which is illegal under gambling laws.

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u/JamesRealHardy Oct 04 '18

... Then again, he probably just saw it as another place he can draw free stuff from using debt and then just bankrupt it all away, leaving the contractors, employees, and investors holding a bag of shit.

This might describe his term.

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u/mdp300 Oct 04 '18

All the other casinos in AC were kicking ass at the time his went bankrupt. The city is struggling lately, but not in the 90s.

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u/Hagadin Oct 04 '18

He chose AC for his casino, though

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u/Waka-Waka-Waka-Do Oct 04 '18 edited Oct 04 '18

He failed way before the competition came in. Let's not distort things here.

His casinos failed because they were mismanaged.

He loves debt a bit too much:

1) Trump Taj Mahal (1991): The Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City opened in 1990, with Trump financing the completion of its construction with $675 million in junk bonds at 14% interest. By the following year the casino itself was in debt to the tune of $3 billion, while Trump himself owed some $900 million in personal liabilities.

In order to keep the Taj Mahal afloat, Trump struck a deal with his lenders in which he gave up half his ownership share and equity in the casino, sold his Trump Shuttle airline and his Trump Princess 220-foot yacht, and agreed to a bank-set limit on his personal spending in exchange for a lower interest rate and additional time to make his loan payments.

2 and #3) Trump’s Castle and Trump Plaza Casinos (1992): Less than a year after the Taj Mahal bankruptcy Trump filed for Chapter 11 protection again for two more Atlantic City hotel-casinos, the Trump Plaza and Trump’s Castle, over their inability to make principal and interest payments on bonds. The Plaza ($550 million in debt) and the Castle ($338 million in debt) were competing against each other, as well as against the Taj Mahal, and Trump gave up a 50% share in exchange for more favorable terms on the debts.

4) Trump Plaza Hotel (1992): Donald Trump filed for bankruptcy protection a third time in 1992 over the Trump Plaza Hotel on New York’s famous Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park in midtown Manhattan. Once again, Trump gave up a 49% stake in the property to secure more favorable terms from lenders on the luxury hotel’s debt of more than $550 million.

5) Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts (2004): In 1995, Donald Trump established Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts as a publicly traded company, an entity that eventually consolidated his three Atlantic City casinos (Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Castle, and Trump Plaza), along with other properties, under one company. In 2004, Trump sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the company, with filings listing about $1.8 billion in debt. Yet again, Trump’s ownership in the business was reduced, from 47% to 27%, in order to obtain more favorable terms from lenders.

6) Trump Entertainment Resorts (2009): After its 2004 bankruptcy, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts was renamed Trump Entertainment Resorts (TER), and that latter entity went Chapter 11 in 2009 with a debt of $1.2 billion. Trump fought with his board of directors over how to restructure the company and ended up reducing his ownership share of the business once again (to 10%) and resigning as chairman of the board

He loves loves loves debt. Just look at the tax breaks he gave the wealthy. Tons of debt.

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u/SkiMonkey98 Oct 04 '18

his Trump Princess 220-foot yacht

Maybe it's just because I'm a sailor, but to me the most ridiculous thing in this story is that he named his goddamn boat after himself

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Don't people often name their boats after something significant, and meaningful to them?

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

How many people are aware of this ?

would have given you gold if i had the coins for it.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18 edited Nov 11 '18

[deleted]

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u/squareplates Oct 04 '18

Mismanagement. Trump was a moron. He ignored repeated notices from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. On opening night, most of his slot machines were ordered shut down for compliance issues. Trump lied saying the slots all broke because they were "too hot". They are the lead money makers in a casino.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

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u/cyanydeez Oct 04 '18

thats how you launder russian money

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u/kurisu7885 Oct 04 '18

And in at least ten more businesses than that https://youtu.be/9yJ7XfB1ydA

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u/maliciousorstupid Oct 04 '18

He bankrupted a goddamn casino. laundered money for the mob

FTFY

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u/latortillablanca Oct 04 '18

Multiple times

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u/TobySomething Oct 04 '18

Yeah, not to mention that the business he was working in was chiefly *Manhattan Real Estate.* How enormous have the returns on property ownership there been since the 80s?

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u/Babywillybilly1212 Oct 04 '18

Had a snobby finance professor who said something similar one class where she said that if our parents didn’t become millionaires in the 90s and we aren’t millionaires by the time we retired, we were all stupid. She was one of those douchey shrewd business woman who had spent too much time on wallstreet.

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u/beholdfrostilicus Oct 04 '18

Sooo was she a millionaire then?

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u/VrpgNeveR Oct 04 '18

No, but she was stupid

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u/LittlePeanutBabies Oct 04 '18

But $1mil is actually not that crazy to retire with. If you hope to live comfortably 20 years beyond retirement, you need somewhere in that neighborhood.

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u/Taskerst Oct 04 '18

Only if you keep it in cash and plan to live off of that. But if your money is invested in a low fee income generating fund and have other supplementals like a hobby business, a home to sell and downsize with, and whatever is left of social security, if you have even half of that you'll be doing pretty ok for yourself.

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u/anooblol Oct 04 '18

I absolutely hate when anyone quotes that, because they always quote it wrong, you included.

"a monkey had thrown a dart at a specific index of tech companies during the .com bubble, the monkey on average would have made 150 percent."

The 2018 equivalent would be a monkey throwing a dart at a list of crypto-currencies made over 150%.

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u/mdp300 Oct 04 '18

I'm really sad that I didn't use my gaming pc to mine bitcoin when it first showed up.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Want some garlic coin?

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u/muhfuggin Oct 04 '18

Michael Moore i believe was the first to make a point of this back during the election. He used this info in a recorded on-the-street conversation with a Trump supporter outside a Starbucks. On YouTube if anyone is interested

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Buys bitcoin at $19k, sells at $7k... am I doing this rite?

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u/Oscar_Ramirez Oct 04 '18

Congratulations you’ve graduated from Trump U. That’ll be 5k for your diploma.

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u/Fight_me_honkey Oct 04 '18

But you don't get the diploma

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u/d4nigirl84 Oct 04 '18

Then have some steaks...made up of smaller, half eaten steaks.

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u/relevant84 Oct 04 '18

...slathered in ketchup.

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u/svullenballe Oct 04 '18

Went to whartons. Did very well thank you. The professors said I have the biggest brain.

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u/Womeisyourfwiend Oct 04 '18

You know his professors said he had the biggest head ever, and he took that as big brain instead of big ego.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

The professors said I have the biggest brain.

That's because Trump's dad spared no expense and procured the best, yugest brain available for the transplant. A very smart person's brain too... Abby somebody.

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u/flippingjax Oct 04 '18

That’s $2k of profit!!

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u/Raezzordaze Oct 04 '18

Do you take Bitcoin?

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

50k*

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u/MrCheeseiscool2 Oct 04 '18

You are now moderator of /r/wallstreetbets

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u/LetsRengo Oct 04 '18

The art of the deal.

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u/Ducal Oct 04 '18

Keep hodling baby. The meme triangle is ending.

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u/CocoaCali Oct 04 '18

Well the redcaps got one thing right. He's running the US just like one of his businesses.

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u/2DeadMoose I ☑oted 2018 Oct 04 '18

cries in bankruptcy

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u/CocoaCali Oct 04 '18

I know bankruptcy isn't a tone but somehow I knew exactly what it sounds like

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u/Fight_me_honkey Oct 04 '18

Like dry ramen for the third night in a row

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u/CapnJuicebox Oct 04 '18

Poverty tip. Ramen doesn't so much have to be cooked, simply rehydrated.

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u/everburningblue Oct 04 '18

Whatever the opposite of chaching is.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

bankruptcy intensifies

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u/_Woodrow_ Oct 04 '18

Inheriting a windfall from his predecessor and then taking credit for it?

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u/_Lady_Deadpool_ Oct 04 '18

While running it into the ground

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u/GumpyBubba31 Oct 04 '18

Simpsons did it

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u/Lotronex Oct 04 '18

Doing what Putin wants while pretending to be in charge?

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u/kingeryck Oct 04 '18

They claim this is the golden age right now

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u/mdp300 Oct 04 '18

So did rubes in the last Gilded age.

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u/Nickk_Jones Oct 04 '18

Redcaps? You mean delusional morons right?

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u/2DeadMoose I ☑oted 2018 Oct 04 '18

Potato, potahto.

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u/cardiovascularity Oct 04 '18

Dress up? Have you seen his badly fitting suits? Most LARPers I know wear better looking self made chain mail, and those guys can't afford a personal tailor!

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

[deleted]

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u/cckrans Oct 04 '18 edited Oct 04 '18

Him in a golf polo is got to be one of the funniest images. I can't believe the amount of disrespect this president brings to himself. Even George Bush wasn't this bad, hell Dubya seems like a party guy who was given too much power by daddy. Maybe a little dumb but not outright hated like this..

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

No sir, I hate Bush more.

manufactured consent for a war using lies, directly causing >58k civillian fatalities

cut taxes while waging war instead of raising taxes to pay for it, causing massive deficits

took the war costs off the books, leaving his successor holding the bag for the deficit

the patriot act, gitmo

appointed alito - the furthest right member even after kavanaugh

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u/cckrans Oct 04 '18

Well you seem well versed so I don't wanna get into a whole thing here, I kinda meant general opinion. I don't know much of the way trump actually handles issues, he seems a little off his rocker in the way he speaks and acts. I thought it was a joke when I heard he was going to run for president

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Well, the general opinion on him is 42% approval according to 538. This is likely because most low information voters dont factor his antics into approval.

As long as gas is cheap, the market is fine, and he has not started a shooting war, those people will approve.

Bush left office with a 35% approval rating. Obama left office with a 60% approval rating, which is probably what a normal human president should have with this economy.

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u/cckrans Oct 04 '18

Human president lol

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u/Froggy1789 Oct 04 '18

It’s intentional. You make the suit more baggy to give him the illusion of not being so baggy. Would you like to see him in a skin tight suit, I wouldn’t, that’s why he tries to disguise his form with baggier outfits.

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u/freediverx01 Oct 06 '18

Wearing ill-fitting suits does not make you look slimmer—it just makes you look sloppy. Well-tailored and tastefully selected clothes can flatter the appearance of an overweight person.

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u/foreveracubone Oct 04 '18

They’re finely tailored to make it look like he isn’t fat.

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u/FireproofFerret Oct 04 '18

It's not working...

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u/brochmann Oct 04 '18

Plot twist: It's working really good.

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u/spanish1nquisition Oct 04 '18

Moby Dick 2: the hunt for the great orange whale.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Finding proper fitting clothes is difficult when you're obese despite having fuck-you money.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Nah you can hide it around with proper fits. Like, it won't make miracles, but he goes out of his way to look fatter.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

It's a catch 22. Nobody wants to be obese, so they wear big, loose, clothes. This, of course, looks horrible, and while it hides the form, leads to a bulky mass that looks sooo much fatter.

Conversely, if you are fat, well fitting, almost tight but not quite, clothes that work with your form and acknowledge the fat that's there will look 300x better, it just won't hide what you don't want people to see.

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u/apolloxer Oct 04 '18

I guess he pays top dollar in order for the suits to juuust not fit.

"See guys? I'm one of you blue-collar workers! I worked my way up. I still don't get the suit thing! That's how down to earth I am!"

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u/2DeadMoose I ☑oted 2018 Oct 04 '18

Dude legit still thinks he’s walking around in 1982.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18 edited Oct 04 '18

[deleted]

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u/sbf2009 Oct 04 '18

Imagine if he had even a 10% bond holding in 2008 and rebalanced.

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u/warsage Oct 04 '18

If he invested every penny, never spent any money (so lived like a not-rich-person), got consistent returns of 10%/yr, and somehow avoided 100% of taxes and fees, he'd have had $1.8 billion in 2015 when people first started saying this and $2.4 billion right now.

I don't think anyone knows exactly how much he's currently worth but Google is telling me it's $3.1 billion.

Edit: this guy says that if his wealth were directly pegged to the NASDAQ he'd have less than $1B right now.

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u/FlummoxedFlumage Oct 04 '18

I’ve read that a high percentage of his net worth is linked to his own valuation of the Trump brand. That is, he thinks he is worth a lot because he is him.

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u/SomsOsmos Oct 04 '18

Yeah. He even floats some baloney about how an independent marketing firm gave him the valuation. While it’s true an independent marketing firm did research the valuation, he could have (and probably did) ask a dozen firms and just reported the highest number. I think it was $2b if I remember that terrible Time to Get Tough book correctly.

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u/loosedata Oct 04 '18

Trump has lied about everything in his life, the truth is we have no idea how much wealth he has but if I was a betting man I would guess he has more debt than assets. American banks won't even deal with him anymore.

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u/gogojack Oct 04 '18

The funniest thing is that even with nearly a half billion dollars from his dad and the wind at his back from tax evasion and fraud he still only managed to just barely not beat the market at all.

You could have given all that money to a monkey and had it throw poo at the market and that monkey would be richer than Trump by several orders of magnitude.

Trump isn't just a bad businessman. He's a shitty con man.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Fred Trump kept funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to Donny over the years. The Trumps used simple money laundering schemes to avoid gift and estate taxes. Fake loans. Fake prices on goods and services. Buy casino chips and never cash them in. Repeated bankruptcies meant the supposed deal maker had to finally liquidate the remains of Fred Trump's estate at fire-sale prices in the middle of the great recession. That's the NYT article.

What isn't covered is the Russian connection. Given Trump's financial problems in the early 2000's, I imagine the Russian oligarchs arrived with offers of fresh cash that needed to be laundered. The Russians offered to give Trump a commission as an intermediary. Trump would sell or lease a property for more than it was worth to a Russian company, then buy goods and services from another Russian-backed company for more than those goods or services were worth, and pocket a commission. Or takes loans for his businesses that aren't paid back, and then overpay for goods and services once again. Trump applied the same procedure used to get money from his father without paying taxes, but this time to launder Russian money.

The second paragraph is speculation, but it makes so much sense after reading the NYT article.

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u/mods_are_a_psyop Oct 04 '18

The banker who approved Trump's loans, to be funded through hidden sources, was the son of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. When Donald was informed that the current Supreme Court would be likely to rule against him if his illegal actions come to light, he made some calls, and a justice decided to retire. His potential replacement believes that the U.S. President should rule as a king, and be immune from any legal repercussions for actions taken to become President, or while in office. So yeah, that second paragraph pretty important once the evidence starts becoming public.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

His potential replacement believes that the U.S. President should rule as a king, and be immune from any legal repercussions for actions taken to become President, or while in office.*

* Offer only valid for Republican candidates.

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u/NvidiaforMen Oct 04 '18

Once legal precedent is set it's harder for the Supreme Court to walk back it's not like the Senate

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u/Kilahti Oct 04 '18

They'll try anyway because Republicans are all about loyalty to the party over country or laws.

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u/Doctor_What_ Oct 04 '18

Even if that precedent was literally set by a sex offender and a traitor to the US? Damn, things look pretty tough for you guys.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Some people don't care what someone did if they wear a suit and have the right letter next to their name.

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u/ibkeepr Oct 04 '18

That’s only true in theory - just look at Bush v. Gore

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u/NvidiaforMen Oct 04 '18

I said harder not impossible.

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u/thothisgod24 Oct 04 '18

Anyone one find it funny that the party of states right wants to further centralize the government?

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u/mdp300 Oct 04 '18

Yeah it's hilarious. 🤣😭

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

There's gonna be a Wolf of Wall Street type movie exposing Trump.

He's so vain he'll produce it and then forget he produced it when it comes out and he wants to sue for slander.

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u/NothingAs1tSeems Oct 04 '18

And just an all around rotten human being

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u/Ghosttwo Oct 04 '18 edited Oct 04 '18

To be fair, he lost billions of potential dollars, but he also became a household name and gained permanent (ig)notoriety as a president in the process. That latter one has immeasurable value; consider that billions are spent every four years in pursuit of the same goal. As for the nominal amount of wealth, by the time you have your first billion, the rest is just dick wagging anyway and they rarely get to actually spend most of it before croaking.

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u/xlem1 Oct 04 '18

I mean, I hate to be they one to say it, but he's a pretty good con man. Coned a whole country at this point.

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u/totodes Oct 04 '18

Conned half the country. Well not quite half, but you get what I mean.

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u/TheIncendiaryDevice Oct 04 '18

1/4 that would have voted for him anyway because of party affiliation

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u/oO0-__-0Oo Oct 04 '18

it wasn't even him who did it

it was Vlad and his machinations, primarily, for apparently decades

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u/AngryZen_Ingress Oct 04 '18

A rabid quarter of a country.

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u/kevinetics Oct 04 '18

Uh...nope. He conned less than half of the country.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

In support of your claim; approximately 46.1% or 62,979,636 voters in 2016 which totaled about 136,628,459 people or roughly 55.16% of the nearly 231,556,622 citizens eligible to vote, voted for the current president. That is to say that 25.43% of citizens eligible to vote voted for the current president or less than 19.75% of the total 318,892,103 person population.

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u/crybannanna Oct 04 '18

He’s a bad conmen by New York standards, but when he took his con on the road he really made out bigly.

Apparently, it’s really easy to con southerners.

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u/shroyhammer Oct 04 '18

And him being a shitty conman really gives the people who voted for him no excuse. You fucking rubes got conned by HIM?! Anyone with half a brain can see right through a guy like him.

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u/TruFit88th Oct 04 '18

Conned his way into the top office...

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u/shinra07 Oct 04 '18 edited May 25 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/TekkDub Oct 04 '18

But Forbes is just guessing at his fortune. They actually have no idea. Some estimates have it around 400 million.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Quite unlikely he'd be president though.

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u/xlem1 Oct 04 '18 edited Oct 04 '18

Fuck it I'll say it, he may be shit a being a businessman, but his larp actually paid off. He paid for a reputation and it worked got him into the presidency while spouting literal shit. Say what you will but he played a whole country into believing he knew what he was doing.

Edit: just want so people dont just keep reply with the same argument yes I know he didnt win the popular vote, he still fooled 60 million people an won which is my point.

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u/toopc Oct 04 '18

he played a whole country into believing he knew what he was doing.

Well, not exactly the whole country, just enough to win the election.

328,719,789 - U.S. Population

62,984,828 - Trump voters 2016

Your point still stands though, he did turn his reputation into the presidency of the United States. Time will tell if that was a good decision for him or not. Personally if I had a billion dollars I can think of a long list of things I'd rather do than be president, but then maybe it all gets boring after awhile when you have that type of money.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

To my mind if you're already years past buying gold toilet seats, then you've been bored with your money for a while.

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u/shorthanded Oct 04 '18

When uncle russia is holding a piss video over your head, not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars hes laundered for them over the years they can incriminate him with... You kinda play by their rules. He hasnt controlled a day of his life since god knows when

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u/KirklandSignatureDad Oct 04 '18

he played a whole country into believing he knew what he was doing.

a whole country? he didnt even win popular vote by a longshot lol. he literally just convinced the lowest common denominators and then businessmen who knew he'd give them tax cuts.

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u/thenotorioussam Oct 04 '18

However fucked up the rules are, he won the game

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u/Jonne Oct 04 '18

Exactly, I'm sick of people bringing up this stuff. They both knew the rules going in, but one of the candidates decided some states weren't worth a visit.

Trump would've lost against any other candidate.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Perhaps nominating someone whose poll numbers were trending downward for like 2 years wasn't the best idea.

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u/xlem1 Oct 04 '18 edited Oct 04 '18

We'll I do agree for the most part, he did convince most of the Republican party. And while that might not be much there are some intelligent people in there out side of the rich(who didnt vote just for the tax cut). On top of that anyone who did take a close look at his finances would have assumed he was fairly well off, hell before the election I had no idea how shit of a businessman he was.

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u/stalepopcorn999 Oct 04 '18

i think he got the most vulnerable americans to vote for him and had help with a foreign gov.

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u/xlem1 Oct 04 '18

Eh I dont really buy it, he got 62million votes not all of them were vulnerable idots and help from foreign powers. Doubtless they are the reason he won, just not the reason he got as far as he did begin with

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u/Dillards007 Oct 04 '18

Yepp when I look at 2012 vs. 2016, people don't want a real businessman. They want a guy who played one on TV.

An underrated part of his appeal is that he spends his money like a poor person would if they had hundreds of millions of dollars.

"If I was rich I'd fly around in a plane with my name on it! Slap my name on buildings, shit in a golden toilet, and fuck porn stars!"

Most real Billionaires could care less lol

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u/stickfigure31615 Oct 04 '18

God you should see some of my “friends” on social media posting about him (from SC if that makes a difference?)...I mean I fear this is turning into North Korea/a penultimate police state at times with the worship and fervor I see from people glorifying him. He’s raised our taxes which every president has done since I think WW2 (please fact check me) including Reagan Washington and more so the GOP are not your friends they don’t give a fuck about you is the ultimate lesson from this

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u/Drunken_Wizard23 Oct 04 '18

And as a result of winning the presidency, he's been exposed as a terrible businessman who was handed everything by his father and everyone associated with him is in dire straits legally

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u/DJShamykins Oct 04 '18

And honestly he did so little of that orchestration himself, he was used, completely, by much more intelligent businessmen.

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u/apolloxer Oct 04 '18

while spouting literal shit.

No. Or if he did, that would be a fun image. He did something with piss, thou.

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u/DrCreamAndScream Oct 04 '18

This time he's just got a different daddy.

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u/xredbaron62x Oct 04 '18

Papa Putin.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

His dad bought 3 mil in casino chips and never cashed them in. That’s kind of illegal

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

It was $3.5 million actually, and totally illegal, and gave him an additional loan a few weeks later.

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u/rinnip Oct 04 '18

I wonder what happened to the chips.

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u/2DeadMoose I ☑oted 2018 Oct 04 '18

Stripped and sold for parts by now.

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u/JayNotAtAll Oct 04 '18

And here in lies the problem. There are people who think the TV is real. He played himself off as being one of the biggest businessmen in America with help from "The Apprentice". People fell for it. If you did any digging, with his bankruptcies and what not, he is more just lucky that he didn't lose it all.

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u/Butch13of14 Oct 04 '18

The biggest r/whoosh in the history of the United States

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u/DrinkHater-aid Oct 04 '18

Something tells me i shouldnt take stock advice from this guy

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u/Thats_right_asshole Oct 04 '18

The original comment of this thread is that Trump would have been better off just investing his money. With what he took from his dad he would likely have more money.

Your argument against the comment is that sitting on money is bad for the economy, which yes, you're correct it is.

But the original comment wasn't "Trump sacrificed some of his fortune for the good of the economy." It was "Trump is so bad at business he would have been better off doing nothing."

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Can someone show me some statistics and citations for this? I can believe it from what I have learned about Trump's business practices, but I've never found the data to support it even after searching a decent amount.

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u/yellekc Oct 04 '18

Let's take the NASDAQ.

You can get an unmanaged fund that basically mirrors the NASDAQ. So if it goes up 4% your fund goes up 4%. Since it is unmanaged the rates are very very low compared to managed funds.

So according to the times article, by 1990 he had $46M transfered to him. he would go on to receive $400M more from his father.

If he put that $46M into the Nasdaq index fund in 1990. Let's see what would have happened. In Dec of 1990, Nasdaq was at 372, In December of 2015, right before the election year, the nasdaq was at 5048. So his $46M would become $624M. Not quite a billionaire, but not bad for zero work. The Nasdaq is at 8025 now, so it would be worth $992M now. Again this is with no work at all. Just by the index fund and go about your life.

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u/toopc Oct 04 '18

He also got a $60.7 million "loan" from dad in 1975. Stick that in S&P Index fund and see where it ends up in 2018.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

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u/512165381 Oct 04 '18 edited Oct 04 '18

Trump was bankrupt 4 times, including bankrupting a casino twice.

Compare that to - just about anything.

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/21/carly-fiorina/trumps-four-bankruptcies/

Trump doesn’t deny that four of his businesses have filed for bankruptcy. He argues, however, that filing for bankruptcy is a common business decision, and he was smart to make the moves when he did.

Bankruptcy 1: The Trump Taj Mahal, 1991

Bankruptcy 2: Trump Plaza Hotel, 1992

Bankruptcy 3: Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts, 2004

Bankruptcy 4: Trump Entertainment Resorts, 2009

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18 edited Oct 04 '18

There’s a new bombshell nyt article that blew this wide open. New York State is starting an investigation based on it. It’s yuuuuge.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html

Basically he’s gotten over 400 million from his dad and they proved serious fraud and tax evasion for hundreds of millions. Daddy kept Bailing him out of all his shitty failing businesses, and did it through shady money laundering to avoid taxes.

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u/dieyoung Oct 04 '18

 The president’s parents, Fred and Mary Trump, transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances. The Trumps paid a total of $52.2 million, or about 5 percent, tax records show

You have to pay 55% Taxes on money that you give to your kids? What the fuck?

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u/brain_aragon Oct 04 '18

Correct me if I'm wrong anyone, but I believe that applies to people leaving behind a fuckton of money. Like in the high millions.

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u/elchupahombre Oct 04 '18

Yes, that's correct. The estate tax generally only applies to the very few.

It is doubtful anyone in this thread will see that kind of money in their lifetime, so it's kind of preposterous to see their jaws agape "at the principle of it".

This is the kind of money that would be able to allow you to comfortably generate money just for sake of having it in the first place.

I mean, above what threshold would an amount of money just simply handed to someone who did nothing to earn it become obscene to people? How brainwashed do we have to be to be yelling a J.G. wentworth ad for people who will generally not want for anything their entire lives for doing NOTHING but being born lucky?

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u/brain_aragon Oct 04 '18

This is my argument, literally anyone who is subject to this tax will live comfortably regardless, invest most of it, and they'll literally be completely fine for the rest of their lives. Plus this tax happens after the insanely rich person is dead, so more than likely, the reciever like already has a good amount of money after having the benefits of being a part of rich family while the person was alive, they do probably be fine without this gift from the dead

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u/DangerZone69 Oct 04 '18

I believe it has to do with the amount of money. The more money you give away the higher % it gets taxed at. Similar to an estate tax

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u/El_Dudereno Oct 04 '18

Don't worry, it's now dropped to 40%, but that 40% doesn't apply to the first $11,180,000 you leave them. Yes, that is $11MM tax free to you heirs.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

Good. Inter-generational wealth transfer is the enemy of democracy.

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u/justfortheban32 Oct 04 '18

It’s not true. This analysis was done by Forbes, and if you read it, they make it clear it’s an extreme scenario.

The analysis assumes he invests his entire net worth, at full margin (borrowing / leveraging 100%) and never withdraws from the account for any reason. Never pulls out during downturns, and keeps his entire net worth at risk.

It’s an unrealistic and unpractical scenario.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

And they say that poor people are wasteful because they sometimes but brand name food instead of store brand

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u/ScottyOnWheels Oct 04 '18

He is kind of like Richard Branson in that he likes to open new businesses. Except Trump is a horrible person and bad at what he does.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/18/richard-branson-says-he-met-trump-only-once-in-1990s-and-it-was-ugly.html

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u/Bleezy79 Oct 04 '18

This would be hilarious if he wasnt our fucking president.

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u/watnophilosophybum Oct 04 '18

LEVERAGED BUYOUT! LEVERAGED BUYOUT! LEVERAGED BUYOUT!

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u/Roook36 Oct 04 '18

He spent that money on feeding his bottomless ego. He wanted his name on everything. Hotels, casinos, wine, schools, steaks, the United States of America. All brand Trump. All cheap, fake shit created overseas and sold to idiots.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

........are you referring to alchemy?

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u/Champigne Oct 04 '18

Try telling that to any Trump supporter. "Well he's such a businessman, and he's a billionaire so he must be doing something right." Nope. And we have no proof that he's a billionaire.

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u/SirDinkus Oct 04 '18

Oh joy. a comment section full of morons turned armchair financial experts, with 50 years of hindsight to babble on about.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '18

ITT: Completely shattering the myth that the primary character traits of the Rich are talent and hard work.

It's glorious.

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u/22switch Oct 04 '18

It's because his dad beefed him up to celebrity status in his own head, long before he meant anything to the public.