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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBotany
(70,589 posts)1st his daddy's money
2nd with being very leveraged with multiple loans or money from other countries of mobsters (Steele Dossier
... the pee pee tapes ... which said the Trump was way underwater with loans from Russia, China, & Saudi
Arabia
3rd short term cash from money laundering and scams such as Trump U.
His businesses just about all lost money. Trump the billionaire was just one more con.
Claustrum
(4,846 posts)But some of those bankruptcies are how he grifted money from other investors to enrich himself.
Most famous one is the casino business. He overpaid a lot for those casinos to the point that it just wasn't profitable (due to the loans). But he presented himself as this money man and he will make you as rich as him if you invest into those casinos. Then he paid himself handsomely while the casinos slowly go bankrupt until the investment money run dry.
His businesses aren't real business that are trying to make profits. It is just businesses where he can grift until bankruptcy, then he moves onto his next con. But who knew he can take his con all the way to the White House.
Botany
(70,589 posts).... if they pushed his to pay up he would just file a bankruptcy so the contractors were out not only
the money they paid their employees but all the money they had paid for materials to do the job too.
I was just speaking to a union electrician last week and he told me of all the electricians he knew
personally that had lost everything by working for TFG.
I remember reading about one of TFG's hotels in I think that it was in NYC couldn't even make enough
to pay the note on the property even if the hotel was 100% booked up at full rates because of TFG's
mismanagement.
Russia helped to pay for "The Apprentice" so TFG could be marketed as some kind of genius to a % of
Americans who were just mouth breathing idiots.
ProfessorGAC
(65,203 posts)Some think it's money laundering. That I doubt.
He's basically running a ponzi scheme & some of the suckers have been big banks.
Blue Owl
(50,509 posts)Yonnie3
(17,491 posts)I'm sure I forgot something.
Polly Hennessey
(6,807 posts)Suspect the only real cash he ever had was inherited from his dad. Grifters live off the wealth of others. He is a showman. Tell them what they want to hear and they will give. He sees us as suckers.
ProfessorGAC
(65,203 posts)I've written about this extensively here. I have some semi-public sources of info and I'm convinced my numbers are good.
His net worth is a maximum 33% higher than it was when he took over daddy's company.
This doesn't include the $54 million in no repayment loans from daddy 1971-1978.
Hence the net worth has actually gone down and 133% of start is a likely gross overestimate.
Adding to all that, we still do not know how much he owes Russia.
I think it possible that his NW is lower than mine.
jcgoldie
(11,647 posts)Under Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan, he won't see his taxes go up a single penny!
dv421
(170 posts)why people think he is a success. He is no more than a thief who has gotten away with it for years.
It takes a special kind of stupid to bankrupt a casino.
SWBTATTReg
(22,171 posts)(1) why did it take the accounting firm so long to drop trump? Think of the damages that by failing to disclose the fake tax returns, fake tax filings, fake financial statements incurred by Banks, Insurance Firms, and other entities that lent money to rump and associated enterprises, for at least 10 years!;
(2) I suspect that a huge round of lawsuits will be starting, among all of the financial institutions, the accountants who certified the returns in the past, those entities and/or other companies that relied on the certified returns and individuals. Even more importantly (and already in progress) are the fake numbers (higher or lower valuations depending upon the entity requesting that particular information) filed by rump to lower his property taxes and/or increase his income to obtain more loan proceeds based upon the fake numbers.
A lot of people impacted. A lot of very angry people. And it'll raise more questions as to where did trump get his money?
PortTack
(32,796 posts)Grifter donations
keithbvadu2
(36,933 posts)Trump has fundraised over a hundred million$ since leaving office.
conservative suckers are ripe for the picking.
Glenn Beck pushed buying gold but the gullible senior conservatives got upsold to overpriced gold coins.
Pillow guy knows his audience.
ProfessorGAC
(65,203 posts)These suckers are just providing cash flow to hold off default.
Chainfire
(17,644 posts)You just have to be ruthless, heartless, and shameless.
GoCubsGo
(32,094 posts)Nobody with the kind of money he claims to have would be hosting a TV game show. That's the biggest tell of all, without even hearing the stories from the people who have worked with and around him for the past 40 years.
"Billionaire," my fat ass.
FakeNoose
(32,777 posts)Time and again, from press interviews in the 1980s to the launch of his 2016 campaign, Trump has trotted out evermore outsized claims of his wealth, frequently brandishing papers prepared by members of his accounting team, who have sometimes been called on to appear in person when they were presented, offering a sort of mute testimony in support of the findings. The accountants written disclaimers that the calculations rely on Trumps own numbers, rendering them essentially meaningless are rarely mentioned.
Trumps accountants have been crucial enablers in his remarkable rise. And like their marquee client, they have a surprisingly colorful and tangled story of their own. Its dramatically at odds with the image Trump has presented of his accountants as one of the most highly respected big firms, solemnly confirming his numbers after months of careful scrutiny. For starters, its only technically true to say Trumps accounting work is handled by a large firm.
In fact, Trump entrusts his taxes and planning to a tiny, secretive team of CPAs who have operated at various times from humble quarters in Queens and two Long Island office parks. That team, which has had two leaders with back-to-back multidecade terms, has been working for the Trumps since Fred Trump began using the firm back in the 1950s. It was eventually subsumed into Mazars USA, the American arm of a large international firm, through a series of mergers over decades.
- snip -
That pattern dates to the 30 years during which the Trump accounting team was led by Jack Mitnick, whose pugnaciousness was exceeded only by his aversion to his clients paying the IRS. He was the architect of the notorious schemes, revealed by The New York Times, to dodge more than $500 million in gift and inheritance taxes and funnel hundreds of millions from Fred Trump to his children, helping keep Donald Trump afloat through four of his business bankruptcies. Mitnick was known as an accounting star at least until 1996, when his partners threw him out of the firm amid accusations of fraud and malpractice.
- more at link -
Lock them all up! If this isn't collusion, I don't know what is.
Silent3
(15,279 posts)Go a billion or two into debt, live like a king. Even if you technically go bankrupt in time, you'll probably have a shitload of money safely stashed away, or connections with people who keep you afloat in grand style.
Hold an honest job, even have a small positive net worth after mortgage and car payments, just scrape by.