In 1989 Trump was a billionaire. In late 1991, he had less than $1.7 million available.

[pnwmom]

In 1989, Forbes listed him as a billionaire. In 1990, Forbes estimated he was worth $500 million.

And by the end of 1991, according to the NYTimes, he had less than $1.7 million in cash available to him.

His poor decisions and reckless risk-taking had caused him to suffer an extreme loss. So what were the brilliant deals that got him out of his mess?

Well, for one thing, his siblings lent him millions from their shares of the family trust.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/nyregion/donald-trump-taxes-debt.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

By the end of 1991, the amount of cash that Mr. Trump had personally available to him had fallen below $1.7 million and was expected to fall below $800,000 within months — a small cushion given his monthly expenditures.

SNIP

He promised to make up for a cash shortfall with the sale of condominium units in Trump Tower in Manhattan. When that did not generate enough money, he filled the hole in his balance sheet with the “unforecasted receipt of funds from certain family-owned properties in New York City” — apparently referring to fees from properties his father, Fred C. Trump, had built outside Manhattan.

At the end of 1990, when Mr. Trump was facing an $18.4 million interest payment, his father sent a lawyer to the Castle casino to buy $3.3 million in chips and leave without cashing them, providing his son with an infusion of cash.

By 1993, Mr. Trump was still in dire straits. He dispatched a company executive to ask his siblings if he could borrow $10 million from their respective shares of the family trust. Mr. Trump received the loan, according to people who were involved and spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering him, and went back for another $20 million the following year. Mr. Trump has denied borrowing from his siblings.



http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/04/weve-been-trying-figure-out-how-much-trump-worth-20-years/349875/

July 1989: Trump's net worth estimated to be $1.5 billion--and increase of $500 million in 10 months. He makes Forbes' World Billionaires list for the first time.

June 1990: Under the headline "As A Laughingstock, Donald Trump Is Paying Big Dividends," The Philadelphia Inquirer writes that Trump had had a very bad year marked by marital and financial fiasco, including the sting of ex-wife "Ivana's charge that her estranged hubby is not a billionaire but worth a mere $400 million to $600 million."

July 1990: Trump was dropped from dropped from Forbes' list of the world's billionaires after the value of his real estate business plummeted. Forbes estimated he was worth about $500 million that year. Others guessed less.

January 2000: Trump claims he's worth $5 billion. But even his closest associates don't entirely back that up. The Wall Street Journal explained that "several of his billions are based on profits that are far in the future--and far from guaranteed." Abraham Wallach, executive vice president of Trump Organization, hedged by saying, "Donald exaggerates sometimes. He's talking about futures." The newspaper noted that Forbes had listed Trump's fortune at closer to $1.6 billion, but New York real estate professionals asserted his fortune "falls far short" of even the lower figure.

[Wilms]

1. 1990 was a recession, not an "upturn".

Not that I have anything positive to say about Trump or the people who have worshiped at his altar since the Reagan era.

[pnwmom]

2. The mild, 8 month recession ended in March 1991 and improved after that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States

[Wilms]

3. Exactly! But slowly.

And it played no small part in GHWB's defeat in 1992.

Although the National Bureau of Economic Research has concluded that the early 1990s recession lasted just eight months, conditions improved slowly thereafter, with unemployment reaching almost 8% as late as June 1992. The sluggish recovery was a key factor in George H.W. Bush's defeat for re-election to the U.S. presidency in November 1992.

http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/projects/debt/1990srecession.html

I guess the authors were aware of the "boom" in the 1990's and figured that 90-92 was included.

[pnwmom]

4. And the GDP was down 1.2%. No other billionaires then were losing almost everything they had.

Low income people have little to no savings and losing a job is devastating. But there's no excuse for Trump's mismanagement of his fortune.

[Wilms]

6. There's no excuse for Trump except for the way he's been worshiped...

...regardless of the current talking point that I could care less about.

No one's decision is changing. It's GOTV or Trump.

[dawg]

5. He claims that his "name" is worth billions of dollars all by itself.

That bogus claim makes up a huge portion of his supposed net worth.

I think the reality show made up the bulk of his earnings the last decade or so. I think he did it because he needed the money. Once that petered out, he needed to do something else. And this is it.

I'm sure the guy is richer than me. The show was enough to guarantee that. But an economic genius he is not. (More of a con-man, actually.)

[Hortensis]

7. Author of "Making of D. Trump" believes NEVER was billionaire

based on more info that has come out over the years. All hot hair and mirrors.

[nolabels]

8. The New York real estate professionals probably have a good handle on it.

Their job requires them to find equity and or real income before doing any business with a client. They are like barn owls, they find the correct place to sit and wait for prey to appear, then they pounce. They realized (probably without much effort) that there is no there there, he is just an empty suit.