With Trump, it’s all about the money
U.S. President Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr., once told his father — who was in the process of divorcing his first wife, Ivana — “How can you say you love us? You don’t love us! You don’t even love yourself! You just love your money!”
Young Donald was right about his father’s love of money, but a little misguided about whose money it was. Donald loves other people’s money.
How often does one hear from Trump’s supporters, media types, and Trump himself about how great and successful he is as an entrepreneur? Well, of all the myths about the man, that is probably the biggest one. How can that be, you may ask? He owns property everywhere; his name is boldly emblazoned on buildings, airplanes, golf courses, cycling races, steaks and numerous other products.
Well, as well as being a fearless risk-taker (some close business associates often said he had a death wish regarding financial disaster), the man is probably the greatest mythmaker in modern times. Using mountains of borrowed money from banks, issuing junk bonds, and his ever present backup source of funds, his father, he was able to maintain a Ponzi-like scheme of massive debt to acquire the above. Friendly, and less than honest politicians gave him tax breaks and sweetheart arrangements to allow him to beat others to the punch and to thrive. Three major banks and financial institutions lent him billions of dollars with very little real collateral as backup.
How and why they did this is revealed in several books; probably the best being “Lost Tycoon” by Harry Hurt III.
It eventually all came crashing down, as most of these schemes inevitably do, and he declared bankruptcy and victory — all at the same time! At one point during the drawnout battle to avoid insolvency, his father bought $3 million worth of chips at one of his Atlantic City casinos, so that interest payments could be met in that month. This turned out to be a questionable move.
Finally, everyone in this part of the financial world wakes up and realizes what a con The Donald has been and how utterly naïve and gullible they have been in buying into his shtick. (By the way, many small investors and contractors got ruined by this process — something Donald chooses to ignore as he brags about his smarts in playing the money game.)
This saga, I believe, led to the Russian connection. Donald Jr. said in September 2008 at a real estate conference in New York: “In terms of high-end product influx into the U.S., Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in Soho and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
Eric Trump, in an undated interview, said: “most of our buyers are foreign, among which there are very many Russians.”
This explains to a great degree Trump’s love of all things Russian. It’s always all about the money; and it may eventually bring him down.
Charlie Menchions
Sandy Cove