Turning The Ballot Box Against Republicans

The way he handles the media, I am enjoying. Do I think he would make a good president? I'm not so sure at this point. People worry about his loud mouth and his ability to get deals done on the international stage, but I would say his $9 billion worth says a lot about his ability to make deals.

He's playing to the white race, jackass.

It's funny how Trump is worth $9 billion. I am a billionaire too if I simply claim my name is valued at 1/3 of what Trump is valuing his name at.

http://nypost.com/2015/07/28/trump-is-worth-over-7b-less-than-he-claims-analysis/

Do you deny that the man knows how to make money in the deals he makes?

We generally consider big ego in a president a good thing. Did not work well for The Professor however, as his ego keeps him from playing nice with others. But having a big ego is not normally a sign that they are also a dick. However the are a nasty combo. Trump unlike Obama has been around long enough for us to have a good record of their personal traits, there is no way that Trump has Obama's unfortunate flaw, he is roundly considered a pussy cat.

Its nice his father was rich, isn't it?

Trump and about a billion other people on the earth make money on deals. Trump is just one of the lucky ones born to a rich daddy. How many people do you know have a net worth equal to $1 million in today's dollars when they graduate from college? If I had, I would likely be a billionaire today. So would you.

There is a difference between ego and lying about your net worth in a Presidential race.

I've seen estimates of the net fortune bequeathed to Donald Trump by his father of over 8 billion dollars (calculated in current dollar value). Quite a head start for the financial genius.

So if he was given 8 billion and now is only worth 2 billion all he's done is piss 6 billion up against the wall.

Yeah, exactly. And crow a lot about it, and go bankrupt several times. And become the hero of millions of white, minimum-wage or government-assistance receiving 'American Dreamers'.

Damn it Bob. Leave the Donald alone. I want him to run. The tea party is only 20% of the population. Leave him be!!!

Especially one who has gone broke twice or more times.

Donald trump has never declared bankruptcy, corporations that he controlled or had a hand in declared bankruptcy. Let us attempt to use language that represents reality if you dont mind.

I want him to run, too. The more one learns about him, the less there i to like about him.

Quit pulling this stuff out of your butt.


Donald Trump's Companies Filed for Bankruptcy 4 Times
April 21, 2011
By AMY BINGHAM
VIDEO: 2004 "Primetime Live" investigation takes a look at the moguls finances.
Donald Trump's Bankruptcy History
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Donald Trump -- or companies that bear his name - have declared bankruptcy four times.

Trump has built an American empire from Las Vegas to New York with towering hotels and sparkling casinos. Forbes estimates he's worth $2.7 billion. But not all of Trump's business ventures have been constant money-makers. In 1991, 1992, 2004, and again in 2009, Trump branded companies or properties have sought Chapter 11 protection.

"I've used the laws of this country to pare debt. ... We'll have the company. We'll throw it into a chapter. We'll negotiate with the banks. We'll make a fantastic deal. You know, it's like on 'The Apprentice.' It's not personal. It's just business," Trump told ABC's George Stephanopoulos last Thursday.

A business declaring bankruptcy is nothing new in corporate America, where bankruptcy is often sugar-coated as "restructuring debt." But it might seem alarming to everyday Americans who can't get a bank to restructure their home loans. If you want to get Donald Trump hot under the collar, accuse him of declaring bankruptcy.

Doug Heller, the executive director of Consumer Watchdog, said Trump is the "most egregious, almost comical example" of the disparity between what the average American faces when going through bankruptcy and the "ease with which the very rich can move in and out of bankruptcy."

"Under the American bankruptcy laws, if you end up in bankruptcy because you're struggling with divorce or medical payments or a sudden change of income, it's a disaster. If you fail miserably with huge dollars involved then you just need some accountants to rework your books," Heller said.

The multi-billionaire touts his huge net worth and big business experience as qualifications for his possible presidential run. Trump recently bragged that he has "a much bigger net worth" than Mitt Romney, who he said is "basically a small business guy."

"I'm a much bigger businessman. … I mean, my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney's," Trump said.

The big business man has wrangled with big debt in the past 20 years. Trump's first visit to bankruptcy court was in 1991, when his Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, was buried under a mountain of debt. The Taj carried a $1 billion price tag and was financed by junk bonds carrying a staggering 14 percent interest rate. As construction completed, the economy slumped, as did the Atlantic City gambling scene, soon plunging Trump into $3.4 billion of debt.

'Keep the Donald Afloat'

"[The banks] could have simply taken everything he had right then, but they wanted his cooperation," said Lynn LoPucki, a bankruptcy expert and professor at UCLA Law School. "There's that old saying, 'If you owe your banks a little, you're at their mercy. If you owe the banks a lot, the banks are at your mercy. They saw the best way for him to repay the money was to keep the Donald afloat."

The Donald struck a deal with the banks to hand over half his ownership, and half of the equity, in the casino in exchange for a lower interest rate and more time to pay off his debt. He sold off his beloved Trump Princess yacht and the Trump Shuttle airplane to make his payments, and his creditors put him on a budget, putting a cap on his personal spending.

"The first one was a really big hit for him. They had him personally, and he ended up taking substantial losses in that bankruptcy. He also had the humiliation of having some bankers deciding how much money he could spend -- the numbers are just astonishing -- the amount of his monthly budget," LoPucki said.

John Pottow, a bankruptcy expert and law professor at the University of Michigan, said banks would often agree to lose millions in reorganizations like Trump's to prevent the massive losses they would incur if they foreclosed on the property.

"Banks will take considerable haircuts," Pottow said. "It's sort of like you have a sick patient so you cut off a couple toes to stop the gangrene. Now he's missing a few toes, but he's still alive."

Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts

Just one year after the Taj Mahal deal was struck. Trump was back in court, again "restructuring" his debt. This time the Trump Plaza Hotel in Atlantic City was in the lenders' crosshairs. Trump owed $550 million on the hotel and agreed to give up 49 percent of the hotel to Citibank and five other lenders. In return, Donald Trump was given a similar deal as before, with more lenient conditions to repay the debt. The Donald stayed on as chief executive, but his salary was taken away.

"Here's a guy who's failed so miserably so many times and it's not as though he had to claw his way back after seven years in credit hell. He just said. 'OK, this isn't my problem anymore.' For him, it's just been a platform to the next money-making scheme," said Dough Heller, the executive director of Consumer Watchdog.

In 2004 Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts Inc. filed for voluntary bankruptcy after accumulating $1.8 billion in debt. The Donald agreed to reduce his share in the company from 47 percent to 25 percent, meaning he no longer had control over the company. The deal also included lower interest rates and a $500 million loan to make improvements.

"In 2004 is where he lost control of his name. One rule when you have a name like Trump is you never let anyone own it and control it. He got into such a bad spot here that he ended up with others owning and controlling his name. They can do what they want once they own it," LoPucki said.

Shortly after the proceedings, Trump told CNN's Geri Willis that his personal fortune would not be affected. "This is a very small portion of my net worth. It's less than 2 percent," he said.

When the economy turned downward in 2008, so too did Trump's real estate holdings. Trump Entertainment and his affiliated companies had $2.06 billion in assets and was $1.74 billion in debt. In December 2008 his company missed a $53.1 million bond interest payment, propelling Trump Entertainment Resorts into bankruptcy court and plunging its stock price from $4 per share to a mere 23 cents.

This time, Trump fought with his board of directors over the restructuring and ended up resigning as chairman of the board. He emerged from a messy, months-long process with a 10 percent share of the company.

LoPucki said it was very unusual for anyone to have that many large businesses go through bankruptcy. Most of the debt Trump incurred was through bonds that were sold to the public.

"People knew who Donald Trump was and for that reason were willing to trust the bonds, and they got burned," LoPucki said. "The people who invested with him or based on his name lost money, but he himself came out pretty well."

ABC News' Kristina Bergess and Nick Gass contributed to this report.

Fourth Time's A Charm: How Donald Trump Made Bankruptcy Work For Him

Clare O'Connor ,

Forbes Staff


Here at FORBES, we’ve been tracking Donald Trump‘s wealth since the inaugural Forbes 400 rich list in 1982. Today, we value him at $2.7 billion, although he claims he’s worth far more. One question we’re often asked when talk turns to Trump’s fortune: how can a man who has been bankrupt so many times remain a multi-billionaire? How is he worth more now, post-bankruptcies? We spoke to bankruptcy lawyers and casino industry experts — some of whom have had firsthand involvement in Chapter 11 cases connected to Trump — in an attempt to explain how he has survived corporate bankruptcies and thrived in the aftermath.

1. It’s nothing personal…

First things first: Donald Trump has filed for corporate bankruptcy four times, in 1991, 1992, 2004 and 2009. All of these bankruptcies were connected to over-leveraged casino and hotel properties in Atlantic City, all of which are now operated under the banner of Trump Entertainment Resorts. He has never filed for personal bankruptcy — an important distinction when considering his ability to emerge relatively unscathed, at least financially.

“Corporations, limited partnerships, and LLCs in which he had an ownership interest or companies that had his name attached have filed for bankruptcy,” said Michael Viscount of Atlantic City law firm Fox Rothschild LLP, who represented unsecured creditors when Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, as it was then called, filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2004. “Therein lies the big distinction.”

(See: Trump Exaggerating His Net Worth (By 100%) In Presidential Bid)

He did take a personal hit the first time around: he’d financed the construction of the Trump Taj Mahal with junk bonds and was unable to pay the high interest. His business was in the red, and so was he, to the tune of about $900 million in personal debt. By the mid-90s, he’d reduced most of that debt, selling his Trump Princess yacht, his Trump Shuttle airline, and his stake in a handful of other businesses. More importantly, he stopped guaranteeing debt with his own wealth. “The first bankruptcy was the only time his personal fortune was at stake,” said Ted Connolly, a Boston bankruptcy lawyer who used Trump as model for getting out of debt in his book The Road Out Of Debt: Bankruptcy and Other Solutions to Your Financial Problems. “He learned from it. He’s insulated.”
Recommended by Forbes

2. …it’s just business.

Trump has never apologized for using Chapter 11 as a business tool — indeed, when he spoke to my FORBES colleague Keren Blankfeld recently, he noted that many “great entrepreneurs” have used bankruptcy to restructure debt, free up capital and improve their businesses.

“I’ve cut debt — by the way, this isn’t me personally, it’s a company,” Trump said. “Basically I’ve used the laws of the country to my advantage and to other people’s advantage just as Leon Black has, Carl Icahn, Henry Kravis has, just as many, many others on top of the business world have.”

But to those uninitiated in bankruptcy laws, four instances of corporate bankruptcy in a row can seem staggering. “To the ordinary person in the street, it may seem surprising, but certainly not to me,” said Reed Smith partner Michael Venditto, who has represented clients in high profile Chapter 11 cases, including bankrupt airline TWA. “Chapter 11 is how you reshape and restructure a company that has problems. It doesn’t indicate anything nefarious or even bad management.”

3. It’s better than the alternative.

More important, said Venditto, are the repercussions Chapter 11 might have for creditors versus, say, liquidation. “You can have a visceral reaction to the fact that this company has gone through Chapter 11 multiple times, but the bondholders look at it and the alternatives are much, much worse. What is an empty casino sitting on the Atlantic City boardwalk worth? If it’s operating and it’s got cash flow and income, it may not be able to pay back every cent on the dollar, but the creditors are better off in the long run.”

4. He’s leveraged his persona.

Trump’s name and image have undoubtedly helped him survive each bankruptcy and come out on top. He’s able to demand a high percentage of reorganization equity based on the value his brand brings to a casino or hotel operation. So says Edward Weisfelner, a partner at New York firm Brown Rudnick who was involved in two of the three casino bankruptcies, first representing bondholders, then as counsel to Carl Icahn’s firm Icahn Partners, who tried to buy most of the debt in Trump Entertainment Resorts. “The leverage he had was that his name was on the side of his casinos,” said Weisfelner. “The cost of throwing him out, rebranding and changing his name everywhere would be very high. ”

Added Joseph Weinert, senior vice president at Atlantic City casino consultancy Spectrum Gaming Group, who has produced research for Trump: “
The stakeholders decided they were better off with Trump’s name than they were without it.”

5. He has less and less interest in the bankrupt companies.

With each bankruptcy proceeding, Donald Trump’s stake in the casinos and hotels in Atlantic city that bear his name has decreased. In the first Trump Taj Mahal bankruptcy, he handed over 50% equity to bondholders in return for favorable interest rates. In 2004′s Chapter 11 filing, his stake was reduced to 25%. During wranglings with bondholders immediately before the 2009 bankruptcy, Trump resigned from the board of Trump Entertainment Resorts; his equity stake is now 5%, with another 5% in warrants.

6. He’s not the one to blame.

Atlantic City lawyer Viscount doesn’t believe Donald Trump himself should be held accountable for any of his company’s bankruptcies — his creditors, he said, knew what they were getting themselves into when they lent Trump money over and over again. “They’re all big boys and girls,” he said. “They’ve all played this game before, in the insolvency space. The company that possessed his name filed bankruptcy because it was overleveraged. What does that tell you? People want to lend him money. He does grandiose things with it.”

Icahn lawyer Weisfelner doesn’t place blame for these corporate bankruptcies with creditors, and questions whether Trump’s companies have used Chapter 11 the way its creators intended.

“There’s such a thing as good faith,” he said. “The purpose of bankruptcy laws is to protect companies, their customers and employees, to give them a second chance and to treat claim holders fairly. If bankruptcy is used instead to artificially elevate your equity interests above legitimate creditor claims and avoid obligations then you could argue that’s not what the laws were designed to do.”

Viscount doesn’t think Trump has misused the system at all. “Chapter 11, in my view, is the ultimate business transaction forum,” he said. “It’s the place you go to keep a business alive and well. He’s done nothing inappropriate.”

I am not sure who is worse, Roseanne Barr who ran against President Obama or Donald Chump who thinks Hillary Clinton is an easy target.

Time to wake up Rex, your spam is now known to be spam. You got beat by smarter people. SORRY!

I would give it all away...

I myself only require a meager lifestyle, I am perfectly happy driving a rice burner (don't currently own a car, I walk everywhere) and occasionally eating at the soup kitchen.