Donald Trump on his favorite subject, himself:
"I've come out almost always as the victor, and I have to say that. Because, you know, I don't want to be braggadocious, but that's the kind of a person, whether it's me or somebody else," the country needs as president, he said.
This is the very same Donald Trump who has filed corporate bankruptcy four times. 1991. 1992. 2004. 2009. I suppose he wants to run the government like he runs his mirage of a real-estate empire: right into bankruptcy court.
The Wall Street Journal is asking questions. Here is how Trump responded:
Q: Should someone who filed for bankruptcy multiple times be running national finances at a time when we have a big debt problem?
T: I've never filed for bankruptcy.
Donald, Donald, Donald. Ever heard of teh Google? What Trump is saying is that he's never filed personal bankruptcy. Which is technically true. The thing is, The Trump Organization and its holdings are all privately owned concerns in small measure owned by Donald Trump and his family. His company is him. He is his company. Saying it isn't personal is deceptive. No shock there.
More:
T (cont.): Look, if you look at bankruptcies, I've used the laws of this country to, on a very few relatively speaking, number of deals to chapter a certain company in order to negotiate debt...I never filed for bankruptcy. But if you go in and look at Carl Ichan and Henry Kravis you'll see they do the same thing.
I'm sure some enterprising blogger will be able to locate bankruptcy court documents that Donald Trump has signed. I'm looking forward to seeing him respond. What I found most interesting, however, is that Trump cites Carl Ichan and Henry Kravis as the sort of businessmen he models himself after. These are men who didn't build anything, didn't create anything, and haven't created jobs. Their financiers who made money off other peoples money.
Trump's idea of good business is to be a banker, but he's proven he isn't very good at it. You see, Donald Trump isn't really anything substantial in real estate. Trump went broke a long time ago. 1990 to be precise. His last time of actually being a serious developer was in the 1980s. His holdings in real estate are actually rather limited. What Trump sells is all he's really got left: the Trump name. What Donald Trump does these days, his "dealmaking" if you will, is basically slap his name on top of the work of real developers do. Essentially, he's a franchise salesman. You put the capital. You build the property. You own the property, but you pay Trump to use the Trump name:
By the time the real estate collapse was under way in 2007, Trump had lent his name to at least 20 U.S. projects and several more overseas. Since then, many of the projects have been delayed, scrapped, or have ended up back in the hands of the bank.
The latest project that could well be headed back to the lender: Trump Towers Atlanta, whose first phase included a $260 million 48-story building. Today, the project was foreclosed upon, a victim of a convergence of factors, including the real estate crash, the lending shutdown, and widespread job cuts.
And:
Trump certainly isn’t immune to financial problems. Trump Entertainment Resorts filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year. Last week, Trump found himself in a New Jersey courthouse trying to convince a judge to let him keep control of the three Atlantic City hotel-casinos that bear his name.
“I don’t like the B word,” Trump said from the stand.
That's right. Donald Trump on the witness stand in Bankruptcy Court discussing bankruptcies he never filed.
Donald Trump's real business is as a television personality and brand manager. He can't really hustle in real property development because he sucks at it. Projects he's seriously touched on his own have consistently fallen into bankruptcy court.
Of course, Republicans probably don't care about all this. After all, elected George W. Bush president and he was even more pathetic at business than Trump.