Trump accountants

If Mar-a-Lago is ever up on the auction block, I'd like to buy it - and burn it to the ground. Y'all are welcome to chip in and come to the bonfire.

 

Well, if Mr Trump DID inflate the value of his properties, the bank failed to do its due diligence. No bank should loan tens of millions of dollars to anyone without inspecting the security and examining the books.

 

Indeed. All four sets of books. The set for IRS, the set for investors, the set for lenders and the real set.

They shouldn't, of course, but bankers do funny things - when they know the borrower personally or are in cahoots with him / her. I don't know if that's the case here or not - with Trump's property - and I could care less. I do remember a similar case where an obliging banker lent Paul Manafort over 6 million dollars on a townhouse property, when the bank's limit on such transactions was considerably less - 4 million, IIRC. I think that one was a case of a personal "favor to a friend."

Oh yeah - it was. Here: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/23/banker-indicted-for-loaning-millions-to-paul-manafort-for-trump-white-house-job.html And it was three loans totalling $16 million. Not one. And the banker was supposed to get a favor in return.

 

Well maybe we now know why Mr Trump refused to release his tax returns.

 

Perhaps somebody, at some point, will refuse to release Mr. Trump.

 

What is due diligence?! That’s crazy talk! In all seriousness, tens and hundreds of millions are loaned out on probably a daily basis, simply based off names, connections, and big business. Rules are entirely different at that level.

 

Yep. That's the stuff scandals, prosecutions, recessions, depressions and economic collapses are made of, all right!

 

Not to mention huge corporate bankruptcies. And guess who goes bankrupt right after your biggest customer? Right. Not to mention the job losses for ordinary people, employees of the company and of its suppliers, when a big company goes under.

Nosborne48 is right again, as usual.

Due diligence is NOT "crazy talk." Due diligence is vital. When that need is not met, VERY bad things can, and do, happen. Talk of proceeding without it? Yeah, that sounds like "crazy talk," to me. (Credit man for 30 years.)

 

I was being facetious with the question and crazy talk comment. Due diligence should be sacred with any any large purchase, business transaction, investment, or contract signing. That being said… at the high level and the right individuals, it is commonly waived…. While it was more VC and Family Trust money, look at the Holmes trial… major CEOs and accomplished senior business execs, all waived due diligence. Look at the Private Banking sectors, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Deutsch Bank, etc have all ran into issues with waived due diligence processes for ‘special’ clients. Rules are simply different at those levels, at times, and while it’s risky - it’s often also understandable. Trump, Manafort, etc. all receiving loans with due diligence waived… well, they’re not the first… nor will they be the last.

 

Yes, and that's Deutsche Bank's problem. They've been trying to disengage with the Trump Organization for awhile now.

 

Ach! Viel Glück dabei, Deutsche Bank! (Good luck with that!)

 

I saw some reporting that explained some ties between Deutsche Bank and some Russian oligarchs. Speculation was that Russia might have used their relationship with the bank to somehow help Trump with his Deutsche Bank loans. Although I have to admit that this is similar to the silly conspiracy theories continuously spread on the right biased news channels, well except it was only stated in one report that I heard and they clearly labeled it as speculation at the time.

 

Deutsche Bank faces action over $20bn Russian money-laundering scheme | Deutsche Bank | The Guardian
This is Russian/exUSSR business for you.

Trump org had "disproportional" share of its operations dealing with clients with Russian ties - per one offhand comment by Don Jr. (or "DJ TJ"). That's no rumor. Also, it is well-known that Trump made $50M profit off a property sold to him by Dmitry Rybolovled, Russian fertilizer magnate. It goes without saying that he's close to Kremlin - a person can't be simultaneously a "Russian oligarch", "independent from Kremlin", and "alive". Ask Dr. Boris Berezovsky (oh, you can't - he's dead). Boris Berezovsky (a former Russian mathematician) WAS a Russian oligarch close to Yeltzin clan who thought he is too big for Putin's control. His mistake.

 

No one knows Trump's net worth, but no way he is a real billionaire. Think about Trump University, a straightforward bait-and-switch scam. Would any real billionaire bother with this thing for, what? 5 to 10 million? Laughable. And it is not even his only hustle of this kind.

 

Yes - at times, Donald Trump has appeared to be the exact opposite of a financial genius. One thing that perplexes me is the serial-bankruptcy mode of his casinos. As any maf... um - gentleman of the organized crime fraternities, can tell you, casinos are a license to print money. How could a guy "straight outta Wharton" mess that up? ...Anybody?

 

I would push back on that. His wealth has always been tied up in real estate and his actual yearly income has been rather low at any given time. I've never seen a serious estimate below a billion.

The 5-10 million seems like small change but then Trump has repeatedly stiffed contractors for five-figure sums.