The New York Times got a hold of con artist and world- class moron Donald "Rump" Trump's tax information from 1985- 1994 and they show (spoiler alert!) Trump's as bad at business as he is at everything else: By the time his master-of-the-universe memoir “Trump: The Art of the Deal” hit bookstores in 1987, Donald J. Trump was already in deep financial distress, losing tens of millions of dollars on troubled business deals, according to previously unrevealed figures from his federal income tax returns.
Mr. Trump was propelled to the presidency, in part, by a self-spun narrative of business success and of setbacks triumphantly overcome. He has attributed his first run of reversals and bankruptcies to the recession that took hold in 1990. But 10 years of tax information obtained by The New York Times paints a different, and far bleaker, picture of his deal-making abilities and financial condition. [snip]
In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners. His core business losses in 1990 and 1991 — more than $250 million each year — were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years.
The Times piece is a deep dive into the leaked tax information and his mounting failures in business and pathological need to present himself as a "winner" when he was anything but. If it hasn't been utterly obvious before, the Times piece makes it crystal clear that this is a main reason why he's been so desperate to hide his tax returns -- his business career has been that of a bumbling megamoney- losing machine. Another would be "questionable" =cough= tax fraud =cough= reporting of interest income. Another would be the financing of his shambolic "empire" by Russian oligarchs and organized crime. Seeing his more recent tax returns would provide a trove of information on his continuing failures, felonious conduct and reasons why he wants to stay so close to Putin. They would reveal someone whose career in business and politics was based on the most shoddy, shabby, shady foundation imaginable. Stay tuned.Over all, Mr. Trump lost so much money that he was able to avoid paying income taxes for eight of the 10 years. It is not known whether the I.R.S. later required changes after audits. (our emphasis)
Head over there and take time to read the whole sordid piece.
Before you do, here's one of the choice passages:
Ouch!As with many things Trump, his adventures in the stock market were more image than substance, helped greatly by news reports quoting anonymous sources said to have knowledge of Mr. Trump’s actions. An occasional quote from an associate — including his stockbroker, Alan C. Greenberg — helped burnish the myth.
“He has an appetite like a Rocky Mountain vulture,” Mr. Greenberg, the legendary chairman of Bear Stearns, told The Wall Street Journal in 1987. “He’d like to own the world.”
In his actions, Mr. Trump was more like a peacock. (our emphasis)
BONUS: As Susanne Craig, the Pulitzer Prize winning co-author of the piece notes, it was always about a spoiled brat spending and losing his daddy's (and others') millions:
FATHER & SON: We now have tax info on Fred Trump & Donald Trump for a number of years. The upshot: Fred always made a lot of money. Donald always lost a lot of money. For a reminder on just how rich Fred was, here’s our 2018 tax fraud investigation. https://t.co/9is4ZcpOY4— Susanne Craig (@susannecraig) May 7, 2019
BONUS II:
As a narcissist, Trump’s worst nightmare is being exposed as unworthy of admiration.— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) May 8, 2019
His entire adult life has been an act to convince people he is someone his father would have loved.
This story is his worst outing: he’s a lifelong loser who failed at daddy’s business.
8/8
The NYT story confirms what most of us suspected: Trump is a tax cheat and financial disaster. He didn't just have bad luck a couple of times in the past, he consistently lost large amounts of money and yet continued to do business in spite of it.
ReplyDeleteHe ran for president based on his success as a businessman, largely reinforced by the success he had on television, not on his record as a big moneymaker. People believed him, and still do.
His base won't even blink. They will argue that the tax info was obtained illegally, that the NYT is fake news, that Trump's privacy was invaded and probably also that he was just doing financial magic to keep from paying excessive taxes. The seesaw reamins tipped in his favor, as it always does.
That being said, I hope Trump feels the sting of humiliation. He lost more money in one year than any other citizen in the US. And he lost money consistently, lots of it. He'll be furious for a day or so, then he'll find a way to spin the story to his advantage. But I hope he has indigestion for a long time.
donnah -- his imaginary business acumen was the draw for many of his voters who otherwise rationalized his racist, xenophobic, autocratic behavior. This, and we hope future, revelations may forever sink that false perception among all but the most mouth- breathing yahoos in his base. Not that they still wouldn't vote for him, with their tribal instincts being what they are...
ReplyDeleteFOX is already up and at 'em. Trump was playing a financial game in real estate back then, and besides, everyone was losing money. Plus, he did it on purpose to avoid paying taxes, so see how smart he is? And also, Democrats should be focusing on the needs of the American people, not engaging in these senseless accusations.
ReplyDeleteThe spin they're putting on this could generate enough energy to run power grids across the country.