Trump’s casinos

Trump’s new occupation – Farming

by Dave

Actually, he’s been at it for a long time.  Trump loves “dirt” and somehow I really believe he thinks it puts him out in front of the others.   He uses a blended mix, some actual facts mixed in with pure cow manure.  He connects up with experts in this area, who know how to concoct a good story and spread it on social media.   Trump did not write “Clinton Cash”  a book  filled with false accusations against Bill and Hillary Clinton, but he quickly connected with those involved, including Steve Bannon.

Trump has crossed the line between legitimate accusations and complete fabrication so many times,  he just doesn’t see the line anymore.    If you want to see a pattern of behavior that is so ingrained in Trump, you have to go back to his failed Taj Mahal casino, where he not only blasted a financial analyst who said his hotel was in trouble, but Trump was actually able to get the analyst fired from Barrons.  In this case, the story does have a happy ending, as the casino failed just as the analyst predicted, because revenues came up short during New Jersey’s winter months, and the analyst sued his investment firm and won.  I wrote about this in a two part blog, “I’ll see you in court”   See link

He needs help on his farm.  Sean Hannity, a commentator with Fox News is one hand who is so predictable and loyal to him.    “Sean, throw dirt on ___” and Sean will do it.  Lou Dobbs is another one.   The dirt farm bankers are the Koch brothers and Rebekah Mercer, daughter of billionaire hedge fund manager, Robert Mercer.   Rebekah gets her way because she’s got so much ready cash.   She’s on the board of the Heritage Foundation and other conservative organizations.  The Mercers contributed 25 million dollars to Trump’s campaign, in 2016.   Trump aided by Steve Bannon was lambasting Hillary’s connections to wealthy elites, and Trump as an independent with a self funded campaign.  This was a joke.

Need more support for the dirt farm?  Got money  and we’ve got the time,  Ready and willing conspiracy inventors includes Peter Schweizer, who is a master in world wide conspiracy theories.   It used to “all about Bill” or the Clinton Foundation.   I haven’t  read any of his books because from all serious writers, they are filled with unsubstantiated accusations. For 3 years, we’ve had a Department of Justice, CIA and FBI, all run by Trump nominees.   Yet,  no indictments.  The person leading the “Lock her up” chants at the Republican Convention, Michael Flynn went to jail.   He’s since is trying to get into the Republican conspiracy racket.

A lot of investigations are started with little information.   But, at some point, prosecutors at either the state of federal level, have to decide whether a crime been committed.   Now, the right wing conspiracy promoters were forever saying there was a massive coverup, because  Obama’s DOJ was not charging either Bill or Hillary Clinton with anything criminal.   Sean Hannity or Lou Dobbs had  already concluded there was enough on them that any half wit prosecutor could come and haul them to jail.   Trump gave the impression he would and for the last 3 years, the FBI, CIA and the Department of Justice did not charge the Clintons or anyone associated with the Clinton Foundation.  Note that the Department of Justice employs 11,000 lawyers.

In preparation for the 2020 election,  Trump has extended his search for dirt to the Ukraine, Australia and China.  I’ll have to do each of the dirt expeditions later.   It does remind one of the McCarthy era, where there were communist agents hiding our FBI, State Department  and finally the Army.   Joseph Welch, representing the Army finally let him have it, after McCarthy

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.”  Welch asked, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” 

Why do commentators like Sean Hannity continue to be Donald Trump’s messenger boy?  Because it’s great money.  Sean makes approximately 36 million  dollars a year.   This stuff really pays!  Remember, that Trump  loved to talk about draining the swamp.  Well the swamp is huge now.

So,  even after allegations are found to be shot full of holes by real investigative  journalists, the myths live on in their own little world.   And stations like Fox News really don’t care.  That’s the real tragedy.

The conspiracy theories tend to morph themselves into huge cover-up fantasies.  The Hillary email scandal “cover-up” now extends over both Democratic and Republican administrations and now, via Trump’s call, extends to a potential hidden server in the Ukraine.  Pure tabloid trash.  It’s the only way for advocates to keep the story alive without admitting that it was a myth.    I call it the hot air balloon effect.  To keep a hot air balloon rising, it must be constantly fed more hot air.   Conspiracy theorists like to link a lot of myths together, which include FBI and CIA covering up crimes, in  smokey back rooms, to mislead people the directors of their respective agencies (which happen to be Trump appointees) in the fantasized “Deep State.”  I guess now the Deep State extends to the Ukraine, China and Australia.  Where to next?

Hot air balloons tend to use up all their fuel eventually.

I think the farm has enough cow made fertilizer to last for the next 15 months.

Dave

Links:

Feds say Michael Flynn is pushing conspiracy theories in bid to hinder case

“Have you no sense of decency?” Sen. Joseph McCarthy is asked in hearing

Wikipedia- Sean Hannity 

-Sean’s latest target is Adam Schiff, which seems to involve mostly name calling.

 

Rebranding: Trump’s mean and egotistical actions

by Dave

If you buy a hotel, you need to sweep clean any presence of the  prior owner.  The clean sweep goes beyond just the uniforms and paperwork.  Everything should have the name of the new owner.  This is re-branding.

Trump knows branding.  One of Trump’s famous maneuvers was to have his failed Taj Mahal casino  carry only “Trump bottle water” in which he had a royalty.  So, he was still making money as the casino went bankrupt.

A lot of non-partisan social programs have been eliminated because they had Obama’s name on them.  Two examples below:

First example of Trump’s meanness and partisanship (even where it doesn’t exist) was the cancellation of the Let’s move program.  It was started by Michelle Obama,  aimed at combating child obesity and it couldn’t be more spot on.   It promoted healthy diets and exercise for children.  Who could argue with that!   Obviously,  Trump did not have to maintain vegetable gardens at the White House.   But it was a terrible mean streak to end a program with such worthwhile objectives.   See the “Let’s move” website now in the government archives.

The second act of meanness and ego, was the cancellation of the Harriet Tubman $20 bill, simply because this  was proposed during the Obama years.   It was really Jack Lew, the Secretary of the Treasury who made the decision to replace  Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman,  The Treasury Department didn’t outright cancel the Tubman bill, just postponed it to after 2028,  pushing beyond Trump’s presidency.  Andrew Jackson legacy was particularly controversial, particularly on his military action against American Indians.  (see link).   Harriet Tubman was a fantastic choice,  a clear heroine in time of slavery.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Links:

Let’s Move    (Eliminated by Donald Trump,  website is no longer maintained.  This is an archive copy, for historical purposes).

Harriet Tubman     (Incredibly brave woman in a country which at that time was  govern by white wealthy men)

Andrew Jackson

Did not believe the Supreme Court to be the final arbiter of the Constitution.   I guess that is why Trump doesn’t want Jackson gone from our currency.

Trail of Tears 

 

 

I’ll see you in court – Part 2

by Dave

The Taj Mahal story is not quite complete.  How Marvin Roffman got fired,  sued Donald Trump and his employer is only part of the story. The Taj Mahal turned out to be disaster, and fell into default on its bonds beginning with a missed payment in October 1990.  From MPA Magazine:

Roffman was awarded $750,000 by an NYSE arbitration panel, and settled with Trump for an undisclosed amount. But in the meantime, he couldn’t find work as an analyst. That’s when he started a new career as a financial advisor. That career took off; when he retired in 2007, Roffman’s firm managed more than $500 million.

Roffman is not bitter as he said the following in an interview:

“In a way, I owe Donald Trump a lot, because he forced me into a new career that turned out well,” Roffman told Barron’s. “…But that doesn’t excuse the hell he subjected me to in 1990, sliming my reputation so much that I got fired and couldn’t find another job as an analyst.”

The saga of the Taj Mahal is a long one, but it is clear the captain of the ship (Trump) did not go down with the ship, but found ways of making himself richer at the expense of the casino, and ultimately stiffed the contractors.  The New York Times story states:

But even as his companies did poorly, Mr. Trump did well. He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen.

Trump agrees, as he stated in an interview:

“Early on, I took a lot of money out of the casinos with the financings and the things we do,” he said in a recent interview. “Atlantic City was a very good cash cow for me for a long time.”

Trump used every legal and illegal trick in the book to keep the ship afloat, while simultaneously enriching himself. Case in point as stated in the NYT article:

By December 1990, when Mr. Trump needed to make an $18.4 million interest payment, his father, Fred C. Trump, sent a lawyer to the Castle to buy $3.3 million in chips, to provide him with an infusion of cash. The younger Mr. Trump made the payment, but the Casino Control Commission fined the Castle $65,000 for what had amounted to an illegal loan.

What kept the Taj Mahal afloat was not Trump’s business acumen, but his showmanship skills to get others to invest millions in terms of stock and junk bonds.  The Taj Mahal was close to bankruptcy, but was save in June 1995 through a  stock offering to  raise 140 million dollars.  Junk bonds yielding 15.5% brought in 155 million dollars.  The following year, approximately 1 billion dollars was raised by selling junk bonds.  Trump used the money to pay off his personal debts.

These investors eventually got burned.  However, I feel really sorry for all the contractors that Trump failed to pay as he defaulted on payments.  Per the NYT article:

“He put a number of local contractors and suppliers out of business when he didn’t pay them,” said Steven P. Perskie, who was New Jersey’s top casino regulator in the early 1990s. “So when he left Atlantic City, it wasn’t, ‘Sorry to see you go.’ It was, ‘How fast can you get the hell out of here?’”

The casino survived under various managements until October 2016.   The history of the Taj Mahal is documented on various sites.    Wikipedia reports:

During eighteen months after its April 2, 1990 opening,[21] when the Casino was on the verge of bankruptcy, it became the “preferred gambling spot for Russian mobsters living in Brooklyn, according to federal investigators who tracked organized crime in New York City.”[29]

Further in their website post, they state:

The 1992 U.S. Senate Subcommittee 218-page report entitled “Asian Organized Crime: the New International Criminal”, linked Trump’s businesses to Asian organized crime.[50]

IRS investigation documents obtained by CNN (see link below)  showed Trump violated anti-money laundering  rules 106 times, but settled with the IRS in 1998 for $477,000.  Money laundering continued from 2010 to 2012, however Trump is in the clear on these violations.   Trump’s involvement with the Taj Mahal was in name only. He had departed Atlantic City in 2009, maintaining a small stake in the casino’s parent company.

The Taj Mahal’s new owner is Carl Icahn.   The eighth wonder of the world, with 2100 rooms,  and all the glitz and glamour, built at an expense of 1 billion dollars,   has been shuttered up since October 2016 and has yet to change hands.   Icahn has denied that Hard Rock Cafe would be a possible buyer.

This blog began with Trump launching a brutal attack on a relatively unknown stock analyst, and the threat of  “you will be hearing from my lawyers.”   Now, Trump sits atop the Department of Justice, but is powerless to direct the investigation, unless he wants to fire the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, the Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

It makes sense how Donald Trump constantly lashes out against the New York Times and the Washington Post for their in-depth reporting.   They know Trump’s history.  The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s have also done an excellent job at reporting the facts.

Links:

Trump’s casino was a money laundering concern shortly after it opened

MPA Magazine:

http://www.mpamag.com/news/how-donald-trumps-wrath-led-to-riches-for-one-financial-advisor-29512.aspx

NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html?mcubz=0

Wikipedia- Taj Mahal

I first got wind of this story by reading Alan Abelson’s column “Up and Down Wall Street” column  in Barron’s. I can’t post his column as it is copyrighted by Barron’s.

Letters sent by Roffman and Trump’s reply

Stay tuned,

Dave

I’ll see you in court – Part 1

by Dave

Trump never seems satisfied with replying to critics.   He denigrates  his critics, usually in pretty vicious terms. There’s none of the civility, diplomacy or basic politeness that we became accustomed to with Obama and other presidents.    And there’s always a threat of lawsuits.  And he loses sometimes. You can’t get the courts or intimidation to silence your critics.

My lawyers will be in contact with you- means you’ve pissed off  Trump.

Case in point- in 1990, Trump was promoting his latest casino, the Taj Mahal,  which he financed by selling bonds to investors.  “It’s truly going to be an incredible place,” he [Trump] told reporters. “We’re calling it the eighth wonder of the world. ”

Marvin Roffman at the time was a casino investment analyst, with Janney, Montgomery Scott, a small investment company in Philadelphia.  Roffman knew Trump was very overextended in the financing of the Taj.  Roffman had the audacity to write  that Atlantic City was an ugly and dreary place on March 20, 1990.  He certainly did not say anything disparaging about the Taj itself, but felt Trump couldn’t finance its debt during the winter months.     Obviously, for King Trump this was blasphemy of the highest order.  Roffman wrote in his WSJ piece:

When this property opens….he [Trump] will break every record in the book in April, June and July. But once the cold winds blow from October to February, it [the Taj] won’t make it…the market just isn’t there.

Trump was infuriated and demanded that Roffman apologize for the story or the investment firm should fire him.  The firm prepared a letter trying to make peace with Trump.  The apology letter wasn’t strong enough and Trump insisted Roffman revise it.  The original apology stated that Roffman had every  hope the Taj would be very successful, and the revision demanded by Trump was  he  had every  expectation  the Taj would be very successful.  This would have been seen to a positive recommendation and  encouraged people to buy bonds in the casino, contrary to what Roffman believed.

Instead of revising the letter, Roffman sent a personal letter to Trump retracting the previous apology.  To Trump,  the retraction was a declaration of war.  Trump responded to Roffman:

Only a fool, a highly unstable one at that, would send a letter such as your second one negating your original letter. You have proved by these strange and irrational actions to be a great liability to your firm,” he wrote to Roffman. “I look forward to seeing you and your firm in court.”

On March 23, 1990, Janney Montgomery Scott fired Roffman.   Roffman has done quite well since then.  In 1991, he sued his former employer and received a $750,000 judgment.  Roffman filed a defamation suit against Trump, and the suit was settled for 2 million dollars. He is a very wealthy investment adviser, who now can say he beat Trump.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Links:

New York Times:

Politico:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/donald-trump-marvin-roffman-casino-lawsuit-213855