I think people would be shocked to learnt that although this family is remarkably corrupt and criminal, much of the way they do business is standard practice for the rich. Zero ethics, screw everyone you ever do business with over and just hire good lawyers to deal with it. There's a total lack of morality, this is not unusual in rich families.
Here in my own city, Grand Rapids, we have a few billionaire families, they are ruthless too. It's all about getting over on everyone, it's all about breaking the rules and litigating the consequences. There is no shame, everything is a chance to make money, everything is leverage, even charities are used to pad the bottom line. And once you get some power, it gets worse and worse, no one who ever did business with the Trumps ever came away happy, save for maybe the Saudis and Russians.
Have my own experience with doing business with the Devos/Van Andel families. Worked for a company who contracted a laser light show when a local arena had its grand opening. The Van Andel family (founded Amway with Devos) chipped in $10M for the naming rights to our new downtown arena, the public funded the other $70M. In exchange for the $10M, they didn't just get naming rights, they got a 25 year contract to run the arena, so they've made several times their money back. Well, they were a nightmare to do business with, they signed deals and then tore them up because their lawyer would find some clause they didn't like. We were a small company, this was a huge deal for us and they knew it. We were already out of pocket for deposits on equipment and technicians, so we really had no leverage. They ended up lowballing us a week before the show was going to happen, and we had no choice but to accept. It was everything we could do to come out almost even on the deal, we spent 100s of hours on the deal, that we thought would bring in $12K in profit or so and ended up losing like $1000 on the deal. We got to be there for the opening at least, saw Kristy Yamaguchi skate a coupe short routines and it was a fun night, but they didn't have to do us like that, they just realized somewhere along the way that they could and so they did.
And that's how every single business deal the Trumps have ever done has gone. They never pay, the renegotiate at the last minute, they leverage. There's no honor, there's no ethics, it's just screw over everyone to enrich yourself. That's what happens all across our country over and over in business. There are honest business people out there, and there are even honest wealthy people, but there are a lot of Trump like families too, just screwing everyone over every chance.
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