Making Sense Of Trump's Failures.....
The Kushner deal on 666 Fifth Avenue got me to thinking yesterday. (Always a dangerous proposition). It was a deal that makes no sense on its face-overpriced, over leveraged, insufficient returns of rental income. The ROI on this deal wasn't just insufficient to warrant an investment of over $1 billion, it was non-existent. How or why do you invest that much money under those circumstances. It's not because Kushner was stupid, or inexperienced or egotistical. It just doesn't make sense. Unless you look at it through the Trump lens. It does look a lot like Trump's business strategy in the past. How many of his string of failed deals were doomed to failure from the outset? It's actually his signature business model. (did they teach THAT at Trump University?) Why?
For starters, this is the reason why no American bank will let Trump open a Christmas Club account, let alone lend him money. I think it goes deeper than that. The problem is is that it doesn't jive with the republican mindset we've become used to. You see republicans make a million dollars and get taxed on it. They don't see the $750,000 they just put in their pocket, they only see the $250,000 they didn't. The mobsters and Russian operatives Trump has been dealing with don't see the world that way. They have $500 million in ill gotten gains they can't use. It might as well be 50 bucks for all the good it does them. If they get that money into a Trump real estate deal that goes south and salvage half of it, that's $250 million they can put in their pocket and actually use. That's way better than the $500 million you couldn't use. And if some of that lost investment finds its way into Trumps pockets, hey it was worth it. The Russian mobsters couldn't use it anyway.
Who gets screwed? Well, suppliers, contractors, any government entity that gave tax breaks, incentives or abatements, any financial institution stupid enough to issue bonds or guarantees, taxpayers....the hell with all of them. Its a magic money machine. Its how you make money by failing. The trick is to get the dirty cash into Trump's hands so he can turn the machine on. I think at the end of the analysis Trump's money laundering past and the vulnerabilities it has created for him by allowing the Russians to own him (combined with Trump's amoral character and uncontrollable ego) will ultimately make sense of this craziness. Just my two cents.
