Can’t say that I’m surprised. Trump has gotten more and erratic and bombastic in the past few years. He was always an egotistical blowhard, but his public comments have gotten much worse in the past few years.
I wonder if the guy is mentally ill? Seriously. Remember the way he was in the 1990’s? He was a jerk, but not an out of control stupid jerk. He wouldn’t have said something like this, in public, twenty years ago. He’s smarter than that.
I lost a lot of respect for him for not helping to rebuild the Twin Towers. He claimed to be one of NY’s biggest developers and was nowhere to be found when NY needed him the most.
I saw Trump on Larry King around 2006. He was criticizing the slow progress in finalizing plans to rebuild the towers. Implying, of course they were incompetent and he could do so much better. King asked him straight out, why aren’t you involved? Trump started squirming and dancing around the question.
He should have been leading the charge. Doing what real estate developers do. Put together a group of investors, get bids from architects, jump through all the government red tape and approvals. Then get bids from construction companies. Trump did this work his entire life. Supposedly he knows how to manage huge construction development projects like this. But he wasn’t there for NY when it mattered.
You may be overestimating the capacities of a capitalist who had already declared bankruptcy twice (and 2 more times since then). By 2001 Trump was more of a showman than anything else. I’d say it was an act of patriotism and enlightened self interest to stay out of the way. The new building was office space after all, not residential and not retail.
The Apprentice is not owned by Trump. He was just an employee. The show is owned by Mark Burnett. So conceivably they could just get another rich guy like Mark Cuban to take the role.
Incorrect. The article stated it correctly. Companies the Donald controlled declared bankruptcy. The Donald, ass though he may be, will set up every business venture as it’s own legal entity, so that if one fails, nothing else, including his personal worth, gets touched. It’s called “asset protection”, and anyone who runs even a small mom & pop should understand the basics. The Donald does a lot of high risk-high reward stuff, so it’s not surprising that some have failed.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. I think the point is that Trump as a developer has lost his investors so much money so many times that he might be able to get investment together for a project as big as the World Trade Center.
That is also not necessarily true. I don’t know how many ventures Trump has headlined, but for shits and grins let us say it is 40, which is probably ridiculously low. Then only 10% of his ventures go complete belly up. But for the years they are operating, they are most likely generating positive cash flow for his investors, along with sweet, sweet depreciation benefits which also get passed through to the investors. Most likely, these are all accredited investors, so he’s not taking money from kid’s candy jars. He’s dealing with experienced investors who understand the risks, and that’s why investors keep ponying up the $$$ even after the bankruptcies. Also when one of those 40 ventures (or however many are active at any one time) fails, it does not affect at all the other 39.
The Donald is an asshole, but far more often than not, he makes money for himself and his investors above and beyond market rates. But for all we know, Silverstein, who had ‘dibs’ on the WTC, could have told the Donald to take his $$$, his bad hair & his penchant for self-promotion and shove them up his ass. Silverstein didn’t need Trump, and Trump probably would have wanted to put his name on the project, which he wouldn’t have been allowed to do at that site.
I’m glad they aren’t canning The Apprentice entirely. There is something so deliciously mean-spirited about those contestants behaving badly, performing tasks at which they are grossly incompetent, and backstabbing ruthlessly, all for the approval of a petty little tyrant like The Donald.
i never gave it much thought. So what did Trumps bankruptcies consist of and how meaningful were they to his own net worth? Were they remote from him and just blips?
That said, Freedom Towers shouldn’t be structured as a high risk/high reward venture. Nor as one where subcontractors get screwed over. It was suppose to be tasteful, not glitz. Keeping the Donald out of it was a good idea. There are plenty of talented developers in NYC, to put it mildly.
Finally, no audit reports have been released on the Donald’s net worth. The Donald doesn’t float public equity AFAIK. So we really can say how successful he is or what a reasonable expected ROI with the guy would be. There aren’t any public hard or soft numbers AFAIK. (If there are, I’d like to see them.)