That is what you call running a business, is it?
Trump called it smart.
Some called it genius.
PJW called it clever.
Trump cleverly reduced his tax liability.
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) 2 October 2016
Hillary took millions from corrupt dictatorships.
We'll see which issue Americans care about.
But while Donald was crying "poverty" to avoid paying tax, he was still running businesses into bankruptcy...and being paid bonuses galore for doing so.
Take this, for example:
Many of those who lost money were Main Street shareholders who believed in the Trump brand, such as Sebastian Pignatello, a retired private investor in Queens. By the time of the 2004 bankruptcy, Pignatello’s 150,000 shares were worth pennies on the dollar.
“He had been pillaging the company all along,” said Pignatello, who joined shareholders in a lawsuit against Trump that has since been settled. “Even his business allies, they were all fair game. He has no qualms about screwing anybody. That’s what he does.”
...Trump was the chairman of Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts in Atlantic City from 1995 to 2009, his only outing as the head of a major public company. During that time, the company lost more than $1 billion, financial records show. He also was chief executive from 2000 to 2005, during which time share prices plunged from a high of $35 to as low as 17 cents.
Trump received more than $44 million in salary, bonuses and other compensation during his time at the company, filings show. He also benefited from tens of millions of dollars more in special deals, advisory fees and “service agreements” he negotiated with his company.
...When it debuted that year on the New York Stock Exchange, Trump’s company raised $140 million from investors, at $14 a share, and said the money would go toward expanding the Plaza and developing a riverboat casino in Indiana.
But much of that money went to pay off tens of millions of dollars in loans Trump had personally guaranteed, filings show. Those loans were taken out before the company went public, but Trump’s private fortune could have been at risk if they went unpaid.
The company got off to an encouraging start. An improving national economy and an upturn in Atlantic City gambling helped shares soar to a peak of $35 in 1996. That boosted the value of Trump’s stake in the company and helped him return to the Forbes 400 list — the magazine’s ranking of America’s wealthiest people — for the first time since 1989.
The early success didn’t last long. In less than a year, the company paid premium prices for two of Trump’s deeply indebted, privately held casinos, the Trump Taj Mahal and the Trump Castle. In essence, he was both buyer and seller, able to set whatever price he wanted. The company bought his Castle for $100 million more than analysts said it was worth. Trump pocketed $880,000 in cash after arranging the deal, financial filings show.
By the end of 1996, shareholders who had bet on a rosy Trump future were now investors in a company with $1.7 billion of Trump’s old debt. The company was forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on interest payments, more than the casinos brought in, securities filings show. The unprofitable company couldn’t afford the upgrades it needed to compete with newer gambling rivals.
Spooked investors fled the company in 1996, sending its share price down to $12. As millions of dollars in shareholder value evaporated, the company gave Trump a $7 million pay package, including a 71 percent raise to his salary, financial filings show. Trump defended his compensation by telling the Wall Street Journal, “Other than the stock price, we’re doing great.”
“He ran these companies into the ground,” Graef Crystal, an executive-pay consultant who watched the company at the time, said in an interview.
As the company spiraled downward, it continued to pay for Trump’s luxuries. Between 1998 and 2005, it spent more than $6 million to “entertain high-end customers” on Trump’s plane and golf courses and about $2 million to maintain his personal jet and have it piloted, a Post analysis of company filings shows.
Trump also steered the company toward deals with the rest of the Trump-brand empire. Between 2006 and 2009, the company bought $1.7 million of Trump-brand merchandise, including $1.2 million of Trump Ice bottled water, the analysis shows.
...The company lost money every year of Trump’s leadership, and its share price suffered. A shareholder who bought $100 of DJT shares in 1995 could sell them for about $4 in 2005. The same investment in MGM Resorts would have increased in value to about $600.
In 2004, the year Trump took home a $1.5 million salary, stock-exchange officials froze trading in the company — and, later, delisted it entirely — as word spread that it was filing for bankruptcy because of about $1.8 billion in debt.
[source : As its stock collapsed, Trump’s firm gave him huge bonuses and paid for his jet, Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/as-its-stock-collapsed-trumps-firm-gave-him-huge-bonuses-and-paid-for-his-jet/2016/06/12/58458918-2766-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html, 12th June 2016]
So while Trump was crying "poverty" to avoid paying tax, he was fleecing investors, running his companies into the ground while being paid millions and millions of dollars on top of the bonuses and perks.
And do not forget: during that time Trump was also laundering money for the mob and/or the CIA at Trump Taj Mahal.
And lest we forget : while Donald was very happy to avoid paying any tax, in addition to getting nearly $800 million in tax breaks, he was also very happy that ordinary Americans who can not afford the expensive fees to avoid paying tax were being fleeced for every cent of tax so that it could be sent to Donald's real true love, Israel.
This is not the act of a patriot.
And when you recall that Trump and his she-devil daughter shipped their jobs to the very nations he rants against, China and Mexico, then Trump is approaching being a traitor.
Still thinking of voting for Trump?
I say: neither Clinton nor Trump.
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