Funny thing? He almost certainly did it on purpose.
And I don’t mean that as “actually he knows what he’s doing.” I mean it as “he has been committing one of the longest running and most blatant cases of fraud in the history of business and it’s only due to the limitations of our legal system that his entire business history is not classified as a Ponzi Scheme.”
Because he didn’t just bankrupt a casino.
He bought two casinos in Atlantic city, exaggerated the shit out of their profits to lure in investors, and began work on building a third casino. He was overextended in the market in a way that had him competing against his own businesses. He also snubbed contractors, threatened and litigated a ton of small businesses out of their jobs, and raised capital through issuing hundreds of millions of dollars in junk bonds (high risk high reward, they’re below investment grade but some people like to bet on them because the interest rate in the case of a payout is very large).
So what happened? He leveraged his ownership in a way that allowed him to strip out a ton of assets (which he legally owned), while leaving the corporate side totally overloaded with debt financing from the junk bonds, and then he drove all of it into the ground. Hard.
He went to bankruptcy court like 3 separate times over casino projects. While in bankruptcy court, he relentlessly fled from personal liability (his equity stake in the companies was extremely minimal because of the debt financing strategy) and managed to pay back a tiny fraction of his actual debt (this is why he always handles his debt in bankruptcy court; you can get away with paying back pennies on the dollar when you supposedly have no money). He also issued like 300 million more in junk bonds to pay himself and his legal fees, then went back to bankruptcy court and frauded all of THOSE investors.
Now you’ve probably heard the term Ponzi Scheme before, but if you’ve never heard a proper explanation of how one works, here’s a basic breakdown. First, you borrow money from one investor. Then, you borrow money from a second investor, and use that money to pay back the first investor at an impressive interest rate. Then you can start selling the scam to people by showing them how good your investors are doing, and hook more people in. You pay back earlier investors with the influx of cash from the new ones, while raking in the profits for yourself.
Now think about this business model. Use debt financing to start up a business. Litigate, fraud, or drive your contractors out of business so they don’t have enough money to sue you for what you owe them. Leverage the capital structure so you have minimal liability personally invested in the company. Strip out assets before a collapse because hey, you own it. Raise more debt capital to keep the illusion running as long as you can, and when you can’t keep up with what you owe your investors anymore, file for bankruptcy and pay them back scraps. You’ve made a ton of money, frauded a ton of investors, and they can’t come after you for it because you were leveraged behind a corporation and your personal liability was very small. You make more money off a flop than a hit. Rinse and repeat.
BUT YOU CAN’T GET CAUGHT FOR SETTING UP A PYRAMID SCHEME BECAUSE IT DOESN’T LAST LONG ENOUGH. YOU NEVER SET UP THE CYCLE OF INVESTORS AND INSTEAD YOU GET OUT OF PAYING THEM BACK BY ACTING LIKE YOUR BUSINESS WAS AN ORDINARY FAILURE INSTEAD OF BY STEALING MONEY FROM SUBSEQUENT INVESTORS.
That’s what happened in Atlantic City.
Now think about the rest of his business failures. Trump Airlines? That’s an industry that requires huge startup investment (debt financing) and the owner gets to sell off expensive assets when it fails. Trump Steaks? He sold those at THE SHARPER IMAGE, where it was guaranteed to fail because it was completely the wrong market for that kind of business. Trump University? Never even TRIED to be successful with that, he just tricked people into giving him as much money as he could squeeze out of them, and provided no actual service in exchange. He paid a $25 Million settlement on the lawsuit, but MADE $175 Million off the actual scam, so he walked away with $150 million for doing absolutely nothing. A LOT of his businesses, if you look closely, were practically DESIGNED to fail.
Because that’s how he operates.
Donald Trump is not a good businessman. He never even tried to be a businessman. What he is, is a con artist. Everything he ever made was fake.
The only really successful business he owns is the real estate business … which he inherited from his father and has grown at a slower rate than inflation even as he drives contractors out of business and targets undocumented laborers so they have no legal grounds to sue him for fair wages or working conditions.
Donald Trump is the CEO equivalent of The Producers.
Further reading and WILDLY paraphrased (from memory, from last year) source for the above commentary:
2.fun fact this bat isnt being eaten; like, its roosting there for the night. this is Nepenthes hemsleyana, a pitcher plant species in a mutualistic relationship with the local tiny bat friends Kerivoula hardwickii (Hardwicke’s woolly bat)!! it works like this:
– the pitchers are shaped to make a special distinctive reflection of the bat’s echolocation. so like, the bats can hear where the pitchers are and go to them for roosting.
-the bats enter the pitchers and sit on this special rim inside that holds them above the water line so they dont get eaten on accident.
-up to two teeny bat friends can fit in an average pitcher at a time lmao
-the bat friends poop when they sleep and the plant eats the poop when it falls into the digestive fluid
In Northern Japan, the Wara Art Festival recently rang in the September-October rice season, and it’s a wildly inventive and fun way to repurpose rice straw left over from the harvest.
The smallest mammal that ever lived could be sitting right on your shoulder, and you’d hardly know it. Batodonoides vanhouteni (model pictured) lived about 50 million years ago in what is now Wyoming, and was so small that it could climb up a pencil. It also weighed as little as a dollar bill! Several slightly larger species of these mini-mammals lived between 55 and 42 million years ago, but they are now all extinct. Its closest living relatives are modern-day shrews and moles. Photo: randychiu
So Scientology has recently been purchasing ad spots on social media sites including Twitter and Facebook. Scientology has always worked hard to recruit young people it seems like they’re investing in social media as well now. I know most people think Scientology is a joke but it’s a seriously dangerous cult which uses fear, extortion, violence, vandalism and various other unethical actions against those who oppose them both inside and outside the church. Here is key information on the abuses committed by Scientology:
•Scientology uses a form of pseudo-therapy called auditing which focuses largely on embarrassing and traumatic memories. Scientology collects the information you share and uses that information to threaten you if you oppose the church. They also charge huge amounts of money for auditing sessions (which is why they really are doing all this).
•They are extremely anti-psychology and psychiatry and pressure you against taking any antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication or any other drugs for mental health.
•They believe homosexuality can be “cured” and are blatantly homophobic. •Enemies of the church are labeled “suppressive persons” and it is forbidden to communicate with such people. This isn’t just to limit the negative press they receive but also is a manipulative tool. If you are in the cult and decide to leave or criticize the church you stand the risk of being completely cut off from your friends and family. “Suppressive Persons” are often also harassed, stalked, or threatened.
•If you’re new to Scientology and your family or friends are worried about you being in a cult you’re instructed to cut them out of your life, increasing your reliance on the support system (though there’s nothing supportive about it) the church give to you.
•Scientology’s doctrine includes the concept of “Fair Game”. This basically says that those who are judged a threat to the Church can be punished and harassed by any and all means possible.
•Because of this, they have no moral qualms about having their members lie in court which they use to defend themselves from lawsuits or charges that they’ve broken the law and also to help win lawsuits against their enemies. •They essentially spied on and stole information from the IRS and tried to frame the mayor of Clearwater Florida for a hit and run.
•Scientology filed 50 different lawsuits in one year against the Cult Awareness Network, an anti-cult organization. Using false testimony they won one of the suits and because the organization couldn’t pay the fine Scientology took the organizations name and logo so if you were calling to get out of Scientology you’d be unknowingly telling Scientology of your intentions. (For full transparency my mom was a member of the Cult Awareness Network before it was taken over and was sued individually by the Church of Scientology)
•Scientology has an official branch known as the Sea Org, a mixture between a paramilitary group and slavery, comprised of their most dedicated members including many children/teens who’ve been raised in Scientology. This is where some of the most rampant and terrifying abuse in Scientology occurs.
•Sea Org members often work over 100 hours a week for Scientology for around 2$ per hour.
•Sea Org member’s living conditions are terrible; they live in overcrowded communal rooms with up to 12 other people, are not given healthcare unless there is a free clinic in the area, often are forced to miss meals or sleep in order to successfully completed their work.
•Several former Sea Org members have accused the church of physical abuse. •Sea Org members may not have children and women who have become pregnant have reportedly been forced/coerced by their higher-ups to have abortions.
•Leaving Sea Org without permission automatically makes you a suppressive person, so young adults who’ve been raised in Scientology who want to leave are cut off from everyone they’ve ever known with no money or job and getting permission to leave can require 3 years of hard labor, social isolation, and group pressure.
it’s one of the scariest “religions” you’ll ever meet if not THE scariest because it was PURPOSELY created to make money. unlike most cults that do have some seed of genuine belief however twisted and off base the founders are, scientology was never a belief system – it was a get rich quick scheme for a terrible hack author who saw that there was more money to be made in manipulating people into a cult and then not letting them leave. higher and higher levels of scientology, which you have to take to be truly “clear” aka free of evil spirits, will cost you thousands and even millions of dollars. they will literally hook you into a billion year contract and then pursue you for any money you “owe” them, thousands of “back fees” for their religious training, if you try to leave.
stay the fuck away from anything marked scientology or dianetics. narconon (NOT the same as narcotics anonymous, the 12 step program) is also their thing. never even step FOOT into one of their free dianetics “auditing sessions” because they will use it to manipulate you into joining. they are incredibly persistent and will use every trick in the book to get you on board.
scientology: not even once.
It was a special interest of mine too for a while. This is all true.
They literally tried to drive a journalist crazy who reported on them critically. Paulette Cooper was her name.
They will literally attempt to make you paranoid if you ever cross them.
Hell, a few years back a guy from the BBC did a documentary on them and they did it to him, to the point where he explosively lost his temper at one of them on camera.
The intention being to make him look unstable in his own documentary so people wouldn’t believe what he was exposing.
theyir tactics towards anyone they deem SP (suppressive person) and criticizes them publicly involves harrassing and belittling them. Ron Miscavage, the father of the current leader Dan Miscavage, was STALKED for a year by a PI who was carrying all sorts of weapons. His own SON said that if he died, do not interact! You cant make this shit up. I just finished a paper on it last night and these people are WORSE than you think
They are master manipulators, and that coupled with them having no sense of Too Far at all… do not engage, not even for fun or whatever. People think it’s a funny harmless 4chan meme or whatever but it’s really, really horrific. People take the free session and are harassed for years and years after.
Scientology is a pyramid scheme, a cult, and PROFOUNDLY dangerous. If someone comes to you and tries to get you to do *anything* with Scientology, do whatever you have to do to get away from them.
Scientology destroys lives, tears families apart, and is a deadly, dangerous cult.
Oh and here’s a fun fact: The Cult Awareness Network, which was one of the earliest websites that did research on cults, including Scientology, and was a very useful resource for people was bought by Scientology several years ago, because its owners got into financial trouble. So people going to that website to find out about how dangerous Scientology is are actually getting propaganda from Scientology.
I can not overstate how dangerous and ruinous the cult of Scientology is. Stay away from it, and anyone associated with it. It’s not funny, it’s not harmless, it’s not fun.
This is a Saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica), a species listed in CITES Appendix II and evaluated as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List. It lives in Asia (Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan).
i think the thing that makes me angriest about the entire culture of people being forced to set up online fundraisers for things like medical treatments and basic necessities is that at least 99% of the people who donate are people who are ALSO struggling but just slightly less, people who think “well i was saving this $20 for lunch this week but this person who needs chemo could probably use it more”, while a single billionaire could fund every online fundraiser in existence and not even notice a dent in their wealth
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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