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Posts posted by Chuck Schwartz
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David, from the NY Times.'"
His casino companies made four trips to bankruptcy court, each time persuading bondholders to accept less money rather than be wiped out. But the companies repeatedly added more expensive debt and returned to the court for protection from lenders.
After narrowly escaping financial ruin in the early 1990s by delaying payments on his debts, Mr. Trump avoided a second potential crisis by taking his casinos public and shifting the risk to stockholders.
And he never was able to draw in enough gamblers to support all of the borrowing. During a decade when other casinos here thrived, Mr. Trump’s lagged, posting huge losses year after year. Stock and bondholders lost more than $1.5 billion.
All the while, Mr. Trump received copious amounts for himself, with the help of a compliant board. In one instance, The Times found, Mr. Trump pulled more than $1 million from his failing public company, describing the transaction in securities filings in ways that may have been illegal, according to legal experts.
Mr. Trump now says that he left Atlantic City at the perfect time. The record, however, shows that he struggled to hang on to his casinos years after the city had peaked, and failed only because his investors no longer wanted him in a management role.
There are those here who fondly remember Mr. Trump’s showmanship, the thousands he employed in a struggling city, and the tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue his casinos generated.
“He was a great person for the company,” said Scott C. Butera, the president of Mr. Trump’s company at the time of its 2004 bankruptcy. “With his oversight, his brand and marketing, he’s really adept.”
Many others were glad to see him go.
“He put a number of local contractors and suppliers out of business when he didn’t pay them,” said Steven P. Perskie, who was New Jersey’s top casino regulator in the early 1990s. “So when he left Atlantic City, it wasn’t, ‘Sorry to see you go.’ It was, ‘How fast can you get the hell out of here?’”
‘It’s truly going to be an incredible place’ — 1990
Donald Trump darted beneath the 70 gold-tipped minarets and nine carved elephants that lined the roof, through the lobby and across the casino floor, seemingly oblivious to the spectators’ cries of “Donald, Donald,” and the gamblers clutching bricks of $100 bills at the blackjack tables.
It was April 1990, and Mr. Trump was officially opening his third gambling resort in Atlantic City, the biggest project of his career: the $1 billion Trump Taj Mahal.
“It’s truly going to be an incredible place,” he told reporters. “We’re calling it the eighth wonder of the world.”
The Taj was certainly of outsize proportions: Its 42-story tower was New Jersey’s tallest building, and the casino was the world’s largest.
In a remarkably short time, Mr. Trump had become a commanding figure in Atlantic City, with his casinos accounting for nearly a third of its gambling revenues and employing more than 8,000 people.
Trump Plaza came first. In the early 1980s, Mr. Trump gained control of a prime spot on the boardwalk. Unable to get financing to build a casino, he forged a partnership with Harrah’s Entertainment, a national gambling operator.
Harrah’s agreed to provide Mr. Trump, who did not put any additional money into the deal, with $220 million in financing to build the project, to pay him a $24 million construction management fee and to give him half the profits.
The 39-story Harrah’s at Trump Plaza opened in 1984.
From the start, the partners were at odds over its marketing and whose name should be paramount.
“It wasn’t a well-designed partnership,” said Philip G. Satre, the retired chairman of Harrah’s. “We were a big company with an institutional approach to running a business, and he was a real estate entrepreneur who kind of shot from the hip.”
Then Mr. Trump bought Hilton’s nearly completed casino in the marina district for $320 million, calling it Trump Castle. His company issued $352 million in bonds to finish construction and open the casino, and tacked on an additional $32 million. That casino opened in 1985 and competed directly against his partner’s first casino, Harrah’s Marina.
The following year, Harrah’s scuttled its partnership with Mr. Trump and sold him its stake in Trump Plaza for more than $220 million.
Next Mr. Trump went after the biggest casino of all, the Taj Mahal, which Resorts International, builder of Atlantic City’s first casino, was erecting. After buying a controlling interest in Resorts from the estate of its founder, Mr. Trump battled the talk show host Merv Griffin for control of the company.
In the end, Mr. Griffin got the company, while Mr. Trump won the still-unfinished Taj Mahal.
Even before the Taj opened, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission was concerned about the casino’s viability given its rapidly escalating costs and considered revoking its operating license. Regulators closely monitored the financial performance of the Trump casinos and the developer’s empire.
Mr. Trump told the commission in 1988 that he could rein in expenses, because conventional lenders were lining up to give him money at low interest rates. He said he abhorred junk bonds, which were then popular, because they carried a bigger risk of default and thus came with higher interest rates.
Within months, he reversed course, issuing $675 million worth of junk bonds, with a 14 percent interest rate, to finish construction and get the Taj open. In recent interviews, Mr. Trump has said that with each financing he routinely took money out of the casinos to invest in Manhattan real estate. Total debt on the Taj exceeded $820 million.
Less than two weeks before the casino opened, Marvin B. Roffman, a casino analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott, an investment firm based in Philadelphia, told The Wall Street Journal that the Taj would need to reap $1.3 million a day just to make its interest payments, a sum no casino had ever achieved.
“The market just isn’t there,” Mr. Roffman told The Journal.
Mr. Trump retaliated, demanding that Janney Montgomery Scott fire Mr. Roffman. It did.
“It was doomed way before the start,” said W. Bucky Howard, who was promoted by Mr. Trump to president of the Taj five days after it opened, in a recent interview. “I told him it was going to fail. The Taj was underfunded.”
Almost immediately, Mr. Trump had trouble making the debt payments on the Taj and his other casinos. It was also clear that the Taj was cannibalizing the Castle and the Plaza, whose combined gambling revenues dropped by $58 million the year it opened.
After more than tripling as new casinos opened through the 1980s, gambling revenues in Atlantic City flattened in 1990, rising by just 1.35 percent, as gamblers grew more cautious in light of a national recession. All were hurt, recalled Mr. Perskie, the casino regulator, but none were in the catastrophic financial shape of Mr. Trump’s.
At the same time, Mr. Trump’s real estate empire in Manhattan, where the recession cut property values, was also failing.
In an August 1990 report, New Jersey regulators noted the “sheer volume of debt” on Mr. Trump’s holdings: $3.4 billion, including $1.3 billion on the casinos and $832.5 million in loans personally guaranteed by Mr. Trump. Regulators warned then that “the possibility of a complete financial collapse of the Trump Organization was not out of the question.”
The Taj Mahal missed its November debt payment. The Castle was also late.
By December 1990, when Mr. Trump needed to make an $18.4 million interest payment, his father, Fred C. Trump, sent a lawyer to the Castle to buy $3.3 million in chips, to provide him with an infusion of cash. The younger Mr. Trump made the payment, but the Casino Control Commission fined the Castle $65,000 for what had amounted to an illegal loan.
As all of his ventures neared collapse, Mr. Trump’s lenders insisted that he submit a business plan, appoint a chief financial officer for the Trump Organization and sell, among other things, the Trump Shuttle airline, his yacht and his stake in New York City’s Plaza Hotel, which also filed for bankruptcy protection. They also put him on a $450,000-a-month budget for personal and household expenses.
Just over a year after it opened, the Taj Mahal was in bankruptcy court, followed in 1992 by both the Plaza and the Castle. In the plan that was worked out, Mr. Trump ceded to the lenders a 50 percent stake in the businesses in return for lower interest rates. The lenders agreed to defer certain principal and interest payments and hold off on personal claims against Mr. Trump for five years. But there was little or no reduction in the enormous debts that would plague his gambling empire far into the future.
Mr. Trump now says he looks back on the period as his golden era in the casino business.
“Early on, I took a lot of money out of the casinos with the financings and the things we do,” he said in a recent interview. “Atlantic City was a very good cash cow for me for a long time.”
Others were hurt.
“He helped expand Atlantic City, but he just did not put the equity into the projects he should have to keep them solvent,” said H. Steven Norton, a casino consultant and a former casino executive at Resorts International. “When he went bankrupt, he not only cost bondholders money, but he hurt a lot of small businesses that helped him construct the Taj Mahal.”
Beth Rosser of West Chester, Pa., is still bitter over what happened to her father, whose company Triad Building Specialties nearly collapsed when Mr. Trump took the Taj into bankruptcy. It took three years to recover any money owed for his work on the casino, she said, and her father received only 30 cents on the dollar.
“Trump crawled his way to the top on the back of little guys, one of them being my father,” said Ms. Rosser, who runs Triad today. “He had no regard for thousands of men and women who worked on those projects. He says he’ll make America great again, but his past shows the complete opposite of that.”
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Steve, great post. Trump had to declare bankruptcy 6 times (see below) . I just hope he does not drive America into Bankruptcy.
"Trump’s companies have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which means a company can remain in business while wiping away many of its debts. The bankruptcy court ultimately approves a corporate budget and a plan to repay remaining debts; often shareholders lose much of their equity.
Trump’s Taj Mahal opened in April 1990 in Atlantic City, but six months later, “defaulted on interest payments to bondholders as his finances went into a tailspin,” The Washington Post’s Robert O’Harrow found. In July 1991, Trump’s Taj Mahal filed for bankruptcy. He could not keep up with debts on two other Atlantic City casinos, and those two properties declared bankruptcy in 1992. A fourth property, the Plaza Hotel in New York, declared bankruptcy in 1992 after amassing debt.
PolitiFact uncovered two more bankruptcies filed after 1992, totaling six. Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts filed for bankruptcy again in 2004, after accruing about $1.8 billion in debt. Trump Entertainment Resorts also declared bankruptcy in 2009, after being hit hard during the 2008 recession.
Why the discrepancy? Perhaps this will give us an idea: Trump told Washington Post reporters that he counted the first three bankruptcies as just one."
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Congressman Schiff said Trump could face criminal charges after he leaves the oval office. He has had problems with the law prior to his political career....
A federal judge in the Southern District of California on Monday finalized a $25 million settlement to be paid to attendees of the now-defunct real estate seminar called Trump University.
Judge Gonzalo Curiel's decision came after an appeals court rejected arguments from a Florida woman who attended Trump University and said she wanted to pursue a separate lawsuit.
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman called the settlement a victory for Trump U. "victims."
"Judge Curiel's order finalizing the $25 million Trump University settlement means that victims of Donald Trump's fraudulent university will finally receive the relief they deserve," he said in a statement, adding that the amount surpassed the initial number the class-action suit initially negotiated.
"This settlement marked a stunning reversal by President Trump, who for years refused to compensate the victims of his sham university," the statement added. "My office won't hesitate to hold those who commit fraud accountable, no matter how rich or powerful they may be."
Former employees and students of Trump University, Donald Trump's now-defunct, unaccredited clearinghouse for real estate courses, declared the business a scam in testimony released as part of a class-action lawsuit. In the sworn testimony recently unsealed by U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, two former employees described Trump University as a get-rich-quick scheme orchestrated by the reality TV star at the expense of the financially unsavvy.
The testimony, along with newly released "sales playbooks," shows the aggressive sales tactics Trump's employees were trained to use on the unsuspecting. The pitch began with a free 90-minute seminar designed to coax customers into paying for more courses. The prices of these courses ranged from $1,495 for the "Profit From Real Estate Workshop" to $34,995 for the "Trump Gold Elite" package, a three-day retreat
Federal appeals court rules $25M Trump University settlement can go forwardTrump University was a for-profit series of courses about real estate and entrepreneurship that also pushed people to buy Trump's books.
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Bill, is the Corso you reference above related to the Corso that got in trouble with Mueller for his dealings with Roger Stone?
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The stock market is going up because a company called Moderna is getting good results on a vaccine they are working on for Covid -19.
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If I remember what Robert Montenegro wrote on a post earlier (and then deleted), Connally was hit at least twice.
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Good quote, Peter- it was written in the early 60's , I believe. Then, in '68 , he wrote:
The Wicked MessengerThere was a wicked messenger
From Eli he did come
With a mind that multiplied
The smallest matter
When questioned who had sent for him
He answered with his thumb
For his tongue it could not speak, but only flatter.He stayed behind the assembly hall
It was there he made his bed
Oftentimes he could be seen returning
Until one day he just appeared
With a note in his hand which read
"The soles of my feet, I swear they're burning"Oh, the leaves began to fallin'
And the seas began to part
And the people that confronted him were many
And he was told but these few words
Which opened up his heart
"If ye cannot bring good news, then don't bring any".Source: MusixmatchSongwriters: Bob Dylan / Dylan BobThe Wicked Messenger lyrics © Dwarf Music -
Chris, also, there were some witnesses that said the limo stopped:
1) Jean Hill (who stood to the immediate left of the limousine with her friend Mary Moorman during the assassination), in her Sheriff’s Dept. affidavit of 11/22/63, stated that the limousine stopped for an instant;
(2) Hugh Betzner (standing behind the limousine during the assassination), in his Sheriff’s Dept. affidavit of 11/22/63, said twice that the limousine stopped during the assassination;
(3) Roy Truly, Oswald’s boss at the TSBD, later stated that the limousine swerved to the left and stopped during the assassination;
(4) DPD officer Bobby W. Hargis—riding escort to the immediate left rear of the limousine—in an interview never published by a local newspaper, but whose text was later found and written about by Richard Trask in his book Pictures of the Pain, stated that the limousine stopped during the assassination; and
(5) In numerous interviews over many years, Bill Newman (standing to the immediate right of the limousine during the assassination with his wife and two children) has repeatedly and consistently recalled that there was a very brief, but definite car stop by the limousine during the assassination -
David, I believe that J Edgar Hoover was an integral part of the cover-up and would never have let the names of the Big Event organizers be revealed on any report. So, if you are relying on an FBI report to determine if Curtis Lemay was at the Bethesda autopsy, you are being gullible, IMHO. ( that is like believing Allan Dulles and his WC report, when it was Dulles who helped develop the plan to murder JFK).. So, to quote what Bob Dylan said in the song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" : " No one said a thing when they carried him out... except the little neighbor boy, who muttered underneath his breath, " nothing is revealed.""
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David, do you think Curtis Lemay was at the Bethesda "autopsy" barking orders?
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Chris, I agree with Ron- nice to see you post and the answer to your question is yes- Marina was under great pressure (not just from HL Hunt) to adhere to the LN narrative.
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I agree with Finan O'Toole 100%.
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Jim, thanks for the Sylvia Meagher quote- I remember reading her book decades ago and fully understanding that someone was setting LHO up to take the fall for the JFK hit.
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Recent posts (that have since been deleted by the author )about Operation 40 caused me to re-read this thread.
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The term "xxxxing New Guy" (FNG) is a derogatory term, made popular within combatants, military chaplains, and combat medics of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps deployed to South East Asia during the Vietnam War, usually to refer to newcomers.
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Robert, do you have a view of the role (if any) that Curtis Lemay played in the Big Event/coverup of the Big Event? If so, what is that view? Thank you.
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I agree with Rob and Kishan. I would also add John Newman, Sylvia Meagher, Mae Brussell, Anthony Summers, Cyril Wecht and Bill Kelly.
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From Bill Kelly's blog (JFKCountercoup).."By William E. Kelly (billkelly3@gmail.com)
“The day they blew the brains of the kingThousands were watching, no one saw a thingIt happened so quickly, so quick, by surpriseRight there in front of everyone’s eyesGreatest magic trick ever under the sunPerfectly executed, skillfully done…..”– Bob Dylan – “Murder Most Foul”“President Kennedy’s assassination was the work of magicians. It was a stage trick complete with actor’s accessories and props. And when the curtain fell the actors and even the scenery, disappeared. But the magicians were not illusionists, but professionals, artists in their own right.”- Fairwell America by French Intelligence officers Philippe de Vosjoli, M. Andre Ducret -
fyi- there is a very relevant thread on this website called, "
Dino Brugioni "
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I agree with you, Kishan.
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- Paul, yes, I believe this relates Skorenzy. Kenn Thomas used the phrase werewolf commando's for the JFK Assassination. I have never seen supporting data on this, though. Some say the Torbitt document supports this , but I don't know.
- Mae Brussell did show a possible connection between Nazi's such as Skorenzy and the JFK hit. ( I doubt this connection was real)
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Note the reference to "Wolfman" Jack... could relate to a German nazi commando hit team (called the Werewolf commandos) supposedly in Dallas for the Big Event
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If you look at the cover of the John Wesley Hardin vinyl album (came out in '68/'69), there are small faces embedded in the trees that you can only see with a magnifying glass. It could relate to the zapruder film, where some say you can see the real shooter (that killed JFK) behind the picket fence up on the grassy knoll, where a lot of the witnesses ran to minutes/ seconds after the shots rang out.
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- The following is a Mae Brussell footnote on Otto O.:"Hon. John R. Rarick of Louisiana told Congress about a long-suppressed Government Employees Exchange report titled "Otto Otepka: Victim of the New Team", on the CIA to establish an underground government within our government (Congressional Record April 30, 1969 - pg. 10918)."
The inevitable end result of our last 56 years
in Political Discussions
Posted
Yes, it just about says it all- we have a very sick and demented president who only likes sick and demented people working for him.