| | | Why did US banks refuse to invest in Donald Trump?
Stephen Lee, Asset management/portfolio management
The question is not, why did US banks refuse to lend to Trump? The question is, why do US banks refuse to lend to Trump? You see, American banks still refuse to lend to Trump.
Contrary to the reality-TV myth surrounding Trump that is embraced by his deluded supporters, not only is Trump not a business genius. Trump is a personally corrupt and incompetent businessman. Trump does not pay his bills, nor does he adhere to contractual obligations. He is very quick to sue, even on the flimsiest of grounds, because he knows many of his former smaller business partners don’t have the resources to prevail over the course of civil litigation.
Trump is highly unethical. For example, in the wake of his business failings in Atlantic City he created a corporation, sold stock to small, retail investors, transferred his personal debt to the company, forced the company to pay him an exorbitant salary and to pay excessive prices to his private companies for goods and services, then bankrupted the company and left the small shareholders holding the bag.
He then wrote the losses off against his personal taxes, using a loophole in the real estate tax laws to do so.
Trump was broke by the time he starred in The Apprentice. That gig paid the bills, but it wasn’t until he started doing business with Russian oligarchs that he was suddenly flush with cash. Did they give him that cash because he was a great businessman? Or did they give him that cash because he was a corrupt, failed businessman who was eager to portray himself as the real estate tycoon that his father was, and who was willing to turn a blind eye to the sources of that Russian cash?
If you guessed the former, you are a Trump supporter. If you guessed the latter, congratulations, you have put your finger on the last and abiding reason why American banks won’t lend to Trump.
Because when you add to personally corrupt and incompetent the willingness to participate in money laundering and sanctions violations you have basically hit the trifecta for reasons why banks do not lend money to someone. The business risk is bad enough for corruption and incompetence. With those characteristics you don’t get your money back. Add a couple of federal and state felonies and the business risk to the lender goes into the stratosphere.
Ah, but why would Deutsche Bank lend to Trump, you ask?
That’s a good question, and is partially explained by the fact that the money Deutsche lent to Trump did not come from its commercial real estate lending group. It came from the private bank. The private bank is the wealth management group for high net worth individuals. Those would include Russian oligarchs.
Deutsche Bank has been fined approximately $700 million by the British and American regulators for potential money laundering violations involving — you guessed it — Russian oligarchs.
[ IOW Deutsche Bank has been loaning him Russian oligarch money. ]
Sense a pattern here? If not, then again, you are a Trump supporter. If so, then you are finally on your way to understanding why so many people are so confident that Trump is a Russian stooge. When you borrow money from Russian oligarchs, you are borrowing money from gangsters. Added bonus, you are borrowing money from gangsters who are permitted to be “oligarchs” by the Kremlin.
If you borrow from Russian oligarchs, and you do so to facilitate money laundering and sanctions violations — which you would be, because that is why the Russians are lending you their money — you are now a fully, if indirectly owned, subsidiary of Kremlin, Inc.
That’s why American banks won’t lend to Trump. And that’s why Trump wants to destroy NATO. |
|
