Donald Trump’s Deadly Magic Touch Strikes Again
Erstwhile former billionaire (according to Forbes, not me) Donald Trump is no Midas when it comes to business. (Maybe he’s still a billionaire but if he is still a billionaire he’s a small potatoes paper billionaire, not a Gates-type billionaire, or a Musk, or a Buffet, or a Bezos.)
His latest failure, the Truth Social social media site, has just issued a warning that the company may have to shut down in the face of huge losses, with $23 million in losses against $2.3 million in revenues. (Huge losses? Give me a break. That’s chicken feed.)
If Donald Trump is a billionaire, why doesn’t he just inject $24 million into Truth Social? (Could it be that he never puts his own money at risk?) Why does he keep begging for money to pay his legal bills, and running such egregious scams as selling fake NFTs to his followers?
Could it be that the real Donald Trump is a phony?
Take a look at the long string of Trump failures.
Trump’s Atlantic City casinos went belly up and ended up losing $3 billion before he quit the business in 2004.
He bought the Eastern Shuttle franchise in 1989, defaulted on a $1.1 million loan payment, and fled the business in 1992.
GoTrump.com, Donald’s premium travel website opened for business in 2006 and shut down in 2007.
Trump’s Steaks proved to be too tough to swallow (also in 2007); the company only lasted two months.
Trump (a supposed teetotaler) decided that Trump Vodka had a nice ring to it but the brand didn’t make much of a splash, debuting in 2005 and shutting down in 2011. (A grape-flavored vodka? Seriously?)
Trump Mortgage opened for business in 2006 and went bankrupt in 2007 when everyone else was making money hand over fist in the mortgage business (before the crash in 2008.)
Trump University opened for business in 2005, promising to teach the Art of the Deal to would-be entrepreneurs but ended up getting whacked with multiple lawsuits for fraudulent business practices and closed down in 2010.
So, how can a multi-billionaire keep losing so many businesses for what amounts to chump change, like missing a $1.1 million loan installment? How can he allow his pet project – Truth Social – to go under when he could just come out of his pocket to cover a measly $23 million shortfall?
Answer: His funds are all tied up in various long-term ventures, building projects, hotels, and golf courses, that he leverages against each other in the famous millionaire’s tax dodge.
Buy a company, run up the debt on the company, deduct the loan interest from your tax bill (corporations can do that; individuals can’t.) Then, when the bills come in, run for the hills.
Each of his ventures is incorporated separately so that he can move funds from one company to another, to keep his core businesses solvent while the others flounder.
He’s also a sucker. People come to him with ideas. Trump Steaks? Great idea man, says the guy who dines on takeout hamburgers, not Luchow’s steaks. Trump Vodka. Great idea, says the guy who hates drinkers because his family has a tendency toward alcoholism. (How does a guy who watched his brother destroy his own life with alcohol start his own vodka brand?)
People talk him into things, and he probably thinks he comes up with these ideas himself. That’s how megalomaniacs operate; they lie to themselves and then they believe their own lies.
Trump’s biggest lies – the ones that put him in the White House – were The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice, which put him on the air at NBC for 16 seasons, from 2004 to 2015. The Apprentice alone paid him $197 million directly and an additional $230 from ventures that were promoted through the shows and product endorsement deals. That’s $427 million over 11 years, and that’s the money Trump has been living on before he lucked into the presidency.
The Apprentice was supposed to be a reality TV show. It was, but like all reality TV programming, it wasn’t really spontaneous. It was scripted. There was room for ad-libs, of course. There would have to be ad-libs because Trump can’t stick to a script, but the shows were carefully laid out to portray Trump as a take-charge, in-charge guy who has all the answers, but it was just an act, and Trump was just an actor.
In fact, that’s all Donald Trump has been all his life: an actor playing a role…until he reached the White House, where he suddenly discovered that not only did he not understand how things worked, he didn’t know how to learn to work them either.
In other words, all of a sudden, he didn’t have a director to yell, “Cut,” when he was wandering off script. There were no editors to cut and paste his performances together. There was no way to reshoot a bad scene to make it better.
It was all real…and it was all in real-time.
Because he has always been the CEO of Donald Trump Enterprises, a closely-held family business, he has never had to answer to a board of directors or shareholders. He’s spent decades sweeping his mistakes under the rugs of his various mansions, living a fairy tale life, a stable genius in his own estimation.
His performance in the White House demonstrated over and over again that his ego keeps making claims his intellect can’t make good on…and the act is wearing thin.
I would never call Donald Trump stupid or crazy, but he is an ignorant, self-absorbed, narcissistic, egomaniacal, self-serving, loser who is facing multiple prison sentences and still thinks he can fool enough people to waltz back into the White House.
I refuse to believe the American people are that stupid.
Are you?
11/15/2023 @ 11:15 am
Are the American people that stupid? YES! Is it because they are American necessarily? No. A good portion of the voting public worldwide is poorly informed. One of the main reasons for that is news agencies like Fox, and others who are selling to the public’s angers, frustrations, and fears. Add to that the internet which allows disgruntled poor decision makers to find one another and form causes. The American public, and much of Europe, in large part, is as dumb as a herd of cattle.
As for Donald Trump, a good way to determine his utter lack of ability is to read someone like Jonathan Karl who just released a book, “Tired of Winning”, where he has interviewed many who know him, worked with him, and worked for him who have opinions on Trump’s lack. For this comment I could not find any quotes, but I have heard some. Let’s say this, Trump does not come off well.
Are all of the American people stupid? No. Some, and probably enough, do seek out good information, and make rational decisions. Trying to assess America’s intellectual heft from poll answers is problematic. It is theorized that poll respondents are not answering as to who they will vote for, but rather, answering about what bothers them. They are venting. I don’t believe that Trump with his criminal jeopardy and demonstrated incompetence have any real chance of being elected again. That would depend upon the larger, more rational segment of the public to abandon the ballot to the Trumpers, and given the stakes, abortion, authoritarianism, etc, I don’t see that as likely. The public will become complacent again soon, but not before 2024.
11/15/2023 @ 11:40 am
If there were the slightest chance that prayer could effect the outcome of the 2024 election, I’d say the hell with it, give it a try, probably mention Bitey and his prediction then go buy a local distillery’s vodka and have a simple dirty martini.
11/16/2023 @ 3:55 am
This Is the Army (1943) HD
12/10/2023 @ 10:30 am
The Donald is fatuous. Many here among us have worn thin with his ‘tough shit or else’ attempt at helmsmanship. His Grandiose ‘Ol Party has imploded. Right now I’ve an editorial cartoon picturing Putin and Trump afloat inside International Space Shuttel {…} crazily smirking like adolescents about an armpit fart. Right. Nowhere to puke
02/23/2024 @ 12:57 am
My naive optimistic trust in mankind had imagined that the Donald at a ‘pic which one’ forlorn juncture would wash his hands of all ‘thangs’ concerning his wild and goofy political machinations …. Recollect his blatantly astonished surprise when he spoke with Melania Trump telling her that, “… we won …. ” post victory 2015. After defeat 2019 he refused to let the door kick him in the derrière hence mismanaging countless millions (billions?) of resource dragging out shameful, way-whacked narcissistic redundant refusals to accept loss. Why doesn’t former President Trump simply buy a sports team, film studio, a Fortune 100 optionshouse? Honestly, I truly suspect that he’s rappelled as hazardly high and low as he can with all these thin ice high jinks. This crazily profuse premeditated bifurcation of Trump’s corrupt treachery — discombobulates domestic tranquility AND world peace. Hey! IF THE BUTTON IS PUSHED …
02/23/2024 @ 3:22 pm
First of all, you’re slipping I actually understood your last three comments. Triggered, I decided to read the article you were commenting on. For some reason, I that that Bitey had written it because it was really good…and then I realized that I had written it myself.
02/23/2024 @ 8:45 pm
I can tell that “that Bitey” didn’t write it because it is far better than anything he ever wrote. And…Bitey would insist that Donald Trump is an idiot.
02/24/2024 @ 12:28 am
That’s not true, Bill. You have written some things that put me to shame.