You wrote:
Trump's four bankruptcies are Chapter 11 of Title 11 under the United States Bankruptcy Code. ALL the investors, and ALL the vendors, take a financial haircut in Chapter 11. Why else would they be in court? Sometimes the unsubordinated bondholders come out whole.
As to your first statement, your tone reads as an accusation that Trump is trying to defraud today's voters that his bankruptcies were something other than the type that is used for business reorganization. Many posters on this Forum unknowingly confuse Chapter 11 with personal bankruptcy (Chapter 7), which they consider a moral failure. But Trump's were the Chapter 11 type that are limited to that particular business entity, in this case the Trump Taj casino in Atlantic City.
Chapter 11 reorganizations go through the court to, in effect, renegotiate the expectations of the creditors with regard to such things as setting negotiated timelines for repayment, placing limits on interest penalties, controlling what may or may not be seized, and keeping creditors from fighting with one another while the business entity files a plan with the court to continue operating, paying employees, paying off debts and attempting to revive the business -- or at least keep the losses from making a worse collapse in which losses would be greater for all concerned. Trump used part of his personal wealth and relinquished some of his ownership stakes in the business as part of the repayment and reorganization deal.
The business magazine Forbes has been tracking Trump's career for decades, often using him as a poster boy for business stories, good and bad. They are not particularly on his side, and have been newsworthy for estimating Trump's personal net worth a great deal lower than he says (which they recently revised upward from their former lowball guessimate). The following link is their story, which contains terms the layman can understand about the four Ch 11 restructurings. It was written in 2011, well before Trump's current campaign:
Fourth Time's A Charm: How Donald Trump Made Bankruptcy Work For Him
Some of the salient quotes from that article are:
"He has never filed for personal bankruptcy -- an important distinction when considering his ability to emerge relatively unscathed, at least financially."While the bankers may have had some of their anticipated profits reduced, there is never a guarantee to investors that every business will work out perfectly. Reorganization meant that the employees kept their jobs, and the creditors got not only some of their money back, they may have received most of their capital back (I did not read the financials) but may have had to forego a portion of interest, or an "on paper" loss of anticipated returns due to the longer timeline for repayment -- I don't know. But investing always involves risk, and the question is whether he acted in good faith, or rather set out to defraud, to fail or to cheat investors. None of the latter seems to be the case, or he would not have been able to go on as he has.
"'The first bankruptcy was the only time his personal fortune was at stake,' said Ted Connolly, a Boston bankruptcy lawyer who used Trump as model for getting out of debt in his book The Road Out Of Debt: Bankruptcy and Other Solutions to Your Financial Problems. 'He learned from it.'"
"...said Reed Smith partner Michael Venditto, who has represented clients in high profile Chapter 11 cases... 'Chapter 11 is how you reshape and restructure a company that has problems. It doesn't indicate anything nefarious or even bad management.'"
"It's better than the alternative.
"More important, said Venditto, are the repercussions Chapter 11 might have for creditors versus, say, liquidation. 'You can have a visceral reaction to the fact that this company has gone through Chapter 11 multiple times, but the bondholders look at it and the alternatives are much, much worse. What is an empty casino sitting on the Atlantic City boardwalk worth? If it's operating and it's got cash flow and income, it may not be able to pay back every cent on the dollar, but the creditors are better off in the long run.'""Atlantic City lawyer Viscount doesn't believe Donald Trump himself should be held accountable for any of his company's bankruptcies -- his creditors, he said, knew what they were getting themselves into when they lent Trump money over and over again. 'They're all big boys and girls,' he said. 'They've all played this game before, in the insolvency space... What does that tell you? People want to lend him money. He does grandiose things with it.'"
"...Viscount doesn't think Trump has misused the system at all. 'Chapter 11, in my view, is the ultimate business transaction forum,' he said. 'It's the place you go to keep a business alive and well. He's done nothing inappropriate.'"
As to the criminal fraud investigations, since Trump was not prosecuted or convicted, I thought it was obvious that there was "another side to the story." However, how many previous presidential candidates have you supported who were investigated for criminal fraud?
None other than McCain, to my knowlege. I do not know what criminal fraud investigations you refer to, and not being his biographer, I didn't look them up, and you didn't provide a citation, so that's another reason I called your post "on the level of gossip."
I do think several presidential candidates probably should have been. Hillary leaps to mind; and Bill Clinton's Whitewater scandal was a huge part of his campaign. LBJ was accused of massive voter fraud in his political career on the way to the U.S. Senate, IIRC -- there's a detailed account of it in a 4-volume biography by Robert Caro. And I did read that Bill Clinton had to pay $850,000 to Paula Jones for sexually harassing her, and he was also disbarred, which astonishingly hasn't seemed to faze much of the public; nor have they held him to account for the credible accusations of sexual harassment and even of rape that the victims were, in turn, harassed for making by Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton's brother did some shady deal; George W. Bush's brother Neil and John McCain were accused of being in a deal involving bank improprieties, and only the brother seemed to suffer legal punishment for it, not McCain -- but I may be misremembering.
Do I think that gives others a free pass? It doesn't. But from everything I read about the Trump Atlantic City property that has caused all four of the Ch 11 reorganizations, I cannot say that Trump set out to defraud others -- he seems to have very much wanted it to succeed and I'm sure the bad press and stress concerned him greatly -- he has said as much.
Given that he has some 30 other hotel or tower buildings under management and about 7 or 8 golf resorts, this one lemon in Atlantic City was a valuable learning experience relatively early in his career that probably made him much more skilled since then. Thomas Edison spoke about the necessity to fail, even fail many times, before he succeeded in creating the light bulb and recording devices that have revoltutionized the entire world. Failure isn't always totally bad.
As to Trump's voting record, it is authentic. Unfortunately, you failed to read my Comments on that thread. I consulted the original article published by the Daily Mail, which was not the article posted at Free Republic. The "R" does not stand for Republican. The "R" under "Ballot Type" stands for "Regular." The "R" under "Voter Type" stands for "Registered."
Thank you for clarifying the "R"s in the voting record graphic. I will not therfore use it as an illustration any more. It's unfortunate again that you told me I "failed" to read your comments on it on another thread, to which you had not pinged me nor provided a link. I'm not a mind reader, and do think your "tone" could have been less judgmental in that regard. If you can find in in your past pings, I'd appreciate a ping to that thread in which you cited the source as DailyMail.
In your earlier post 232 you wrote,
Four of his companies have filed for bankruptcy protection. In spite of being a billionaire, Trump has made no attempt to pay back the investors and vendors who lost money in those companies."
As the above article and many other articles about the Atlantic City bankruptcies make clear, Trump did indeed pay in large sums of money into the reorganization, including selling his yacht and shuttle plane (which he also used for business) and surrendering shares in the company. So your claim is, as I noted, on the level of common gossip and not researched, accurate or fair.
Also from post 232:
Between 2000-2012, he quit, joined, or re-joined three different political parties six times... Sorry - I don't believe a word the man says.
Again, you write "no attempt", "not a word the man says" -- these are absolute, black-and-white statements that cannot logically or factually be true. He has obviously said many words that even you believe. What your form of expression shows is an unwillingness to look at phenomena below the level of an immediate visceral reaction, as described in the quote from attorney Venditto in the Forbes passages above. As that expert indicated, one can't always draw hard-an-fast conclusions at a glance.
Here is today's Cruz-supporter FR thread about his changing political parties, something I have also done when I was doing business in large cities and then moved to another large city, in order be able to compete for municipal business. How I voted (R) was private. He was a businessman, not a politician:
Who is Right about Donald Trump's Political Party Affiliations?
I'm not going to speculate here on Trump's reasons, but many details of why these changes may have been so are stated or implied in a number of biographical pieces on the net. Long story short, are you voting for a party? An ideology? A person? Or a platform?
Trump seems to fall into the latter two categories. I support him because those who upheld the banner for the party and the ideology for the past years since Reagan, and even Reagan to some extent, have steadily eroded the first two to an unrecognizeable state; and have left the country in ruins either by omission or commission. We are in a grave crisis now and our country needs what corporations call a "turnaround artist"; someone who is a problem-solver, a planner, a builder, a negotiator, a hard nose.
Content yourself with knowing that if he fails as president, it won't be perceived as a failure of Republicanism or of conservativism, although I think he is quite conservative in many regards.
Then again, if he fails as president, and even if he fails to get nominated or elected as president, it won't much matter -- there won't be much of anything left for conservatives to conserve. To me, at present, Trump seems to be the man for a time such as this.
That's incorrect, Albion. Here is my first statement to you:
“Four of his companies have filed for bankruptcy protection. In spite of being a billionaire, Trump has made no attempt to pay back the investors and vendors who lost money in those companies.”
I never said a word about personal bankruptcy.
As to surrendering part of his personal wealth and exchanging part of his ownership for unpaid debts, he could have done that BEFORE anything went to court. But he did not do that. Instead, the courts had to ORDER him to surrender personal wealth and to exchange equity for unpaid debts.
Re: “But investing always involves risk, and the question is whether he acted in good faith, or rather set out to defraud, to fail or to cheat investors.”
No, that's not the question. In other posts you have praised Trump's business skills, and you have suggested that only someone like Trump can rescue America's fractured finances. Sorry, I disagree. Any politician who has been sued for fraud, and settles out of court, and does not release the full details of that settlement, is instantly suspect in my mind.
Re: “While the bankers may have had some of their anticipated profits reduced...”
Re: “...the creditors got not only some of their money back, they may have received most of their capital back...
Albion, it costs millions of dollars to file for a Chapter 11 corporate restructure.
If the bankers had just lost interest, if the other creditors had received most of their payments, these four cases would have NEVER gone to court.
Re: “I do not know what criminal fraud investigations you refer to...”
In 2002, the SEC investigated Trump for misleading claims in a corporate financial statement.
In 2013, the New York AG investigated Trump for fraud at Trump University.
In the late 70’s and 80’s, Trump was questioned several times by different agencies about his alleged financial relationship with New York area organized crime families.
Re: The “R” issue
The voting record graphic you posted is identical to the graphic posted on the Free Republic post I debunked several days ago.
I assumed you got that graphic at the exact same Free Republic post I read and commented on.
The posted article I read had the Daily Mail link at the bottom. Apparently, I was the only person at Free Republic who had enough curiosity to read the original.
Re: “Between 2000-2012, he quit, joined, or re-joined three different political parties six times.”
2000 - Quit GOP - Joined Reform - Sought Reform’s presidential nomination.
2004 - Quit Reform - Joined Democrats - Sought Democrat presidential nomination
2006 - Sought Democrat nomination for New York governor
2012 - Quit Democrats - Re-joined GOP - Briefly sought GOP presidential nomination
Bottom Line - Do you and the other Trump supporters here at Free Republic have any idea what the election professionals in the Democrat Party and the MSM are going to do Trump in the general election just with the few issues I posted about in this Comment?