In article <2b92d562-08c5-487d-8681-449065df1b69
@o8g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>, ***@aol.com says...
Post by AJPost by steveh99In article <8f4bdcee-8a73-48e1-bb64-c9d111ac9ba2
@m4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, ***@aol.com says...
Post by AJNow does Obama have the guts to do it, or will he continue to hide who
he really is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MgOq9pBkY0I
LOL Who besides you gives a shit what Donald "Punpkin head" Trump
thinks?
Why doesn't a liberal like you care at all?
First of all I, like most people couldnt care less what Donald "the
bankruptcy King" Trump thinks.. He couldnt run in the primaries and win
not one state. The man is an idiot plain and simple.. He never actually
made his millions, but took over his daddy's rental house business and
never worked a day in his life
Donald Trump carried on his father's business which dealt primarily with
rental housing
Trump began his career at his father's company, the Trump Organization,
and initially concentrated on his father's preferred field of middle
class rental housing. One of his first projects was the revitalisation
of the ailing Swifton Village apartment complex in Cincinnati, Ohio -
turning a 1200 unit complex with a 66% vacancy rate to 100% occupancy
within a year. When the Trump Organization sold Swifton Village for $12
million they cleared $6 million in profit. In the 1970s he benefited
from the financially strained New York City government's willingness to
give tax concessions in exchange for investment at a time of financial
crisis with the redevelopment of the bankrupt Commodore Hotel. He was
also instrumental in steering the development of the Javits Convention
Center on property he had an option on.
The development saga of the Javits Convention Center brought Donald
Trump into contact with the New York City government when a project he'd
estimated could've been completed by his company for $110 million ended
up costing the city between $750 million to $1 billion. He offered to
take over the project at cost but the offer was not accepted.
A similar situation would arise in the city's attempt to restore the
Wollman Rink in Central Park - a project started in 1980 with an
expected 2 1/2 year construction schedule that was still, with $12
million spent, nowhere near complete in 1986. Trump offered to take over
the job at no charge to the city, an offer that was initially rebuffed
until it received much local media attention. Trump was given the job
which he completed in six months and with $750,000 of the $3 million
budgeted for the project left over. (He used the leftover money to
renovate the adjacent skatehouse and restaurant.)
Bankruptcy
By 1990, the effects of recession left Trump unable to meet loan
payments. Trump financed the construction of his third casino, the $1
billion Taj Mahal, primarily with high-interest junk bonds. That put him
at a disadvantage with competitors who used more of their own money to
finance their projects, industry experts have said. Things were so bleak
for Trump at this time that in the August 21, 1990 edition of the Jersey
Record, columnist Mike Kelly wrote "If we still had debtors' prisons,
Trump would be in the dungeon." Kelly added that "Donald Trump is a
Third World Nation." Although he shored up his businesses with
additional loans and postponed interest payments, by 1991 increasing
debt brought Trump to business bankruptcy and the brink of personal
bankruptcy. Banks and bond holders had lost hundreds of millions of
dollars, but opted to restructure his debt to avoid the risk of losing
more money in court. The Taj Mahal re-emerged from bankruptcy on Oct 5,
1991, with Trump ceding 50% ownership in the casino to the original
bondholders in exchange for lowered interest rates on the debt and more
time to pay it off.
On Nov 2, 1992, the Trump Plaza Hotel was forced to file a prepackaged
Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection plan after being unable to make its
debt payments. Under the plan, Trump agreed to give up a 49 percent
stake in the luxury hotel to Citibank and five other lenders. In return
Trump would receive more favorable terms on the remaining $550+ million
owed to the lenders and retain his position as chief executive, though
he would not be paid and would not have a role in day-to-day operations.
By 1994, Trump had eliminated a large portion of his $900 million
personal debt and reduced significantly his nearly $3.5 billion in
business debt. While he was forced to relinquish the Trump Shuttle
(which he had bought in 1989), he managed to retain Trump Tower in New
York City and control of his three casinos in Atlantic City. Chase
Manhattan Bank, which lent Trump the money to buy the West Side yards,
his biggest Manhattan parcel, forced the sale of a parcel to Asian
developers. According to former members of the Trump Organization, Trump
did not retain any ownership of the site's real estate - the owners
merely promised to give him about 30 percent of the profits once the
site was completely developed or sold. Until that time, the owners
wanted to keep Trump on to do what he did best: build things. They gave
him a modest construction fee and a management fee to oversee the
development. The new owners also allowed him to put his name on the
buildings that eventually rose on the yards because his well-known
moniker allowed them to charge a premium for their condos.
In 1995, he combined his casino holdings into the publicly held Trump
Hotels & Casino Resorts. Wall Street drove its stock above $35 in 1996,
but by 1998 it had fallen into single digits as the company remained
profitless and struggled to pay just the interest on its nearly $2
billion in debt. Under such financial pressure, the properties were
unable to make the improvements necessary for keeping up with their
flashier competitors.
Problems loomed for Trump's casino resorts. In a May 28, 2004, Wall
Street Journal article, Trump said the specter of bankruptcy bothered
him "from a psychological standpoint," but added, "it really wouldn't
matter that much." A number of his bondholders disagreed. In the same
article, Meyer Marvald, a Florida retiree who said he owned about
$44,000 of the bonds, claimed "[Trump] has the Sword of Damocles hanging
over our heads." On October 21, 2004, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts
announced a restructuring of its debt. The plan called for Trump's
individual ownership to be reduced from 56 percent to 27 percent, with
bondholders receiving stock in exchange for surrendering part of the
debt. Since then, Trump Hotels has been forced to seek voluntary
bankruptcy protection to stay afloat. After the company applied for
Chapter 11 Protection in November, 2004, Trump relinquished his CEO
position but retained a role as Chairman of the Board. In May, 2005 the
company re-emerged from bankruptcy as Trump Entertainment Resorts
Holdings.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_trump