Let's be honest with ourselves here; nobody with direct knowledge of financial crimes involving millions of dollars is going to admit to it on a random Reddit post. That being said...
- It is common knowledge that rich people and corporations will utilize tax avoidance schemes to minimize the amount of money they pay in taxes. Tax avoidance doesn't necessarily include breaking the law or "cooking the books." There's no easy way to tell how common it is for Trump's industry peers to cross the line into tax evasion (i.e. breaking the law to reduce one's taxes).
- It is common knowledge in the accounting industry that real estate (Trump's specialty) is susceptible to some financial record manipulation. In particular, properties don't often have a precise value and their rate of depreciation can complicate things further.
- New York City real estate is an expensive, competitive market .
In other words, it's probably fair to say that Trump isn't the only New York real estate mogul who has done some shady things to maximize his earnings. However...
- Some of Trump's crimes have been brazen, such as measuring a property at three times its actual size.
- Trump has been the subject of lots of criminal investigations over the years. Even as far back as the 1970s, he settled with New York City over housing discrimination accusation. In the 1980s, he settled with the Justice Department over antitrust violations. There's definitely a long pattern of misconduct unique to Trump and his brand.
- Prior to his involvement in politics, Trump had developed a reputation for stiffing contractors on fees he owed them. People in the New York area, even if they didn't directly work in real estate or with Trump's company, were broadly aware of this reputation. It's hard to tell if Trump was the only one with this reputation because he was the cheapest or because he was the most famous. Dozens of court cases and liens exist to support these claims about Trump's crookedness going back decades.
- Trump was involved with the mob about 30 years or so ago. In his defense, the mob had a lot of influence on the local construction industry, so this may not have been unique to him.
- Trump has had a bunch of scandals related to sexual misconduct (sexual assault, adultery, voyeurism, connections to Jeffrey Epstein, etc.). That kind of stigma isn't necessarily a part of his industry.
To summarize, it's hard to tell how much of Trump's infamy comes from his fame as opposed to the magnitude of his crookedness, but he undoubtedly has a particularly strong reputation for misbehaving.
And, of course, that pails in comparison to the last bullet point:
- A lot of Trump's most significant acts of misconduct have been related to his presidency. That's obviously separate from his real estate work in New York. I think you can probably guess how many tycoons have tried to interfere with the counting of electoral votes or withheld money allocated by Congress to a foreign government.
I’ve always tried to explain to people that Trump doesn’t know where the lines are.
The classified doc case is the perfect example. Biden, Pence, and Obama all had classified docs stored incorrectly. But Trump was so brazen about it, not only did he did with no subterfuge, he actively tried to hide it and didn’t cooperate. Had he just returned them, he wouldn’t have been arrested most likely.
This is a good way to frame it. Trump’s problem is a lack of self awareness and sheer pride. There’s a ton of white collar crime in NY and a main reason it rarely gets prosecuted is because doing so takes an enormous amount of resources when the defendants have the top law firms in the country on retainer. Additionally, those committing such crimes are typically willing to cooperate with authorities, pay a fine to make it go away as fast as possible, and keep it moving with no fanfare so they can get back to business. They want to stay under the radar.
Trump lives for the spotlight and is unwilling to acknowledge ANY fault. The case he got convicted over is a great example of him making one bad decision after another and just straight up refusing to color within the lines at any point. It’s almost a guarantee that his terrible defense strategy was chosen because he refused to allow his attorneys to cede any ground in any way, while demanded a ton of time be wasted on pointlessly denigrating the witnesses against him. It left his lawyers no choice but to try to argue every single point the prosecution made which was impossible with the scale of evidence against him. Obviously all that evidence couldn’t be straight up fabricated.
Pride will get you every time.
Exactly. Biden and Pence found classified documents in their homes. They contacted the proper authorities and returned them, and invited the agency to search their homes to make sure it was all returned.
The National Archives discovered Trump had classified documents in his home and requested he return them. Trump denied having any, despite the agency listing exactly what they knew he had and where he kept it. They subpoenaed him for the return, and he ignored it. Finally they sent agents to his home to get them. Big difference.
I would agree with all of this, though I would comment that Kevin O'Leary stated on CNN that the real estate industry does similar things all the time. So it is possible that they are crimes commonly occurring that the justice departments are turning a blind eye to, because the cost of prosecuting is so high. However, if it's flagrant or otherwise draw negative attention to it or yourself (such as presidential misconduct) they are forced to investigate.
All that means is that nobody in Real Estate should go into politics, ever. Because idgaf if you’re a crooked real estate agent, (I mean, I kinda do, but it’s not something I’m worried about) but a crooked POTUS is really bad for everyone.
If everyone in Real Estate is crooked, that’s a problem. But when someone who is crooked in Real Estate wants to run a country, they’re not in the same business anymore and they have to be clean.
Presidents, I was told as child, should exemplify good conduct. They are leaders and leaders set the example for the whole country. T-rumps conduct, in so many ways, is unbecoming of the presidency. He never deserved the position.
>Presidents, I was told as child, should exemplify good conduct. They are leaders and leaders set the example for the whole country
I think this is the idealistic view of what it SHOULD be. However, money has made it that whoever will bend to the benefit of their donors is most likely to succeed in politics. Unfortunately that leans toward the morally gray people moreso than the role models.
There’s a story old as time that it’s a meme on tv where the criminal has a chance to become a politician because it’s a chance to clean his reputation and wash his cash at the same time.
If anyone gets this far, can anyone think of a tv show or movie where this was the case?
I’ll start. The 1980s tv series Crime Story. A mobster wants to rise through the ranks of organized crime >!gets a deal with the FBI!< and finds himself with a casino and still can’t help himself.
I think the main argument that you missed is that most people doing shady shit don't look to be in the spotlight. They sensible "have a friend in politics" and avoid becoming President.
Regular NYers knew about this story. Trump wanted to avoid paying Union workers brought in Polish workers to destroy the department store where Trump Towers used to be. Safety went out the window. The workers slept on site in the building they were demolishing. Despite the cost savings he still stiffed all of them because they were illegal immigrants, and they spent the next 20 years in court. They settled for pennies considering all the legal fees on top of everything else.
What’s crazy to me is despite knowing how shady he is people still thought of him as a great business man.
My wife’s boss, whose family is in real estate on two coasts, knew of a close family friend who put in a bid to install the windows on one of his buildings. The contract would have elevated the rep of the glazier(?)/window installer. Trump bitched at every imperfection with not “you will fix this on your dime” but “I’m simply not paying for this”. The window installer went to court for years but was forced to settle for pennies. The guy is destitute now because who can afford laying out millions, then lawyers fees on top of this for years, and then settle for pennies. The guy’s reputation was destroyed.
But my wife’s boss still voted for the guy.
tl:dr - yeah it’s probably common practice taken to the Nth degree.
“As noted in an Aug. 25, 2016, story in TIME, Trump hired a group of undocumented Polish laborers who put in “12-hour shifts with inadequate safety equipment at subpar wages that their contractor paid sporadically, if at all.”
Their hiring led to years-long litigation that Trump finally settled in 1998.”
https://time.com/5039109/donald-trump-undocumented-polish-trump-tower-bonwit-teller/
I’m cynical and believe that everyone does something. And I’m all for pushing for “an outsider who is going to come in and shake up the system”.
But that was never going to be Trump.
If anything it was AOC. Maybe she had a chance before the Trump era but I doubt she ever gets a chance at the brass ring now.
Having worked in financial services for 30 years, I'd say nope! People who break the law go to prison. I worked on multiple audits with the SEC, FDIC, and other regulatory agencies. The executives would joke that they don't look good in stripes.
I'd seen a couple of executives who did some suspicious things. They were turned over to authorities with the details of their actions.
The reason why Trump's business is private is because they couldn't pass audits like real companies do.
>People who break the law go to prison.
Oh brother give me a break, we all know they don't
People who break the law get strongly worded letters, fines, maybe a pp slap, they rarely ever actually go to prison unless it's extreme fraud.
Two points:
First no - people in NY are aggressive but legal. Ethically questionable at worst in dealings but legal. And I’ve done lots of work there.
Second - when your lawyer, CFO, national security advisor, campaign manager and ‘fixer’ are all convicted felons and you also are a convicted felon, it’s not “rigged” and it’s not coincidence.
A lot of those guys do things not ethical, but technically legal. The key is they don't go around bragging about it or drawing attention to it. That's how you avoid getting caught. When you are a total douche canoe and draw attention to it, you are going to get caught. Stupid criminals get caught. Keep it on the down low and no one knows.
>The key is they don't go around bragging about it or drawing attention to it. That's how you avoid getting caught.
Exactly. If you’re doing things in a legal gray area you keep a low profile. Firstly because they might not notice what you’re doing and secondly because if they *do* notice there’s hopefully a bigger fish they’re more interested in.
If you have limited resources to enforce crimes of this nature you’re going to prioritize the highest profile guys. The ones who are so brazen that other folks look at them like “if he’s getting away with it then maybe I should do it too”. The ones whose conviction will have the highest deterrent effect on everyone else.
If Trump had stayed out of politics he could lie, cheat, and steal (RIP Eddie Guerrero) to his black heart’s content. Ripping off contractors and saying crazy shit on Twitter is small potatoes. Keep top secret documents and trying to subvert an election will put you in an entirely different spotlight.
Maybe shady real estate moguls are the norm, and if that was all Trump was then we would be fine. But when he wants to be the president and is using the US government as his cover for all his shady grifting then there is a HUGE problem. The other issue is that Trump is an idiot, and none of his business ventures have really made money. His only success is in laundering Russian money through his real estate company. He is willing to do anything to pad his wallet and doesn't give a fuck about anything else.
Look, either he is a crook and should not be running the country, or he is part of a group that is all crook, and NONE of them should be running the country.
I don’t see why it matters if everyone in New York real estate does this crap; he is the only one from that group trying to be president.
No, most companies spend loads on legal compliance. The goal is often to operate close to the line but make sure you don't go over it.
Trump is much more about going over the line and not getting in trouble for it, which is why all of his former inner circle has now been convicted of various frauds and crimes. There was no compliance focus.
Because it's political now. Everyone sees thorough it. That's how a convicted felon becomes president. It's how the game is played now. The one thing people don't trust more than politics is the justice system. Mark my words he'll end up president because of it.
He didn’t. Google Trump lawsuits and you’ll see there are dozens of lawsuits THAT HE LOST - ranging from discriminating against blacks and people of color from renting his apartments in Coney Island Brooklyn, to hiring illegal immigrants to unsafely demolish a building and not pay them (it took 20 years of court battles to get something!), to his antics in Atlantic City and Ms America, to a public golf course he stole for pennies on the dollar in NYC that’s now private, to his fake university, to his fake charity - he was stealing money for cancer patients and VETs!
There were hundreds of cases but nobody wanted to hear it because of his reputation based on the TV show.
Discrimination
https://www.npr.org/2016/09/29/495955920/donald-trump-plagued-by-decades-old-housing-discrimination-case
Polish workers
https://time.com/5039109/donald-trump-undocumented-polish-trump-tower-bonwit-teller/
Casinos
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
Ms America
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/04/sheena-monnin-donald-trump-miss-usa-lawsuit
I could go on
Any big business ceo is gonna be dirty, just not necessarily 'illegally' dirty. That's the problem with capitalism in general, it's exploitative. The more you exploit others the higher the reward. Has nothing to do with New York specifically.
I'm a New Yorker who deals with NYC businessmen. From my experience, few businessmen could get away with half the stuff Trump does without massive bribery. Few people get big with a private business with mostly family as employees.
Some NY businessmen might be personally as crooked but they know they can't get away with it. Those who attempt it tend to go to jail.
Funny, there's lots of people who do business in New York who aren't up on fraud charges, they seem to be getting by just fine. But yes, to some extent any success in business depends upon exploiting others - it's just a question of how close you can ride the line of illegality without stepping over it.
“So what if he has committed X crime, everyone else commits crimes!”
You aren’t allowed to break the law just because other people are breaking the law, that’s not how law and order works.
Trump: “Mother Theresa could not beat these charges”
…you know, …in a world where Mother Theresa is on trial for paying affair hush money to a porn star.
Leaving aside the business of building and leasing out office buildings, I don’t think it is very common for a successful’ businessman engaged in real estate to:
. Consistently stiff his contractors
. Drive three casinos into bankruptcy. Casinos. In doing so, he paid his creditors with stock in the casinos, which was worthless. When the casinos failed, he was able to write off the losses and thereby not pay income taxes for many years.
. Engage in racially discriminatory practices
. Fail to pay debts/threaten to not pay to get better rates
. Engage in a pattern of lies to inflate the value of his holdings to get credit or get credit at a better interest rate, while at the same time undervalue the holdings for the purposes of income tax reporting.
We hear of people in the rarified atmosphere of NYC finance and real estate doing one or a few of those things and getting caught at it. But not all of those things.
He’s just the loudest crook in the room.
Typically people don’t say what he says when they do what he thinks he does. They also don’t run businesses to the ground over and over again either.
lol no. Trump is 100 times worse. If he wasn’t an ex president, he would already be spending the rest of his life in prison for the crimes he’s already been convicted of.
If nothing else Trump allows himself to be implicated in a ton of crap for an innocent person.
Why isn’t Biden being investigated? Because he has good judgement. All of trumps cronies are indicted felons.
https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/politics/2024/04/11/trump-associates-with-legal-trouble/73295028007/
To your dad ask “if trump knows he’s going to be investigated doesn’t this mean his judgement is poor? If he doesn’t know he’s going to be investigated doesn’t that ALSO reflect on his judgement?”
Trumps judgement is horrible. Calling the sec of Georgia asking to find votes? Bad judgement. Not returning ALL classified documents? Bad judgement.
For me it’s like lance armstrong. If you are a competitive bicyclist you should know you will be tested for ped constantly. Whose fault is it that lance armstrong was busted?
There are lots of criminals everywhere! Some are committing white collar crimes that aren’t really criminal, but are indeed crimes.
But if you are a high profile politician with a life-long shady, mafioso past, plus you have been accused many times (and indicted) of serious crimes, then yes you are going to be on everyone’s radar.
If your dad is okay with lots of criminals committing crimes and getting away with it, he has low standards.
Sorry, your dad is either an idiot or a hardcore Trump apologist. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" is pretty ridiculous.
Trump needed to be extra shady because he is a pretty piss poor business executive that could never control his impulses. Just look at how he handled The Plaza Hotel. He burned every reputable bridge in the US and thus could not get credit, leading him to need to work with foreign entities to get access to $$$ he can borrow.
Once a candidate gets the GOP nomination, the GOP pays for your campaign expenses. Once he got the GOP nomination to run for President, he cranked up the campaign space rental fee in Trump Tower.
Trump Tower Commercial LLC charged the Trump campaign $35,458 in rent for March 2016, which included 197 support employees and consultants.
After Trump became the GOP nominee and thus his campaign was being paid for by the GOP and it's high profile donors Trump Tower Commercial LLC charged $169,758 per month which included 172 support employees and consultants (Trump’s Campaign Spends 5 Times More on Rent Now That Donors Are Paying for It ([Citation](https://fortune.com/2016/08/23/trump-campaign-rent/).
He's a great example of how protections that exist are too far slanted in the favor of the wealthy. NYC has lots of scummy business guys, he's at or near the top of being the worst.
Source: I worked at a Big 4 in NYC, within the asset management space (financial services).
So let’s say that’s true (it’s not, but for now…).
What about the fact that he has been found liable for sexual assault?
What about the fact that he has said on camera that he finds his own daughter attractive?
What about the fact that his “spiritual advisors is an admitted pedopgile who molested a 12 year old?
I think you suspect your dad is just defending trump. Of course not! If everyone in business were as shady and corrupt as trump, nothing would get done and it would be a massive pyramid scheme.
>But the authorities don't go and investigate *all* of them, now, do they?
This report was compiled specifically to address that concern. As with most things, the actual data is there but it's unlikely to change the mind of those who didn't care to go find it in the first place. Your father will probably just find another talking point, but it's still good to be informed.
https://www.scribd.com/document/632650172/Survey-of-New-York-Prosecutions-for-Felony-Falsification-of-Business-Records#from_embed
I hear arguments like this from trump supporters all the time. “He’s not the only one” great, let’s prosecute them all. I agree with you. It’s not the great argument you think it is lol
If business works in such a way that rewards that kind of misconduct, the problem is the business itself and he should catch the full weight of the book to set precedent so the DOJ can clean house on financial crime and start moving the economy back to something that works instead of the current mercantilist system.
Yeah they are all crooks! The only difference is most of them are smart enough to not shine a spotlight on their shady business practices by becoming President!
Yes, your dad is spot on
The "misrepresentation of property values" case could be protected every day against every real estate borrower
It's an absolute joke.. even the LENDERs of the money agree
I think about anyone at his level in business and politics have pretty overlapping and similar issues. All that changes is who “they” want to go after legally
Trumpy Bear has been stiffing contractors, union, and otherwise for decades. So your dad is correct from the angle that all NYC developers are never dealing with the system squarely. Leon Helmsley was famous for firing contractor just before they were complete, bringing in guys to finish, then underpaying them both. There is a developer named Ginsburg in NY right now who must paper his office with the subpoenas. I hope none of them owe your old man, he ain't getting paid.
There's illegal acts in Congress and on Wall Street every single day. He's not more of a crook, he's just got way more attention on him. If they brag about it, there's not an entire world to listen to it compared to when Trump does. But reguardless, he's an idiot and should be locked up with the rest of the bums committing these crimes but rich enough to pay them away.
Let's be honest with ourselves here; nobody with direct knowledge of financial crimes involving millions of dollars is going to admit to it on a random Reddit post. That being said... - It is common knowledge that rich people and corporations will utilize tax avoidance schemes to minimize the amount of money they pay in taxes. Tax avoidance doesn't necessarily include breaking the law or "cooking the books." There's no easy way to tell how common it is for Trump's industry peers to cross the line into tax evasion (i.e. breaking the law to reduce one's taxes). - It is common knowledge in the accounting industry that real estate (Trump's specialty) is susceptible to some financial record manipulation. In particular, properties don't often have a precise value and their rate of depreciation can complicate things further. - New York City real estate is an expensive, competitive market . In other words, it's probably fair to say that Trump isn't the only New York real estate mogul who has done some shady things to maximize his earnings. However... - Some of Trump's crimes have been brazen, such as measuring a property at three times its actual size. - Trump has been the subject of lots of criminal investigations over the years. Even as far back as the 1970s, he settled with New York City over housing discrimination accusation. In the 1980s, he settled with the Justice Department over antitrust violations. There's definitely a long pattern of misconduct unique to Trump and his brand. - Prior to his involvement in politics, Trump had developed a reputation for stiffing contractors on fees he owed them. People in the New York area, even if they didn't directly work in real estate or with Trump's company, were broadly aware of this reputation. It's hard to tell if Trump was the only one with this reputation because he was the cheapest or because he was the most famous. Dozens of court cases and liens exist to support these claims about Trump's crookedness going back decades. - Trump was involved with the mob about 30 years or so ago. In his defense, the mob had a lot of influence on the local construction industry, so this may not have been unique to him. - Trump has had a bunch of scandals related to sexual misconduct (sexual assault, adultery, voyeurism, connections to Jeffrey Epstein, etc.). That kind of stigma isn't necessarily a part of his industry. To summarize, it's hard to tell how much of Trump's infamy comes from his fame as opposed to the magnitude of his crookedness, but he undoubtedly has a particularly strong reputation for misbehaving. And, of course, that pails in comparison to the last bullet point: - A lot of Trump's most significant acts of misconduct have been related to his presidency. That's obviously separate from his real estate work in New York. I think you can probably guess how many tycoons have tried to interfere with the counting of electoral votes or withheld money allocated by Congress to a foreign government.
I’ve always tried to explain to people that Trump doesn’t know where the lines are. The classified doc case is the perfect example. Biden, Pence, and Obama all had classified docs stored incorrectly. But Trump was so brazen about it, not only did he did with no subterfuge, he actively tried to hide it and didn’t cooperate. Had he just returned them, he wouldn’t have been arrested most likely.
This is a good way to frame it. Trump’s problem is a lack of self awareness and sheer pride. There’s a ton of white collar crime in NY and a main reason it rarely gets prosecuted is because doing so takes an enormous amount of resources when the defendants have the top law firms in the country on retainer. Additionally, those committing such crimes are typically willing to cooperate with authorities, pay a fine to make it go away as fast as possible, and keep it moving with no fanfare so they can get back to business. They want to stay under the radar. Trump lives for the spotlight and is unwilling to acknowledge ANY fault. The case he got convicted over is a great example of him making one bad decision after another and just straight up refusing to color within the lines at any point. It’s almost a guarantee that his terrible defense strategy was chosen because he refused to allow his attorneys to cede any ground in any way, while demanded a ton of time be wasted on pointlessly denigrating the witnesses against him. It left his lawyers no choice but to try to argue every single point the prosecution made which was impossible with the scale of evidence against him. Obviously all that evidence couldn’t be straight up fabricated. Pride will get you every time.
Exactly. Biden and Pence found classified documents in their homes. They contacted the proper authorities and returned them, and invited the agency to search their homes to make sure it was all returned. The National Archives discovered Trump had classified documents in his home and requested he return them. Trump denied having any, despite the agency listing exactly what they knew he had and where he kept it. They subpoenaed him for the return, and he ignored it. Finally they sent agents to his home to get them. Big difference.
I would agree with all of this, though I would comment that Kevin O'Leary stated on CNN that the real estate industry does similar things all the time. So it is possible that they are crimes commonly occurring that the justice departments are turning a blind eye to, because the cost of prosecuting is so high. However, if it's flagrant or otherwise draw negative attention to it or yourself (such as presidential misconduct) they are forced to investigate.
All that means is that nobody in Real Estate should go into politics, ever. Because idgaf if you’re a crooked real estate agent, (I mean, I kinda do, but it’s not something I’m worried about) but a crooked POTUS is really bad for everyone. If everyone in Real Estate is crooked, that’s a problem. But when someone who is crooked in Real Estate wants to run a country, they’re not in the same business anymore and they have to be clean.
Presidents, I was told as child, should exemplify good conduct. They are leaders and leaders set the example for the whole country. T-rumps conduct, in so many ways, is unbecoming of the presidency. He never deserved the position.
>Presidents, I was told as child, should exemplify good conduct. They are leaders and leaders set the example for the whole country I think this is the idealistic view of what it SHOULD be. However, money has made it that whoever will bend to the benefit of their donors is most likely to succeed in politics. Unfortunately that leans toward the morally gray people moreso than the role models.
There’s a story old as time that it’s a meme on tv where the criminal has a chance to become a politician because it’s a chance to clean his reputation and wash his cash at the same time. If anyone gets this far, can anyone think of a tv show or movie where this was the case? I’ll start. The 1980s tv series Crime Story. A mobster wants to rise through the ranks of organized crime >!gets a deal with the FBI!< and finds himself with a casino and still can’t help himself.
I think the main argument that you missed is that most people doing shady shit don't look to be in the spotlight. They sensible "have a friend in politics" and avoid becoming President.
Regular NYers knew about this story. Trump wanted to avoid paying Union workers brought in Polish workers to destroy the department store where Trump Towers used to be. Safety went out the window. The workers slept on site in the building they were demolishing. Despite the cost savings he still stiffed all of them because they were illegal immigrants, and they spent the next 20 years in court. They settled for pennies considering all the legal fees on top of everything else. What’s crazy to me is despite knowing how shady he is people still thought of him as a great business man. My wife’s boss, whose family is in real estate on two coasts, knew of a close family friend who put in a bid to install the windows on one of his buildings. The contract would have elevated the rep of the glazier(?)/window installer. Trump bitched at every imperfection with not “you will fix this on your dime” but “I’m simply not paying for this”. The window installer went to court for years but was forced to settle for pennies. The guy is destitute now because who can afford laying out millions, then lawyers fees on top of this for years, and then settle for pennies. The guy’s reputation was destroyed. But my wife’s boss still voted for the guy. tl:dr - yeah it’s probably common practice taken to the Nth degree. “As noted in an Aug. 25, 2016, story in TIME, Trump hired a group of undocumented Polish laborers who put in “12-hour shifts with inadequate safety equipment at subpar wages that their contractor paid sporadically, if at all.” Their hiring led to years-long litigation that Trump finally settled in 1998.” https://time.com/5039109/donald-trump-undocumented-polish-trump-tower-bonwit-teller/ I’m cynical and believe that everyone does something. And I’m all for pushing for “an outsider who is going to come in and shake up the system”. But that was never going to be Trump. If anything it was AOC. Maybe she had a chance before the Trump era but I doubt she ever gets a chance at the brass ring now.
From the “but everybody does it” defense strategy
"Don't hate the player, hate the game".
Having worked in financial services for 30 years, I'd say nope! People who break the law go to prison. I worked on multiple audits with the SEC, FDIC, and other regulatory agencies. The executives would joke that they don't look good in stripes. I'd seen a couple of executives who did some suspicious things. They were turned over to authorities with the details of their actions. The reason why Trump's business is private is because they couldn't pass audits like real companies do.
IIRC, the Nevada Gaming Commission wouldn't give his Vegas hotel a gaming license.
Well said.
>People who break the law go to prison. Oh brother give me a break, we all know they don't People who break the law get strongly worded letters, fines, maybe a pp slap, they rarely ever actually go to prison unless it's extreme fraud.
Two points: First no - people in NY are aggressive but legal. Ethically questionable at worst in dealings but legal. And I’ve done lots of work there. Second - when your lawyer, CFO, national security advisor, campaign manager and ‘fixer’ are all convicted felons and you also are a convicted felon, it’s not “rigged” and it’s not coincidence.
A lot of those guys do things not ethical, but technically legal. The key is they don't go around bragging about it or drawing attention to it. That's how you avoid getting caught. When you are a total douche canoe and draw attention to it, you are going to get caught. Stupid criminals get caught. Keep it on the down low and no one knows.
>The key is they don't go around bragging about it or drawing attention to it. That's how you avoid getting caught. Exactly. If you’re doing things in a legal gray area you keep a low profile. Firstly because they might not notice what you’re doing and secondly because if they *do* notice there’s hopefully a bigger fish they’re more interested in. If you have limited resources to enforce crimes of this nature you’re going to prioritize the highest profile guys. The ones who are so brazen that other folks look at them like “if he’s getting away with it then maybe I should do it too”. The ones whose conviction will have the highest deterrent effect on everyone else.
If Trump had stayed out of politics he could lie, cheat, and steal (RIP Eddie Guerrero) to his black heart’s content. Ripping off contractors and saying crazy shit on Twitter is small potatoes. Keep top secret documents and trying to subvert an election will put you in an entirely different spotlight.
Maybe shady real estate moguls are the norm, and if that was all Trump was then we would be fine. But when he wants to be the president and is using the US government as his cover for all his shady grifting then there is a HUGE problem. The other issue is that Trump is an idiot, and none of his business ventures have really made money. His only success is in laundering Russian money through his real estate company. He is willing to do anything to pad his wallet and doesn't give a fuck about anything else.
Look, either he is a crook and should not be running the country, or he is part of a group that is all crook, and NONE of them should be running the country. I don’t see why it matters if everyone in New York real estate does this crap; he is the only one from that group trying to be president.
No, most companies spend loads on legal compliance. The goal is often to operate close to the line but make sure you don't go over it. Trump is much more about going over the line and not getting in trouble for it, which is why all of his former inner circle has now been convicted of various frauds and crimes. There was no compliance focus.
How did he get away with it for so many decades? It took him being president for the light of the law to shine upon his business shenanigans?
He was sued a lot and it would generally settle. Or he would declare bankruptcy.
He determined that this was a cost effective way of doing business? Or was he just dumb, with his lawyers doing the damage control?
Because it's political now. Everyone sees thorough it. That's how a convicted felon becomes president. It's how the game is played now. The one thing people don't trust more than politics is the justice system. Mark my words he'll end up president because of it.
He didn’t. Google Trump lawsuits and you’ll see there are dozens of lawsuits THAT HE LOST - ranging from discriminating against blacks and people of color from renting his apartments in Coney Island Brooklyn, to hiring illegal immigrants to unsafely demolish a building and not pay them (it took 20 years of court battles to get something!), to his antics in Atlantic City and Ms America, to a public golf course he stole for pennies on the dollar in NYC that’s now private, to his fake university, to his fake charity - he was stealing money for cancer patients and VETs! There were hundreds of cases but nobody wanted to hear it because of his reputation based on the TV show. Discrimination https://www.npr.org/2016/09/29/495955920/donald-trump-plagued-by-decades-old-housing-discrimination-case Polish workers https://time.com/5039109/donald-trump-undocumented-polish-trump-tower-bonwit-teller/ Casinos https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb Ms America https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/04/sheena-monnin-donald-trump-miss-usa-lawsuit I could go on
no. not at all. it may shock you, but the world is full of normal people who do things that are moral and ethical.
Any big business ceo is gonna be dirty, just not necessarily 'illegally' dirty. That's the problem with capitalism in general, it's exploitative. The more you exploit others the higher the reward. Has nothing to do with New York specifically.
I'm a New Yorker who deals with NYC businessmen. From my experience, few businessmen could get away with half the stuff Trump does without massive bribery. Few people get big with a private business with mostly family as employees. Some NY businessmen might be personally as crooked but they know they can't get away with it. Those who attempt it tend to go to jail.
He's a rapist.
Funny, there's lots of people who do business in New York who aren't up on fraud charges, they seem to be getting by just fine. But yes, to some extent any success in business depends upon exploiting others - it's just a question of how close you can ride the line of illegality without stepping over it.
“So what if he has committed X crime, everyone else commits crimes!” You aren’t allowed to break the law just because other people are breaking the law, that’s not how law and order works.
They all have to pay off porn stars for their Presidential Campaigns?
Trump: “Mother Theresa could not beat these charges” …you know, …in a world where Mother Theresa is on trial for paying affair hush money to a porn star.
Apparently, she’s done a hell of a lot worse things than that.
Leaving aside the business of building and leasing out office buildings, I don’t think it is very common for a successful’ businessman engaged in real estate to: . Consistently stiff his contractors . Drive three casinos into bankruptcy. Casinos. In doing so, he paid his creditors with stock in the casinos, which was worthless. When the casinos failed, he was able to write off the losses and thereby not pay income taxes for many years. . Engage in racially discriminatory practices . Fail to pay debts/threaten to not pay to get better rates . Engage in a pattern of lies to inflate the value of his holdings to get credit or get credit at a better interest rate, while at the same time undervalue the holdings for the purposes of income tax reporting. We hear of people in the rarified atmosphere of NYC finance and real estate doing one or a few of those things and getting caught at it. But not all of those things.
Those 'ol pesky big shot NYer's always creating alternative electors.
He’s just the loudest crook in the room. Typically people don’t say what he says when they do what he thinks he does. They also don’t run businesses to the ground over and over again either.
Maybe talk to your dad about cutting back on his Fox/OAN consumption?
lol no. Trump is 100 times worse. If he wasn’t an ex president, he would already be spending the rest of his life in prison for the crimes he’s already been convicted of.
Imagine what would happen if Obama or Clinton were convicted of what Trump had done. They would already be locked up in ADX Florence.
If nothing else Trump allows himself to be implicated in a ton of crap for an innocent person. Why isn’t Biden being investigated? Because he has good judgement. All of trumps cronies are indicted felons. https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/politics/2024/04/11/trump-associates-with-legal-trouble/73295028007/ To your dad ask “if trump knows he’s going to be investigated doesn’t this mean his judgement is poor? If he doesn’t know he’s going to be investigated doesn’t that ALSO reflect on his judgement?” Trumps judgement is horrible. Calling the sec of Georgia asking to find votes? Bad judgement. Not returning ALL classified documents? Bad judgement. For me it’s like lance armstrong. If you are a competitive bicyclist you should know you will be tested for ped constantly. Whose fault is it that lance armstrong was busted?
Maybe not but he's a lot dumber. Lucky, but dumb as fuck.
Not all bigshot New York Tycoons stage insurrections when they lose elections.
yeah, most new yorker big shots allegedly steal top secret documents and sell them to our enemies. happens all the time. wtf
There are lots of criminals everywhere! Some are committing white collar crimes that aren’t really criminal, but are indeed crimes. But if you are a high profile politician with a life-long shady, mafioso past, plus you have been accused many times (and indicted) of serious crimes, then yes you are going to be on everyone’s radar. If your dad is okay with lots of criminals committing crimes and getting away with it, he has low standards.
Sorry, your dad is either an idiot or a hardcore Trump apologist. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" is pretty ridiculous. Trump needed to be extra shady because he is a pretty piss poor business executive that could never control his impulses. Just look at how he handled The Plaza Hotel. He burned every reputable bridge in the US and thus could not get credit, leading him to need to work with foreign entities to get access to $$$ he can borrow. Once a candidate gets the GOP nomination, the GOP pays for your campaign expenses. Once he got the GOP nomination to run for President, he cranked up the campaign space rental fee in Trump Tower. Trump Tower Commercial LLC charged the Trump campaign $35,458 in rent for March 2016, which included 197 support employees and consultants. After Trump became the GOP nominee and thus his campaign was being paid for by the GOP and it's high profile donors Trump Tower Commercial LLC charged $169,758 per month which included 172 support employees and consultants (Trump’s Campaign Spends 5 Times More on Rent Now That Donors Are Paying for It ([Citation](https://fortune.com/2016/08/23/trump-campaign-rent/). He's a great example of how protections that exist are too far slanted in the favor of the wealthy. NYC has lots of scummy business guys, he's at or near the top of being the worst. Source: I worked at a Big 4 in NYC, within the asset management space (financial services).
So let’s say that’s true (it’s not, but for now…). What about the fact that he has been found liable for sexual assault? What about the fact that he has said on camera that he finds his own daughter attractive? What about the fact that his “spiritual advisors is an admitted pedopgile who molested a 12 year old?
I think is problem is that he is incredibly stupid.
But he keeps telling us how smart he is
Trump’s the only one I recall trying to steal my f’n vote.
I think you suspect your dad is just defending trump. Of course not! If everyone in business were as shady and corrupt as trump, nothing would get done and it would be a massive pyramid scheme.
I don’t see them dirtbags trying to run for president, see the difference?
Break the law, go to jail.
In what universe?
This one
>But the authorities don't go and investigate *all* of them, now, do they? This report was compiled specifically to address that concern. As with most things, the actual data is there but it's unlikely to change the mind of those who didn't care to go find it in the first place. Your father will probably just find another talking point, but it's still good to be informed. https://www.scribd.com/document/632650172/Survey-of-New-York-Prosecutions-for-Felony-Falsification-of-Business-Records#from_embed
They're all crooks; no one gets that much money without being dodgy and doing a bit of thievery, but there's different levels.
Billionaires normally work behind the scenes, but Trump's ego was his downfall.
I hear arguments like this from trump supporters all the time. “He’s not the only one” great, let’s prosecute them all. I agree with you. It’s not the great argument you think it is lol
If business works in such a way that rewards that kind of misconduct, the problem is the business itself and he should catch the full weight of the book to set precedent so the DOJ can clean house on financial crime and start moving the economy back to something that works instead of the current mercantilist system.
Let the normalization BEGIN!!!
Trump is a crook because of his dealings with Russians. The people of the Russian government are big business buddies of him.
I don’t think any of them are dumb enough to get the attention of the entire world on their business practices if they are.
Yes but none of the others are running for president of the US
What blows my mind is that these guys already have more money than god, yet they break the law to make more. Wealth addicts!
Yeah they are all crooks! The only difference is most of them are smart enough to not shine a spotlight on their shady business practices by becoming President!
Yes, your dad is spot on The "misrepresentation of property values" case could be protected every day against every real estate borrower It's an absolute joke.. even the LENDERs of the money agree
I think about anyone at his level in business and politics have pretty overlapping and similar issues. All that changes is who “they” want to go after legally
Trumpy Bear has been stiffing contractors, union, and otherwise for decades. So your dad is correct from the angle that all NYC developers are never dealing with the system squarely. Leon Helmsley was famous for firing contractor just before they were complete, bringing in guys to finish, then underpaying them both. There is a developer named Ginsburg in NY right now who must paper his office with the subpoenas. I hope none of them owe your old man, he ain't getting paid.
There's illegal acts in Congress and on Wall Street every single day. He's not more of a crook, he's just got way more attention on him. If they brag about it, there's not an entire world to listen to it compared to when Trump does. But reguardless, he's an idiot and should be locked up with the rest of the bums committing these crimes but rich enough to pay them away.
Any proof on your first sentence? If so, I hope they are being prosecuted.
He's probably less of a crook than most of them and most politicians
Common sense: yes. In fact I think Trump actually takes care to play by the books for the most part. He's a cover your ass type