8 ms·

Outside of the near meaningless confirmation of Trump's status as a "fake" billionaire and how that may affect his ego, there's is an alarming piece of informat

Outside of the near meaningless confirmation of Trump's status as a "fake" billionaire and how that may affect his ego, there's is an alarming piece of information here. The man owes hundreds of millions of dollars in personal loans that he may not be able to repay. They will come due during his second term. Given his lack of ethics it's worrying to me that a president could have that kind of leverage against him. Dangerous.

drak0n1c 6y ago
On the other hand, the contents also show that breathless reporting of past foreign deals and money were pure rumor.
- SamBam 6y ago
  How? The rumors are of shady money deals. These would not necessarily be shown in tax statements.
- digitaltrees 6y ago
  This argument only works if you assume that clandestine payments and money laundering are impossible. You don’t think a foreign government could hide payments to someone? Inversely, you think bribes and shady payments from a government are going to show up on taxes? Haha. Come on. This does not settle anything related to Russia.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kenhwang 6y ago
That's why it has been standard practice for Presidential candidates and aspirants to release taxes and other financial disclosures before elections, and why it was such a big deal that Trump didn't.
- xellisx 6y ago
  I think that it should be law that the finances of the people at these levels of governence (maybe even down to the city level) be open to the public to review.
  - tsomctl 6y ago
    Well, it is the law that you're not eligible for a security clearance if you have significant debt.
    - tertiary 6y ago
      I didn't know that. I'm just completely speculating right now, but I wonder if that has something to do with Jared Kushner's denied security clearance. [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/us/politics/jared-kushner-security-clearance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/us/politics/jared-kushner...
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - wwright 6y ago
      Does that apply to the President? (At this point it seems clear that nothing applies to the president; let’s hope to god that someone makes a new amendment for that.)
      - woodruffw 6y ago
        The president (and other elected positions) are carved out of those kinds of requirements: requiring an elected official to "pass" a background test created by unelected public servants amounts to an unintended check on representative democracy. To be clear: we absolutely should require that elected officials disclose their finances. But we shouldn't require them to be vetted through a mostly unaccountable process after they've been elected.
issa 6y ago
This is definitely the scariest takeaway. With a second being what he will do to avoid criminal charges if some of the things implied in the initial article end up being true and come to light.
jkoudys 6y ago
This is a HUGE distinction that gets glossed over because it's hard to see the implication from a headline. A lot of his critics pointing to his "bankruptcies" had focused on businesses going bust. So, fair enough, his casinos sucked, but knowing when to declare a business insolvent is a legitimate skill and not necessarily a sign of someone who is overall bad with money. Taking on $300M against your own name is madness. What scares me the most is we needed personal returns just to figure that out. There's no way you can go into that much debt without significant foreign or less-legitimate lenders in the mix. The man's also in his mid-70s, so everyone must expect that if he dies next week, there's something they'll be able to collect from the estate. Combine that with how closely he's kept all his kids involved in his businesses and you have a man with everything to lose.
- votepaunchy 6y ago
  > There's no way you can go into that much debt without significant foreign or less-legitimate lenders in the mix. We’ve known about Deutsche Bank for quite a while now. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/business/trump-deutsche-bank.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/business/trump-deutsche-b...
bcrosby95 6y ago
I'm pretty sure that after the unaccountable trillion dollar business backstop and the federal government acting as a supplier of PPE to private corporations this is no longer something we have to worry about.
mhh__ 6y ago
This was mentioned quite a lot in 2015, in my memory at least - especially in light of his business dealings in Russia but ultimately it's just conjecture. If it turned out to be true there's probably enough information in public to piece together a chronology but not without hindsight. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helped-save-trumps-business/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helpe... To quote the man himself: Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!
edge17 6y ago
As they say, if you owe the bank $100 it's you problem. If you owe $100m, it's the bank's problem.
phobosanomaly 6y ago
I'm not sure why you are being downvoted. This is a very valid point. This is not just an ordinary man, this is the head of the executive branch of the United States of America.
- xenospn 6y ago
  Every single comment that highlights something negative about trump gets downvoted, like clockwork. It's either an automated bot or an army of very bored trump supporters.
  - dang 6y ago
    That's far from the case. You might be running into the notice/dislike bias, which unfortunately tends to distort perceptions and leads to false feelings of generality. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=notice%20dislike%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
    - phobosanomaly 6y ago
      I feel like you could write an entire FAQ based off of the weird biases and things you see here on a daily basis. Maybe even a PhD dissertation.

drak0n1c 6y ago

On the other hand, the contents also show that breathless reporting of past foreign deals and money were pure rumor.

SamBam 6y ago
How? The rumors are of shady money deals. These would not necessarily be shown in tax statements.
digitaltrees 6y ago
This argument only works if you assume that clandestine payments and money laundering are impossible. You don’t think a foreign government could hide payments to someone? Inversely, you think bribes and shady payments from a government are going to show up on taxes? Haha. Come on. This does not settle anything related to Russia.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kenhwang 6y ago

That's why it has been standard practice for Presidential candidates and aspirants to release taxes and other financial disclosures before elections, and why it was such a big deal that Trump didn't.

xellisx 6y ago
I think that it should be law that the finances of the people at these levels of governence (maybe even down to the city level) be open to the public to review.
- tsomctl 6y ago
  Well, it is the law that you're not eligible for a security clearance if you have significant debt.
  - tertiary 6y ago
    I didn't know that. I'm just completely speculating right now, but I wonder if that has something to do with Jared Kushner's denied security clearance. [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/us/politics/jared-kushner-security-clearance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/us/politics/jared-kushner...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - wwright 6y ago
    Does that apply to the President? (At this point it seems clear that nothing applies to the president; let’s hope to god that someone makes a new amendment for that.)
    - woodruffw 6y ago
      The president (and other elected positions) are carved out of those kinds of requirements: requiring an elected official to "pass" a background test created by unelected public servants amounts to an unintended check on representative democracy. To be clear: we absolutely should require that elected officials disclose their finances. But we shouldn't require them to be vetted through a mostly unaccountable process after they've been elected.

issa 6y ago

This is definitely the scariest takeaway. With a second being what he will do to avoid criminal charges if some of the things implied in the initial article end up being true and come to light.

jkoudys 6y ago

This is a HUGE distinction that gets glossed over because it's hard to see the implication from a headline. A lot of his critics pointing to his "bankruptcies" had focused on businesses going bust. So, fair enough, his casinos sucked, but knowing when to declare a business insolvent is a legitimate skill and not necessarily a sign of someone who is overall bad with money. Taking on $300M against your own name is madness. What scares me the most is we needed personal returns just to figure that out. There's no way you can go into that much debt without significant foreign or less-legitimate lenders in the mix. The man's also in his mid-70s, so everyone must expect that if he dies next week, there's something they'll be able to collect from the estate. Combine that with how closely he's kept all his kids involved in his businesses and you have a man with everything to lose.

votepaunchy 6y ago
> There's no way you can go into that much debt without significant foreign or less-legitimate lenders in the mix. We’ve known about Deutsche Bank for quite a while now. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/business/trump-deutsche-bank.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/business/trump-deutsche-b...

bcrosby95 6y ago

I'm pretty sure that after the unaccountable trillion dollar business backstop and the federal government acting as a supplier of PPE to private corporations this is no longer something we have to worry about.

mhh__ 6y ago

This was mentioned quite a lot in 2015, in my memory at least - especially in light of his business dealings in Russia but ultimately it's just conjecture. If it turned out to be true there's probably enough information in public to piece together a chronology but not without hindsight. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helped-save-trumps-business/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helpe... To quote the man himself: Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!

edge17 6y ago

As they say, if you owe the bank $100 it's you problem. If you owe $100m, it's the bank's problem.

phobosanomaly 6y ago

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted. This is a very valid point. This is not just an ordinary man, this is the head of the executive branch of the United States of America.

xenospn 6y ago
Every single comment that highlights something negative about trump gets downvoted, like clockwork. It's either an automated bot or an army of very bored trump supporters.
- dang 6y ago
  That's far from the case. You might be running into the notice/dislike bias, which unfortunately tends to distort perceptions and leads to false feelings of generality. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=notice%20dislike%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    I feel like you could write an entire FAQ based off of the weird biases and things you see here on a daily basis. Maybe even a PhD dissertation.