Kevin Drum over at Mother Jones is once more pointing out that Donald Trump is a Mediocre Businessman. Drawing in part on a NY Times article, Drum observes:
The Plaza was a huge money loser. The shuttle was a disaster. Trump never understood the casino business, and his Atlantic City properties started hemorrhaging cash almost as soon as they were completed. All of this pushed him to the edge of personal bankruptcy, which he avoided solely because his banks decided Trump's holdings could be liquidated at a higher price if they allowed him to stay solvent. In the aftermath of this bloodbath, he raised money by taking the remains of his casino and resort properties public. And since this was a public company, we know exactly how well it did: it lost money every single year and went into bankruptcy proceedings in 2004 (and again in 2009 for good measure). Since then, he's mostly bought and managed golf resorts, which has been a good but not great business for him.
emphasis added
Read the whole thing — and check out David Segal at the New York Times: What Donald Trump’s Plaza Deal Reveals About His White House Bid.
...For decades, Mr. Trump has boasted of his boardroom skills in self-exalting speeches and books. As the front-runner in the Republican presidential race, he frequently argues that his corner-office prowess uniquely suits him to negotiate with world leaders.
What does this prowess look like up close? In the Plaza tale, Mr. Trump demonstrated both strengths (an ability to charm or strong-arm, as the occasion required) and weaknesses (a kind of hungry impatience that left him searching for new trophies as soon as one had been acquired). His methods as a political candidate mirror his methods as an executive, say those who have dealt with the latter and seen the former. In fact, the more you know about Mr. Trump’s past, the more his run for high office looks like an effort to close the biggest deal of his life.
The Times article and Kevin Drum both do a good job of looking at the actual record behind Donald Trump. It is much more one of salesmanship and style than substance or good judgment. What is Trump actually good at? Here’s Drum’s take:
Trump seems to have two genuine talents. The first is that he's apparently a masterful reader of people. The second is that he's a hypnotic blowhard, which accounts for his success at both branding and TV, as well as his success at scams like Trump University.
Trump may be leading the GOP pack at the moment, but Drum’s conclusion seems spot on:
...He lets his decisions be guided by his gut, and his gut isn't really very good. That's where Trump Plaza, Trump Air, Trump football, Trump City, the Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Steaks, and Trump University come from. That's not much of a recommendation for the presidency.
Like the GOP, Trump’s actual record may not be that great, but his skills set is exactly what the GOP has been running on for decades: great promises based on flawed assumptions, a giant ego coupled with self-delusion, policies that repeatedly fail, ideas that don’t work — all plastered over with snake oil salesmanship and appeals to the gut, with as little truth as possible.
He’s a natural.