Are Americans willing to repeat 2016 as Individual-1 approaches peak grifting by telling passer-bys that the strip show inside features the most beautiful pleasures within.
The question remains, who gains from this intentional chaos.
Unlike sports stadiums, casinos should have greater local benefits, but anyone who bankrupts multiple business should be investigated especially when public malfeasance occurs.
Bankrupting a national economy was a risk that now appears closer.
Most notably, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina criticized Trump’s history of bankruptcies in his businesses.
"You know, there are a lot of us Americans who believe that we are going to have trouble someday paying back the interest on our debt because politicians have run up mountains of debt using other people's money," Fiorina said. "That is in fact precisely the way you ran your casinos. You ran up mountains of debt, as well as losses, using other people's money, and you were forced to file for bankruptcy not once, not twice, four times."
Trump doesn’t deny that four of his businesses have filed for bankruptcy. He argues, however, that filing for bankruptcy is a common business decision, and he was smart to make the moves when he did.
"Hundreds of companies" have filed for bankruptcy, Trump said earlier in the debate. "I used the law four times and made a tremendous thing. I'm in business. I did a very good job."
[...]
The first bankruptcy associated with Trump was perhaps the most significant in terms of his personal finances, according to news reports at the time. He funded the construction of the $1 billion Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, which opened in 1990. By 1991, the casino was nearly $3 billion in debt, while Trump had racked up nearly $900 million in personal liabilities, so the business decided to file for Chapter 11 reorganization, according to the New York Times. As a result, Trump gave up half his personal stake in the casino and sold his yacht and airline, according to the Washington Post.
www.politifact.com/...
Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.
—John Maynard Keynes
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936.
(2011)
Following the financial collapse that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s, the U.S. government passed the Glass-Steagall Act, which among other things separated commercial banking activities from riskier investment bank operations. Since 1980, however, one of the main thrusts of public policy has been to free up markets by deregulation (including repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999), cutting taxes and eliminating or reducing social programs. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have pursued these policies. The result has been constant federal deficits, a dramatic increase in income and wealth inequality, periodic financial scandals, decay of public services and infrastructure, the growth of large banks and finally the collapse of the financial services sector and the continuing economic recession. Throw in the cost of fighting two wars and the built-in escalation of so-called entitlement costs (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) and the prospects for normal economic recovery are less than rosy. The prospect of another financial disaster is all too probable.
www.americamagazine.org/...