Donald Trump may currently be the President of the United States, but politics wasn't how he got into the public eye. He was a well known real estate developer and businessman in the mid to late 1900s. His financial journey was rocky, and he had some stumbles along the way, but he was one of the best-known symbols of the excesses of the 1980s.
Donald Trump was born into wealth. His father was a real estate developer who built single-family houses in Queens and Brooklyn and he also built apartments using federal money designed to encourage the building of affordable housing. His father was actually investigated by the Senate Banking Committee in 1954 for alleged abuse of this federal loan program. He wasn't charged with a crime but he was unable to get federal loan guarantees.
Donald Trump was highly educated. He attended military boarding school as a child and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor's Degree in economics in 1968. He then dodged the Vietnam War draft by claiming bone spurs after running out of education deferments, but that's another story. He then followed in his father's footsteps and joined his real estate company. He then became the President of a bunch of Trump-owned corporations that he named the Trump Organization.
Donald Trump is constantly accused of being racist now, but he was actually sued for it by the US DOJ in 1973. 39 of the Trump apartment buildings in NYC were accused of violating the Fair Housing Act due to complaints that they discriminated against minority groups. They ended up coming to an agreement without having to admit guilt.
The 1980s were the peak of Donald Trump. He opened the infamous Trump Tower in 1983. He also shifted to investing in luxury hotels and residential properties in Manhatten. He also invested in the Atlantic City casino business, with properties like "The Trump Taj Mahal". This was also the time when he bought Mar-A-Lago, where he still spends much of his time.
The 1990 recession marked the start of the fall of Donald Trump. He was struggling to make payments on the 5 billion dollars of debt he had accumulated. He took out mortgages on his properties and watched as his casinos declared bankruptcy. He also sold his airline (yes, he had an airline) and his yacht.
His finances made a rebound in the mid-1990s and he purchased the Miss Universe organization. His TV show, "The Apprentice" premiered in 2004. He then had to settle class-action lawsuits against Trump University in 2016, and his charity, the Trump Foundation, was dissolved in 2019 after being accused of illegally using assets. In 2018, the New York Times exposed how Trump's father had transferred millions of dollars to him, some by illegal means. And we still don't have his taxes.
Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Donald-Trump
https://www.forbes.com/sites/debtwire/2015/08/18/a-trip-down-donald-trumps-bankruptcy-memory-lane/#3955f6da4609
"Greed is Good" Documentary
(Disclaimer: This blog post is neither in support or against Donald Trump as a politician. It is only based on his financial history)
I enjoyed how you chronicled Trump's financial successes and also failures. Reading your article reminded me of one of President Trump's failed business, Trump University. In 2004, Trump created a set of real-estate seminars dubbed "Trump University". The $35,000 program promised students that it would give them insider information on the real estate market. In 2010, the program ended, leaving many customers without their promised profits. Trump University was sued, and in 2016, came to a settlement of $25,000,000.
ReplyDeleteSource:https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/federal-court-approves-25-million-trump-university-settlement-n845181
I really enjoyed this post and thought it was a super interesting topic to blog about! Even though Donald Trump is most known for his controversial role of president of the united States, his rise to economic success (and then downfall) is quote facisanting and says a lot about the era of the late 80s. Trump represented most of the fiance wealthy American of the 80s because his wealth increased exponentially until it suddenly crashed. This was a common theme of that era and most of the powerful and rich icons seemed to fall around the same time, I felt that you outlined this very well and it truly helped to understand the economic situation of this era.
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