SLL bets that Trump’s net worth is far closer to $1 billion rather than $10 billion, if he is a billionaire at all. The Donald has always been a king of leverage, as well as boasting, bellicosity, and bombast. Four of his companies have gone bankrupt… so far. America is filled with seemingly wealthy people who fluant their ostensible wealth but hide the other other side of the balance sheet—their debt. Trump is their patron saint. Doug Litowitz, after slogging through Trump’s 92-page financial disclosure submission to the Federal Election Commission, raises the suspicion that much of Trump’s purported fortune is smoke and mirrors. As the debt contraction and deflation tide rolls out, we may see Donald in his birthday suit. If so, he would be emblematic of our age. From Litowitz on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:
“Editor’s Note: Alpha Pages contributor Doug Litowitz raises a speculative contrarian position on Donald Trump’s exact worth, based on what was released to the FEC. The bottom line is that no one knows Trump’s net worth, but the speculation usually starts in the billions. Doug Litowitz explores the opposite possibility, namely that Trump is, in relative terms, broke. This is solely his speculation and is not meant as a factual statement but a possibility that has been ignored in the mainstream press.”
I’ve just slogged through all ninety-two pages of Donald Trump’s financial disclosure submission to the Federal Election Commission, and I can’t make heads or tails of it.
I cannot tell how much Trump is worth, if anything. His empire, if he has one, is as mysterious as his haircut, and as impervious as his skyscraper in Chicago – a gigantic phallic mirror named after himself.
In terms of real, lasting assets – is Donald Trump worth roughly $10 billion?
The mainstream press erred horrendously by taking seriously Trump’s disclosure to the FEC, by asking reporters to sit down with the document and try to understand it on its own terms, so to speak. This approach yielded nothing but exhaustion and bewilderment. No one dared speculate that Trump’s purpose in disclosing so much was to disclose so little. It was a 52-Card Pickup, a maze of trees without a forest. The assets – some as small as the single-digit thousands – pile up like obsessive compulsive do-dads in the claustrophobic home of a hoarder. The range of projects goes beyond greed and passes into desperation. High rise buildings and golf courses are one thing, but the list of assets quickly degrades into obscure wineries, Israeli vodka and energy drinks, a mattress and clothing line, television shows, a pension from the screen actors guild, bottled water, book royalties, speaking gigs, and endless inchoate and impossible to value ‘marks’ (i.e. trademarks) and positions in partnerships that have his own name.
This is why the New York Times threw up its hands and proclaimed with cool intrigue that Trump’s income and wealth were “hard to pinpoint.”
The Wall Street Journal punted, saying tautologically that Trump’s disclosures contain disclosures totaling at least $1.5 billion, but conceding that the actual numbers are not known.
Forbes puts his wealth at $4 billion, Bloomberg at $2.9 billion. Trump said recently that he is worth $10 billion and that his wealth has increased by more than $1 billion in the last year due to spiraling real estate prices (this was probably supposed to impress people, but it actually shows a dangerous volatility). The FEC form allows the filing party to value assets and liabilities within a range or at an upper limit, and most of Trump’s assets are vague interests of indeterminate worth and undisclosed indebtedness.
Trump’s illiquid assets and unknown liabilities may or may not offset each other – and he isn’t telling.
What does that leave?
Not much. A relatively small amount of money in a couple of hedge funds, and brokerage portfolios of garden-variety stocks, a couple hundred thousand in gold, and other ho-hum assets consisting almost entirely of his ‘marks.’ He could be worth hundreds of millions, theoretically, but if leveraged, his worth could be negative. Who knows?
To continue reading: Is Trump Really Worth $10 Billion
