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Comment by skew-aberration | Hacker News Reader

Same is also true of DJT's various casino gambits. Pilloried in the media but rather sound (though high risk) from a land speculation perspective.

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You're saying that bankrupting a casino was actually 4D chess? Ok, buddy, whatever you say.

Did I say that? Since they failed, they were obviously bad business. But they were a rational thing to attempt to do - taking on a massive loan to speculate on land and using a (potentially) high cashflow, quick to setup, easy to market business to offset the high initial interest rates. i.e. the same thing being discussed in this thread

A rational thing for a competent person to attempt. Given the theoretical structural advantages of the idea, the 6 failures are even more embarrassing than failing at something that was actually a bad idea.

FWIW “Gambit” without elaboration strongly invokes the “the bankrupcies were on purpose” to me, so, did you say it? Strictly no, but it was very suggestive.

Eh. I wanted to be provocative because I've heard a lot of educated but economically naive people assume 'highly leveraged hotel-casino project' is dumb a priori, even though it's (an example of a) a sensible and common business strategy available to the wealthy. I didn't mean to imply bankruptcy was intentional though.

As to whether Trump did this better or worse than others, I have no idea as I haven't studied it but would assume the latter given the outcome.

A certainty though - plenty of undeserving people you would consider contemptible have successfully played this hand many a time. Yet more reasons to tax land

AFAIK, Trump used investor money and rented his brand - he would have upside if the business succeeded, but had no downside for him - he was paid anyway.

As for the suckˆHˆHˆHˆHinvestors, they had a bad day.

Well it's not like it didn't work out very well for Trump. Idk if it's 4D Chess but a huge part of the expense that lead to bankruptcy was licencing of the Trump brand. Can't pay all the other vendors because we first had to pay to license the name. OK, bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy is great actually, you don't have to pay the money you owe but if you play your cards right you can still keep the benefits.

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