shiftyandquick said:
1. He misrepresented his assets (and not by a little bit) in order to get himself a better interest rate, in order to convey that the risk was less than it really was.
2. The better interest rate made a ton of money for him. I saw one source that said it was more than $170 million in his pocket.
3. The misrepresentation of his assets was a crime (against the law).
4. The penalty handed out by the judge was for "disgorgement" of his ill-gotten gains, i.e. how much money he made + interest (+penalty?).
Anything I am missing?
1. The due diligence in this private transaction is the responsibility of the lender. When you at that level you dealing with the smartest people in the world so far as risk assessment, and those people were satisfied with what they saw from Trump.
2. This is the same as 'jobs saved or created.' By not paying more money than he needed to, Trump made $170 million and the argument that those gains were an i'll gotten windfall doesn't hold water. For example, this is the same as buying a tradeline to boost your credit score 10-points to get a slightly better rate on your mortgage that will save you 10s of thousands over the course of the loan. Same concept, and most people on here have done this, the only difference is that aren't named Trump.
3. Conceded on that, but you also got to acknowledge that the business world operates on that basis of getting an asset, a loan on that asset on the most favorable terms possible, rinse and repeat. No one can deny that reality of finance and that is not NY, that's globally.
4. On disgorgement of ill gotten gains, that dog don't hunt either If this was the case the money would be returned to the banks as restitution. Is the money being returned to the banks as restitution, or is the fine being put into the NY general fund to ffinance further lawfare against Trump?