This video is a microcosm of our 'financial markets' right now.....

Got to love it, Man wearing $15K watch, smoking high end cigars, eating a fine meal, explaining how to commit "legal" fraud to grow wealth all in parking lot of a low end multi-tenant retail shopping plaza....

Nothing built just a new roof which was financed to a company that will sell that contract to another finance company who will leverage the income stream into other paper assets, no viable product to improve lives of others, no long lasting impact to the community. Just word salad and paper games to inflate the asset value of a building.

Leverage upon leverage upon leverage......Sure hope nothing goes wrong, or his friend's LLCs and lenders are going to be toast.

What could go wrong? pic.twitter.com/KX1jfK7R54

— Darth Powell (@VladTheInflator) August 29, 2025

And there is no risk for a loss?

Hint, people throw the dice and make it. Others don't. Welcome to America.

Next thing is condemning tax sales?

I need a spreadsheet to explain this fella.

Sounds to me like they are defrauding the bank at the very least, particularly if they are not upfront on the related party transactions.

And a bank would have to be tremendously ******ed to lend on the "improvement".

Or I missed something.

Itsyourboynate.barger

Krombopulos Michael said:

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This video is a microcosm of our 'financial markets' right now.....

Got to love it, Man wearing $15K watch, smoking high end cigars, eating a fine meal, explaining how to commit "legal" fraud to grow wealth all in parking lot of a low end multi-tenant retail shopping plaza....

Nothing built just a new roof which was financed to a company that will sell that contract to another finance company who will leverage the income stream into other paper assets, no viable product to improve lives of others, no long lasting impact to the community. Just word salad and paper games to inflate the asset value of a building.

Leverage upon leverage upon leverage......Sure hope nothing goes wrong, or his friend's LLCs and lenders are going to be toast.

What could go wrong? pic.twitter.com/KX1jfK7R54

— Darth Powell (@VladTheInflator) August 29, 2025

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If it's real it's a $45k watch

So where's the outside cash flow necessary to make this all work? What I heard is leverage property A to buy property B at a discount due to needed repairs, lease B to yourself and use the equity in B and the lease to argue this property is now worth 3x what you paid for it. Borrow against the new value of B to buy C and start the cycle all over again. Huge amounts of cash coming in and as long as you can find a bank to keep doing the deals then you can build an ever growing portfolio with no real cash flow. Sounds like a Ponzi scheme.

Also, plenty of details are probably left out. Could be a rich student using Daddy's money, credit and organization to develop this property.

Well if she gets a CRE property at 85% capacity she has created value.

I'm stuck in the past.....originally put it as $10K.

Inflation is real.

Whole financial system is smoke and mirrors.

It also doesn't make sense why she would pay herself cash she already owns. It would then become income she has to pay taxes on. I doubt this is a real scenario

Quo Vadis? said:

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I saw this movie in theaters on a whim because the movie I wanted to see was sold out. I still consider it one of the greatest and most eye opening movies I've ever seen. This was when I became really interested in macroeconomics and politics.

The biggest red flag to me is the way he glosses over the Triple Net lease..... most triple nets tenant is responsible for HVAC equipment, domestic water heat, utilities, etc. in addition to the insurance and everything else inside. Owner is responsible for parking lot, roof, exteriors, foundation, life safety (sprinkler/alarm system), landscaping etc.

It's an event center "occupied" by the owner at $8.00 a SF. As the tenant, she's now responsible for everything......including marketing and employees to keep that place cash flowing.

SouthTex99 said:

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When the underlying cash flow goes away or decrease the whole house of cards comes crashing down. If you're leasing to yourself that's great but you still require a stable outside stream of income to start the build.

Sometimes that's from a tenant, sometimes it's a real job. Your scheme also has to be sufficiently capitalized. You can't just grow and grow forever without more skin in the game. It won't work.

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Yep. It's one thing to lease back to business led you own, but when you are overly leveraged that this is what's keeping you going, you are in a world of hurt when it comes down.

Really risky and sloppy by bank to not looking into this prior to giving loans.

Krombopulos Michael said:

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The biggest red flag to me is the way he glosses over the Triple Net lease..... most triple nets tenant is responsible for HVAC equipment, domestic water heat, utilities, etc. in addition to the insurance and everything else inside. Owner is responsible for parking lot, roof, exteriors, foundation, life safety (sprinkler/alarm system), landscaping etc.

It's an event center "occupied" by the owner at $8.00 a SF. As the tenant, she's now responsible for everything......including marketing and employees to keep that place cash flowing.

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You hit the nail on the head. The "lease" is total BS. She actually has to run that business and make the money to make the lease payments. The whole thing falls apart without that lease. Unfortunately the deal is so small that most lenders who do this kind of deal won't take the extra step to check out the one lease underpinning the financial strength of the entire thing. If they did it would be obvious and you would decline the loan quickly.

Well we've been through these big real estate busts before. I remember the Obama Recession caused by the housing bubble popping in 08. If things get too far out of hand we'll likely see something like that again.

A_Gang_Ag_06 said:

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Quo Vadis? said:

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I saw this movie in theaters on a whim because the movie I wanted to see was sold out. I still consider it one of the greatest and most eye opening movies I've ever seen. This was when I became really interested in macroeconomics and politics.

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What movie?

The big short

Eta: I think

AggieVictor10 said:

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The big short

Eta: I think

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That is correct.

It's a solid movie. Lots of big names. Making CMBS markets entertaining is a high hurdle. They do a great job of explaining the BS that takes place in our financial markets.

On a side note, there is no way in hell that anyone will be able to pull off that exact same trade in the future. Way too many sharks aware of it.......

This guy is explaining simple bank loan fraud, not doing it very well, would likely not get the loan he is talking about, and is a sloven colossally dip**** idiot for laying out crimes on camera.

What the crooks did in the mortgage industry and credit default instruments and such that most all still don't understand was white collar crime and unethical trading at an order of magnitude that people should not have just spent time in prison but should have been tortured, hung and let the birds eat their flesh.

Sadly, not much has been done outside of awareness to prevent it from happening again.

Edited: I derailed my own post, next level achieved!)

The Trump crypto thread is a few threads over....

https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3556478

"one of my students"

Has been a warning signal for me for a while now.

We had a neighbor couple that we got to know a little while normally walking our dogs at similar times. The husband would low key pitch investments or training classes on how to make money on apartments and housing. Always mentioning how he was going to Miami or LA or wherever again to give another class for new students. Always talking about how "one of his students" just made X on some deal I missed out on.

They disappeared one night and the house was taken by the bank.

Quo Vadis? said:

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i was thinking more about this

Replying to myself because the whole scene is ****ing great.
'I was a bartender; now I own a boat!'