It goes without saying that we know he’s a scumbag, but this truly shows it through and through that he can spend money like water coming out of a faucet without considering the outcome show a truly YUUGE character flaw.
When I read this the other day it stuck in my throat more so than his other antics. It truly bothered me because it hit home — too close to home for comfort. Maybe I was brought up differently, but a point was made if you have an obligation you figure out a way to get through it.
The fact that he does not pay and only does at a reduced amount when pressured shows how much he values anyone else in general. It also shows that this twit doesn’t know how to live within his means. Bankruptcy is not something to be taken lightly as he seems to think. Some of us try very hard not to go there and we’ve come close and still survived.
I’m not saying that bankruptcy isn’t avoidable and in some cases it becomes the necessary of evils when business or personal expenses go beyond what’s reasonable. For some businesses, for example, there maybe a loss of a large supplier, large number of customers, or other catastrophe which would force this on a business. For individuals it’s usually a loss of income and other financial catastrophe which causes this.
What Trump did though is outright wrong. He used this to walk away from his failed companies not because of bad economics, but due to him sucking the revenue off the top without caring about the companies obligations. He also uses this as a way to not paying his bills once he’s forced into a corner by those people who he can’t screw hard enough into accepting pennies on the dollar.
Why this stuck in my craw.
My dad started a graphics design business in 1980,, after working for an agency in Boston, with barely anything but a few thousand bucks in his savings. By 1985 the firm had grown rapidly and my brother joined him. In 1988 the company incorporated and was considered one of the fastest growing firms of its kind during that period, according to Dunn and Bradstreet. The company did quite well and I joined that year. We were doing about $550K a year in business and things were going gangbusters and we hired freelancers and a fulltime employee, paid salaries and taxes, and paid our suppliers always on time. Then it hit. The GHB S&L Recession of 1990. We lost 60% of our customers. We laid off our employee and stuck it out. I ended up getting lucky and got a fulltime job outside the industry. We survived, paid our suppliers off and did not walk away from our obligations. It meant eating a lot of tuna casseroles and mac and cheese, and not going out to dinner, or spending on other luxuries. We survived by living within our means, kept our expenses down, and continued to operate.
Things picked up after the recession was over and the business was back on its feet and continued to operate, in fact the business expanded from strictly pre-press to silkscreen and screen printing support. The amount of business was lower due to changes in the industry since the printing industry its self had started its road downhill. Things were going well enough where my brother and dad actually hired a freelance worker, and moved the business to an industrial park. In Christmas 1995 the company was broken into, which amounted to a huge loss. The computers were cheap, however, the loss of ongoing work amounted to close to $20,000 of in-process jobs.
The drug addict was caught and sent to jail. The business, survived, again using our resources and avoid luxuries, I needed a new car but survived until things recovered. Again we always ensured our suppliers were taken care of in full and we did not walk away from our obligations.
Today the firm still exists. Dad is now 82 and semi-retired and my brother is still running it.
During both of these times, the company could have filed bankruptcy and my family could have walked away with cash in our pockets, but how could we. Our suppliers have families too and obligations to pay. Our small commitments may not seem like a large amount to others, but they were still commitments to others which we took care of. We thought of this morally as something that must be hit head on, face the deal we were dealt and continued on.
The fact that Trump does not take care of his commitments is big mark on his character. He’s a coward with all the grandeur of a cereal box with cartoons on it.
p.s. This is my first diary! :-)