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Max Kennerly Profile picture
@MaxKennerly
Sep 29, 2020 • 14 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
I quibble with that, too. Trump's finances from 2008 onward aren't "mundane." He defaulted on the only bank lending him money, then obtained >$500m in credit despite inadequate collateral, then liquidated >99.5% of his stocks & bonds. That's unusual. /1
Litigation is common in business. The surprising part here is how, as of 2008, Deutsche Bank was the only bank that would loan him money (and only with a personal guarantee), but he nonetheless defaulted. Standing alone, it makes little business sense. /2 chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-20…
The 2008 sale of Trump's Palm Beach home to the bad guy from TENET has always been odd, but perhaps Rybolovlev is just bad with money. 🤷‍♂️ Either way, it coincides with a sharp rise in Trump condos being bought through shell companies and/or with cash. /3
buzzfeednews.com/article/thomas…
In 2011, the private-wealth group at DB agrees to loan Trump $48m, of which $40m is paying off the debt to DB's real estate group that prompted lawsuits—a startling transaction nobody at DB or on Wall Street had seen before. /4
nytimes.com/2020/02/04/mag…
npr.org/2019/05/09/721…
Then come massive debts:
2012 - Doral, $125m debt (DB)
2012 - Trump Tower, $100m debt (Ladder)
2015 - 40 Wall Street, $157m debt (Ladder)
2015 - Trump DC, $127m debt (DB)

Latest disclosure: s3.amazonaws.com/storage.citize…

Debt as of 2016: nytimes.com/interactive/20…

It gets weirder.
/5
In 2014, the self-described "king of debt" purchases Turnberry for $60m in cash. The financing for this is completely unknown, but we do know that Turnberry, which has lost nearly £43m ($55m), owes £115m ($147m) to a trust with Trump's name on it. /6
The Aberdeen golf course, which Trump bought in 2006, owes £43.1m ($55m) to Trump and his companies. It is also a huge money sink, but not in the way a tax shelter normally works. The reported value of it goes *up,* even while money disappears. /7
And then there's "Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC," which Trump's disclosure says in 2012 imposed a "springing loan" for "over $50,000,000"—and also says Trump owns, though he reports a $0 value for it. Maybe it's a fake debt to avoid taxes. /8
Which brings us back to "mundane." Trump didn't have sufficient collateral for his loans, hence personal guarantees to DB and Ladder Capital: motherjones.com/politics/2016/…

This is where the "theories of secret payments" come in, to explain what otherwise makes little sense. /9
At the same time of Trump's inexplicable return to good credit, he was financially connected to multiple apparent money laundering schemes involving figures from the former Soviet Union. One "theory" is that such a figure co-signed his loans. /10
Without a co-signer, it's hard to see how Trump gets the $48m loan in 2011 or $100m mortgage in 2012; again, he didn't post sufficient collateral, hence the personal guarantee.

Links to Russia are unproven but plausible. /11

buzzfeednews.com/article/anthon…

vox.com/world/2018/11/…
On the other hand, Wall Street is filled with foolish bankers who take absurd risks, because our system rewards them.

And Trump has sources of cash, but some of them raise more questions: since 2014, he has liquidated >$220m in stocks and bonds, leaving him with <$1m left. /12
It's hard to imagine a sound reason for liquidating over 99.5% of a $220 million securities portfolio and dumping the money into massively unprofitable businesses but, well, that's what the filings suggest Trump has been doing these past 6 years. /13
Maybe there's a good answer for all of this. Trump's finances are of course complicated, but not unknowable, and nothing stops him from disclosing everything and explaining it all. What we see, however, suggests huge losses, money laundering, and an increasing cash crunch. /end

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More from @MaxKennerly

Max Kennerly Profile picture
Feb 14, 2023
This article is a good starting point for the East Palestine derailment. The info circulating on social media has been suboptimal, to say the least. Grab a cup of coffee and let's go over everything from vinyl chloride to electronic brake regulations.
/1
20 miles *before* it derailed, the 150-car train was already sparking/burning. A "hotbox" detector in Salem, OH, should've picked that up and alerted the crew. It's unknown if it did, but seems unlikely or they would've hit the emergency brake then.
/2
Upon derailment, a bunch of stuff was burning. Some was in the normal range of "stuff on fire," like the semolina and frozen vegetables, and some was nasty but not unusual (polyethylene & polyvinyl), but some of it was uniquely hazardous.
/3
Read 17 tweets
Max Kennerly Profile picture
Sep 16, 2022
That's not what FL & TX are doing. They could move more people if they coordinated with other states; they refuse. And they're not trying to save money, they're spending a ton of money to sporadically move a handful of people in ways that maximize chaos and media coverage.

1/5
TX AG Paxton is a huge liar, but let's take his numbers at face value. (The biggest number there is likely a total fabrication.)

If "cost" is the issue, why spend nearly $3 billion on border security to reduce an $850 million expense?
texastribune.org/2022/04/18/tex…

2/5
And Florida can hardly complain about "bear the brunt of the cost" to Massachusetts. MA is a net giver; FL is a net taker.

From 2015-2020, Florida took $383 billion more from the federal gov't than it paid in.

rockinst.org/issue-areas/fi…

3/5
Read 5 tweets
Max Kennerly Profile picture
Aug 9, 2022
I guess it was inevitable thanks to Trump's quest to be involved with every aspect of American law: let's talk about federal magistrate judges.

Many moons ago, I clerked for one. (I recommend law students consider it, it was a great and useful experience.)
/1
United States Magistrate Judges aren't appointed by the President nor confirmed by the Senate and they're not lifetime appointments. They come to the position through a long process including a merit selection panel and a vote of the active judges in the district.
/2 Image
If you've ever heard the phrase "lawyer's lawyer," well, U.S. magistrate judges are judges' judges. It isn't flashy. It's not political. They don't get to write soaring rhetoric.

But day-in, day-out, they do a lot of judging stuff that needs to get done. Like search warrants.
/3 ImageImage
Read 7 tweets
Max Kennerly Profile picture
Apr 5, 2022
aaaannnnd it turns out Musk's SEC disclosure (which claimed he was exempt from a 13D report because he's a "passive" investor) was both late and just plain false, as Twitter just disclosed he has an agreement to be appointed to their board: sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archiv…
Seems the "great value" Musk will provide is being restricted from owning more than 14.9% of Twitter, which I guess we can say is a win of sorts—damage mitigation—for the Board. The more he owns, the easier it is for him to exert control, such as by replacing board members.
So:
March 14 - Musk hits the 5% ownership line
March 24 - misses deadline for reporting purchases
March 25 - posts poll / tweets about Twitter operations
April 4 - first filing, wrong form, falsely claims passive investor exemption
April 5 - comes clean
Read 4 tweets
Max Kennerly Profile picture
Mar 5, 2022
It would be dysfunctional to "promote domestic oil/gas production." Production is at the level chosen by the industry based on market forces. If that's causing harm, we shouldn't subsidize it, we should admit private oil & gas markets are a failure and nationalize them.
/1
Bear in mind, domestic oil and gas prices bear no relation to domestic supply and demand. The U.S. does not have a shortage of oil or gas. We have a huge excess of natural gas that we export. We have a bit of an oil oversupply (compared to 2000-2014) which is winding down.
/2
Instead, we have a system in which private oil & gas companies can, for profit, drill on public lands, shift international price movements to U.S. consumers, and then transfer wealth upwards via dividends and stock buybacks instead of investing in production. Neat trick, huh?
/3
Read 7 tweets
Max Kennerly Profile picture
Mar 1, 2022
This thread is just strawmen. Progressive millennials don't "buy into American supremacy" at all. Their views aren't built on U.S. dominance, but on U.S. foreign policy's repeated failures in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. And they don't "tolerate imperialism."
1/4
Foreign policy views among progressives vary, but most believe some version of: U.S. "realpolitik" leaders like Kissinger and Rumsfeld weren't clear-eyed realists, they were clowns, ideologues, profiteers, and war criminals who made the world worse and the U.S. less safe.
2/4
The default posture of most progressives thus isn't to "buy into American supremacy," it's to be skeptical of it. It's to look at Yemen & Somalia and ask if we're helping or making things worse, recognizing that, historically, the answer was often the latter.
3/4
Read 4 tweets

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