Trump in Debt, Women Rule

Yuuuge Debt: The NY Times reports that companies owned by Donald Trump are carrying $650 million in debt, roughly twice the amount revealed in public filings related to his run for president. Among the lenders are the Bank of China, one of the biggest banks in a country he describes as an economic enemy, and the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, which he has said controls Hillary Clinton.

The paper also says, “a substantial portion of his wealth is tied up in three passive partnerships that owe an additional $2 billion to a string of lenders.”

No one has put together a complete picture of Trump’s finances, in part because he refuses to reveal his tax returns. But if he were to be elected president he would have conflicts of economic interest. One of his limited liability companies has a 60-year lease for a hotel in the Old Post Office Building in Washington, paying the federal government $3 million a year.

Pay Attention: Neal Gabler writes in The NY Times that Donald Trump may be the first presidential candidate in history who ran just to draw attention to himself and milk the notoriety for personal profit. Gabler says, “If you think of his campaign as a real-estate negotiation, the man who coined the term ‘art of the deal’ has taken a huge edifice, plastered his name all over it without investing much in it, and is very likely to abandon it as a troubled asset once the election is over and its value is diminished, leaving others holding the bag, just as he reportedly did during his serial bankruptcies. Only, in this case, the edifice is the Republican Party. It is Mr. Trump’s biggest deal ever.

Permawar: At least 50 people were killed and 90 wounded when a suicide bomber attacked a wedding in Turkey. The government blames the Islamic State.

The Games: American women ruled in the last day of track and other sports at the Rio Olympics. Allyson Felix anchored the 4×400 relay to win her sixth Olympic gold medal. Felix also won gold with the 4×100 relay. — Gwen Jorgensen, a 30-year-old former accountant, won the first gold medal for the US in the women’s triathlon. No one was close when she crossed the finish line. — The US women beat Spain 101-72 for the gold in basketball, their sixth straight. — OK, American men are in the games, too. They won the 4×400 relay. — Matthew Centrowitz became the first American to win the 1500 meter run since 1908. — Paul Chelimo finished second in the 5,000 meter run, was disqualified for bumping elbows even as he celebrated, and was later reinstated to the silver medal.

The Obit Page: Lou Pearlman Lou Pearlman, the boy band impresario who created the Backstreet Boys and NSync 1990s before he was convicted of a Ponzi scheme, has died at 62, in the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas.

In This Corner: American Claressa Shields squares off today against Nouchka Fontijn of the Netherlands for the women’s middleweight boxing gold. It would be her second. Don’t bet against Shields.

$$$$$: As the Olympics come to a close in Rio today and countries count up the medals for national pride, the games have once again proved to be a losing enterprise for the host. Brazil and Rio are expected to run an estimated $4.6 billion in the red. This is in a city with neighborhoods controlled by gangs and open sewers that drain into the ocean.

The last profitable Olympics was held in Los Angeles in 1984, largely because the organizers used existing arenas rather than build monuments to a passing event. In the years since, the world has become littered with abandoned Olympic facilities. The Athens swimming pool is empty and the Sarajevo bobsled run is covered with graffiti and vines. The architecturally stunning “Bird’s Nest” stadium in Beijing is a white elephant.

Cities bid for the Olympics as a way to market themselves, but it rarely pays off. The Rio Olympics have sparked notions of permanently assigning the games to a handful of rotating cities, an idea that may not appeal to the power and arrogance of the International Olympic Committee, which considers it a privilege for a city to go broke to host the games.

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Friday, March 29, 2024

Page Two

The Most Corrupt Justice

Monday, October 2, 2023

Democracy and Video in the Dark

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Page Two: Do the Right Thing

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Page Two: Sound Recall

Monday, September 13, 2021

Page Two: Cuomo Must Go

Friday, August 13, 2021

Trump and the Truth

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The “Great” President

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Wright Stuff

Saturday, February 29, 2020

It's Been Said

"In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have, no excuses."

-Andrew Cuomo, resigning as governor of New York after accusations of sexual harassment

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