Shill Game

The secret of success in business, as taught at Trump University, is OPM -- use Other People's Money.

  The candidate is now on a money tour to persuade donors to place their bets on a Trump card for a winning candidacy. But one question is whether this is a stacked deck.
   Filings with the Federal Election Commission show that the Donald Trump campaign has a little more than $1 million cash on hand, compared to $41 million in the Hillary Clinton fund.
   So what happened to the Trumpian boast that he was funding his own campaign, when it appears to be nearly bankrupt and he's out soliciting?
   True, he was spending very little during the primary season, relying heavily on all the free publicity and air time he could milk from the TV networks and social media.
   But now, the news media are spending more time and space uncovering his history of manipulating his business ventures, squeezing cash from them and then sending them into bankruptcy as he continued to draw salaries and bonuses.
  "Atlantic City was a cash cow for me for a long time," Trump has boasted. But even as he milked the cash cow dry, investors large and small, contractors and employees went broke or lost their jobs as he stalled or refused to pay contractors for work done and his hotels and casinos went bankrupt.
   "He has written a lot of books about business," said Hillary Clinton, his opponent in the current presidential campaign, "but they all end in Chapter 11."
   Meanwhile, Trump's promise to "renegotiate" federal debt as a way to deal with national fiscal issues, would equal default, Clinton noted, something that has never been done in the nation's history. The policy of honoring government issued bonds traces to Alexander Hamilton, who insisted that the new government's bonds issued during the War for Independence be paid off in full, establishing America as a safe haven for investors worldwide.
   But the presumptive Republican nominee wants to extend his past business practices to a national government level. And as he campaigns for the presidency, he says he will fund his own efforts if he can't get help from the Republican Party.
   In the past, he has borrowed from himself to continue his efforts. But in practice, he would lend to his campaign organization, and pay himself back as the campaign borrows from one of his businesses, which then goes into bankruptcy.
   Who wins and who loses? Trump wins and investors lose. And this is another example of the Trump U teaching manual: Use OPM -- Other People's Money.