[Mikeb85]

> Several of Trump's corporations have been bankrupt 4 times...

FTFY.

> relies heavily on debt to finance his real estate ventures

Real estate has high start-up costs but holds lots of value. Debt is the perfect vehicle to finance real estate, ever wonder why most people take out mortgages to buy homes, but give up equity to fund tech start-ups? You use the investment vehicle that makes sense for the type of business.

> It's well documented that he took on hundreds of millions of debt in the form of "junk bonds" (so called because of the high risk of default and the resulting high interest rate - 14%) in order to pay for his casinos in Atlantic city, for example.

Of course, casinos are high risk. Bond rates depend on risk. Also, most business debt requires a higher rate than say, sovereign debt.

> it appears at least one of his properties in NY has been modestly successful in recent years - but that property had well below $5 million in profit in 2014 and was losing money before that.

And? With real estate you don't need profit, you just need to build equity.

Tl;dr: Real estate isn't like other businesses, it has its own set of rules, accounting and financial practices, etc... Just like tech companies are different from factories which are different from restaurants, real estate is (gasp) different...

[dangerlibrary]

I was responding to the parent comment which claimed Trump was unlikely to be in debt. I don't think I criticized the use of debt as an investment vehicle for real estate, per se - my goal was to lay out a few facts about Trump's past business practices and the reasons why people are interested in his tax returns and concerned about possible conflicts of interest. You're right that debt is an excellent vehicle for real estate investment. I have a mortgage - it would be pretty hypocritical of me to disagree.

The vehicle for the conflict of interest isn't what's interesting. I would still be concerned if a tech founder with a bunch of unknown private investors were to be elected to public office. More concerned if that founder refused to release any information about those investors, the amounts invested, or cap table. Even more concerned if that founder refused to put their stake in the company in a blind trust.

Many of our laws and the powers we grant our public officials rely on the assumption that someone who is in high public office got there for reasons other than to enrich themselves. In Trump's case, he may have other motives, but he's flaunted historical precedent in not releasing his tax returns or even attempting to remove the appearance of conflict of interest. Whatever you think of Clinton's relationship to the Clinton Foundation, we have the data because it was all publicly disclosed. We know nothing about Trump.