Trump Bankruptcy Cost His Workers Millions ... and Taught Them How Stupid He Is

Laura Clawson

Laura Clawson Labor Editor, Daily Kos

According to Donald Trump, his business bankruptcies were tremendously smart things to do, and, if looked at from the right angle, almost a heroic blow against nasty Wall Street types:

"These lenders aren't babies," he said during a Republican primary debate last fall. "These are total killers. These are not the nice, sweet little people that you think, okay?"

From a sheer dollar perspective, Wall Streeters and other big investors might well have had the largest investments in Trump’s various mismanaged and doomed enterprises, but that doesn’t mean “little people” didn’t lose more than they could afford. Those “little people” included people Trump should have felt doubly responsible for, Mother Jones reports:

Trump's company encouraged its employees to invest their retirement savings in company stock, according to a class-action lawsuit filed by employees against Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts following its 2004 bankruptcy. Then, when the stock price was near its nadir as bankruptcy loomed, the company forced the employees to sell their stock at a huge loss. More than 400 employees lost a total of more than $2 million from their retirement accounts, the lawsuit states.

But hey, nothing illegal in that, it turns out. Kind of a huge harm, no foul situation.

A former Trump Plaza worker sums up the lesson learned from trusting Donald Trump: "I didn't realize he was as stupid as he is.” For a lot of people, that was an expensive lesson to learn.

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This was reposted from Daily Kos.

Posted In: Allied Approaches