How Trump betrayed America
Donald Trump’s mortgage company was
part of the carnival of greed that preyed on the American people by providing
subprime mortgages to unqualified borrowers, a practice which led to the
financial collapse in 2008 and the Great Recession that followed.
Hillary
Clinton’s presidential campaign is making a major push to bring up Trump and his role in the
business that led to billions in bailout costs for the American taxpayer.
Trump
wasn’t just on the outside of the scheme. His company was right in the middle
of it.
Clinton’s
allies highlight that Trump Mortgage approved subprime mortgages to
unqualified borrowers. The mortgages were one of the key financial instruments
linked to the crash.
Trump
even handed out advice on how to profit from a crash like the one that would
eventually occur and consume millions of jobs in America and around the world.
In his book, How to Build a
Fortune, Trump said, “If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you
know you can make a lot of money.”
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who will be part of the Clinton push, released a statement highlighting Trump and his role in the collapse:
“You don’t make America great by rooting for its economy to fail. While Hillary Clinton was proposing measures to ease the effects of the housing bubble on American homeowners before the crisis, Donald Trump was cheering on the market’s collapse and reportedly peddling sub-prime loans so he could try to get even richer.”
Once
again showing that Trump’s so-called business sense is more big talk and
bravado than anything resembling actual insight, Trump launched a
mortgage business in 2005, even as warning signs began to emerge that the
mortgage industry was about to soon face trouble.
Author Oliver
Willis was one of the first political bloggers in the world (since
2000), and was among the first bloggers to interview President Obama at the
White House. On Twitter @owillis and
write at OliverWillis.com