You're Bankrupt!

The phrase "too big to fail" has taken on an entirely new meaning on the East Coast over the last year or so and that new meaning is not likely to work in favor of the Donald Trump empire, a small portion of which went belly-up the other day for the third time in four years.

Fortunately, Celebrity Apprentice kicks off in about ten days or so and if there's one good thing about a high unemployment rate, it's that there are lots more people with lots more idle time on their hands and, as never before, we Americans just love being distracted from an increasingly complicated world out there.

The Donald's Prime Time show enters its eighth season after being nixed by NBC a couple years ago only to return as a celebrity-train-wreck sort of format, an idea that is apparently being built on this year with an even more volatile cast of characters including Dennis Rodman, Andrew Dice Clay, Tom Green, Joan and Melissa Rivers.

If ever there were a metaphor for the American Empire, it is the Trump Empire and the eighth season of The Apprentice.

Here's the report from Reuters on the casino:

Trump Entertainment files for bankruptcy
Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc, the casino operator named for Donald Trump, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday as recession and declining gambling revenues battered the company and its rivals.

The Chapter 11 filing marks the third plunge into bankruptcy for the company, which was created out of a restructuring in 2005. It also underscores the struggles facing the casino business as recession squeezes casino gambling.
...
Trump, a very public and flamboyant figure in an industry filled with colorful, headstrong executives, said the company represents less than 1 percent of his net worth, and that "my investment in it is worthless to me now."

No stranger to bankruptcy, Trump Entertainment Resort Holdings went into Chapter 11 in 2004, from which it emerged a year later with Trump having relinquished the position of CEO.

He seems to have learned a thing or two since the early 1990s.

According to Wikipedia, his business went bankrupt in 1991 after the last real estate bust and he barely escaped filing for personal bankruptcy at the time.

It will be interesting to see how he does this time around.

ooo