Donald Trump using bail bondsman rings alarm bells about his finances
Donald Trump reportedly used a bail bondsman after being arrested at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, paying $20,000 of his bond set at $200,000 and taking out a loan for the rest of it. The fact that the former president resorted to such a measure has sparked questions on social media about the state of his finances.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Donald Trump reportedly used a bail bondsman after being arrested at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, paying $20,000 of his bond set at $200,000 and taking out a loan for the rest of it.
Trump voluntarily turned himself in at the Georgia jail where he was booked on 13 felony counts linked to his alleged efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election in the state.
Trump and 18 co-defendants, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, are accused of conspiring together in the same election plot, according to the indictment released earlier this month.
“It’s also unusual for a billionaire to post a bond in cash as he did in the E. Jean Carroll’s case instead of getting a commercial insurance company to do it for him, and he couldn’t do it there,” Rubin said.
Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that Trump’s campaign finances were strained as the former president was dedicating tens of millions of dollars towards his legal defense.
On his campaign website, Trump asks his supporters for a “contribution to evict Crooked Joe Biden from the White House and SAVE AMERICA.”
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The orange shitstain clearly has been leveraging debt for decades.
But this is not at all a surprise. Why would he pay? Get a loan and then count on the secret service to prevent him from ever having to pay
The cult must die.
I’d prefer the Flavoraid method but a full generation of deprogramming may have to do.
the Flavoraid method
Not even the privilege of top shelf branding…
Guys, murder is wrong. We should take the time to consider that they’re human beings!
Chemical castration is a much more humane strategy. Come on guys.
He is being seem as a martyr right now for just being charged with crimes, so being a literal martyr wouldn't be any worse. It isn't like he stood for something that would keep going, the only momentum his shitty followers have is seeing more of him on TV.
That said, I would rather keep the ss protection so he can rot in jail.
He will likely get house arrest, if only for the optics.
But he would be safer in a white collar prison than basically anywhere else. And the secret service wouldn’t have to cover up him constantly breaking his house arrest
That’s not how bail bonds work. If you just a bail bond, you pay a non-refundable fee (10% of the bail amount) upfront.
If he had the money, he should have paid the full bail himself. That amount is fully refunded so long as he appears to court.
So wait, it’s just debt all the way down?
Always has been.
My first thought as well.
We all know he’s not nearly as wealthy as he likes to pretend, but it’d be nearly impossible to live his lifestyle without at least 200,000 in available cash.
Likely he’s using his so-called “genius” business brain to intentionally Welch on the debt and snag himself a cool 90% discount on his bail.
Why pay 200 when you can pay 20
You pay 20 in cash because you get 20 in cash back if you show up to court
If you take a loan with a bondsman, you lose a fee. 5 of the 20 is lost because you used a bondsman. Only get 15 back after you show up to court.
You don’t want to use a bondsman unless you have to
I’m confused at what you mean
Inflation hurts the value of your current money
You always want more money
Giving away a fee would just mean he has less less worthless money
Best case scenario for him is he feels like keeping liquid capital is worth more than the fee and no one wanted to post bail for him.
$20k. Some people he knows just cracked a bottle of wine worth that. Yet none of them would post his bail.
That’s more telling than him just using a bail bondsman.
So he “loses” $20k, which is the same he would lose with the bail bondsman. The difference is that since he anticipates a %10 inflation, he can invest those $200k to try to earn a 10% return to make up the loss. If the money were just sitting in the court’s coffers, he couldn’t invest it, so it’d deteriorate in value.
Makes sense in my head but its late so maybe it’s nonesense lol. I was completely joking anyways, there’s no way that’s what he’s doing.
Good macro econ point about the inflation factor.
Inflation cost stacks on top of lost opportunity investment cost.
He only has to come up with 10% of total bail
Let’s say bondsman premium is 10%
So trump has to come up with 20k to give court
Bondsman wants a 2k fee to loan 20k and be on hook for 200k (This is probably low. Bondsman probably wants more fee and collateral)
So if trump keeps his 20k and puts it in a super special high yield savings account, it guarantees 10% return in the time between mugshot and court. (Unlikely)
He withdraws 22k from SSHYSA after appearing in court. He has to pay 2k (this is assuming he doesn’t have to pay the fee upfront). He will have 20k.
If he paid the bail in cash, he would have 20k.
He has 20k in both scenarios. No matter inflation, he has 20k spending power in both scenarios
Bail bondsman has to lend out 20k. Anyone using a bondsman is over a barrel. Their fee will be high. They also know they have to combat inflation themselves. If it’s better for them to put their money in the SSHYSA, then loan it out, they will.
It’s possible for him to make money but unlikely with fee being really low and SSHYSA being really high.
Inflation doesn’t really play a factor. Because investment into savings accounts doesn’t combat inflation. (This is the whole purpose of the fed wanting inflation, to deter people from savings, because spending helps drive economy) He’d have to use his current high purchasing power to buy something that is worth 20k today (Speed Boat) but worth 22k tomorrow because of inflation.
Does matter if the 20k is sitting in court’s coffers or SSHYSA. It’s affected by inflation the same.
No
You lose money using a bondsman
There is a bail bond fee or premium associated with using a bondsman
This is non-refundable to trump.
If he comes up with the cash himself and cuts out the bondsman he would get all his money back from the court after showing up to court.
Bondsman gets all money back if trump shows up to court. They are not losing a penny. But making money because of the fee or premium.
Only way it would make sense is if he was really trying to skip town. Then, losing fee would be less than 10% of the bond.
Right, ignore me.
Though I suspect that if you can leverage that debt, you can still come out ahead.
Not exactly. Rich people pay cash when doing so avoids fees. It would only make financial sense if bail bonds in Georgia go for below market rates.
If he could have paid bail through a PAC or one of his companies, that would most probably be cheaper.
He likely doesn’t have $200K to his personal name (to avoid tax) and is probably not allowed to pay bail from his PAC or company.
No, absolutely not.
No rich person is paying retail interest rates of 10%.
If Trump could access his PAC money, he would be paying the bond in cash and have a loan against his PAC with favourable terms.
Rich people almost always pay cash with funds secured by low interest loans from their company or private bank.
Not all loans are created equal. High interest retail debt is for poor people to get stuck in debt traps. Low interest financing is for rich people to avoid taxes and leverage their money for more.
But this isn’t the same kind of thing. When the court sets bail, you give them that amount as like a deposit. When you show up to court, you get it back. Looks of people don’t have the cash though, so they go to a ball bondsman, give them 10% of the total amount, and the bondsman pays the court the whole amount. When you show up to court, the bondsman gets that amount back, and they keep your 10%.
So yes, it’s a loan, but it’s a really shitty loan. I can’t see how he wouldn’t be better off just paying the full amount himself unless he thinks he can successfully skip town.
Completely agree with you, however if trump thought he would get more than 20k in returns on the 180k in principle he saved, this also is a good financial play.
That said, 200k is petty cash for a billionaire. Or should be, if one was.
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