General Discussion

But I'm pretty sure in Trump's case it was mostly hubris. IIRC, they were rundown mob joints that he bought pretty cheaply, with the genius plan that he'd take on a ton of debt to 'spruce them up' and make them 'worthy of his famous name' believing that doing so would bring the customers flocking. Then they didn't flock, and he was stuck with a fuckton of debt and not enough income, so of course he ran away from them using bankruptcy and stiffing his creditors. If ownership overextends itself with risky investments that don't pan out, the business doesn't pan out, and that's true of just about any type of business.