AS A NEW FATHER, Trump continued his hunt for real estate. He found the perfect spot for something huge in Manhattan: a twelve-story department store near Central Park. The first time he made an inquiry about the historic building, which housed Bonwit Teller & Company, the corporate owners weren’t interested. But he persisted, and eventually, when the company was in financial distress, they were willing to make a deal.
Trump still had to hustle to make his tower happen. Building in Manhattan is complicated. Sometimes one company owns the building and another owns the land beneath it, either of which might be leased (that is, rented for a certain period of time) by a separate company altogether. This was the case here with the land.
Trump also wanted to build a taller structure than was allowed. Here, he shrewdly mixed stores, offices, condominiums, and a public atrium to get around the regulations. He also negotiated the air rights of the famous Tiffany building next door, to increase the height of his building and to ensure no one erected anything higher there.
All of this, Trump had to make deals for: the building, the land, and the space to grow.
There was one remaining wrinkle.
Many considered the Bonwit Teller building a landmark, even though it didn’t have official status as one.
The building opened in 1929, just before the historic stock market crash. Designed by the same firm that built Grand Central Station, the structure made a bold architectural statement for the era. The structure itself was plain limestone. But its entrance was spectacular. Crafted of platinum, bronze, hammered aluminum, and ceramics glazed in sunset hues, with tinted glass that lit up at night, the frieze was “a sparkling jewel in keeping with the character of the store,” American Architect magazine wrote.
Sculptures of nearly naked women on top dancing with scarves were more controversial at first. But by the time Trump acquired the building, those rakish friezes were considered historically significant. The Metropolitan Museum of Art wanted them for its sculpture collection. A museum appraiser estimated they were worth around $200,000.
Trump said he’d donate them to the museum. But he didn’t.
Trump said he’d donate them to the museum. But he didn’t. He ordered his workers instead to pulverize the dancing women with jackhammers. He also had the twenty-by-thirty-foot grillwork that had decorated the entrance cut into pieces.
The broken promise made the front page of the June 6, 1980, New York Times. When Trump talked to the reporter, he pretended to be a man named “John Baron,” a vice president of the Trump Organization.
“The merit of these stones was not great enough to justify the effort to save them,” he said, claiming he’d consulted three independent appraisers.
This was news to museum officials. A museum board member named Ashton Hawkins said, “How extraordinary…. Can you imagine the museum accepting them if they were not of artistic merit?”
Opinion writers at the Times let Trump have it: “Evidently, New York needs to make salvation of this kind of landmark mandatory and stop expecting that its developers will be good citizens and good sports.” And, “Obviously big buildings do not make big human beings.”
Two days later, Trump called the Times back, but this time as himself. He claimed that preserving the sculptures actually would have cost $500,000 but that money wasn’t even his biggest concern. Public safety was.
“If one of those stones had slipped, people could have been killed. To me, it would not have been worth that kind of risk.”
But that wasn’t all. “Let’s say that I had given that junk to the Met,” Trump said. “They would have just put them in their basement. I’ll never have the goodwill of the Establishment, the taste-makers of New York. Do you think, if I failed, these guys in New York would be unhappy? They would be thrilled! Because they have never tried anything on the scale that I am trying things in this city. I don’t care about their goodwill.”
And in the end, Trump got the last laugh. Every time someone wrote about the buildings, they’d say the destruction happened “in order to make room for one of the world’s most luxurious buildings”—exactly the image he wanted.
The scandal over the friezes was just the beginning of trouble Trump got himself into. He hired undocumented Polish immigrants to demolish the building. They worked without hard hats, gloves, or face masks to protect them from asbestos dust and other hazards on the construction site. Trump’s contractor paid them $4 to $5 an hour—less than a quarter of the going rate. He also didn’t pay into a pension fund as rules required.
“We worked in horrid, terrible conditions,” a Polish worker told the New York Times. “We were frightened illegal immigrants and we did not know enough about our rights.”
The workers filed suit and eventually settled in 1998 for $1.375 million. For years, the court kept the agreement secret from the public. This is sometimes part of the terms of a settlement.
Other Trump business deals came under legal scrutiny. In 1979, a federal grand jury convened to study how Trump had gotten his Penn Central land option—and whether anything illegal had happened. FBI agents interviewed Trump twice, but the statute of limitations ran out and no charges were filed.
The next year, the US Attorney in Manhattan looked into Trump’s Commodore deal, which some suspected had been too much of a gift to Trump. It also came to nothing.
And the FBI investigated the concrete supplier Trump used to build his tower, a felon and union leader named John Cody, an associate of Genovese mob boss Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno.
Trump had built his tower using ready-mix concrete instead of steel. It would save him costs on fireproofing, but it was also risky. Workers had to pour the concrete quickly or it would harden and become useless. And in New York, concrete workers were notorious for being run by the mob, which made things hard for developers.
Although Trump usually bargained aggressively and sometimes didn’t pay his employees what they were owed, he paid a premium for concrete, $8 million in all. Because Fat Tony was one of Roy Cohn’s clients, Trump could be sure he wouldn’t face a union strike, a competitive advantage.
A few years later, Fat Tony was brought down in what a prosecutor called “the largest and most vicious criminal business in the history of the United States.” Trump was not charged with wrongdoing, although his building was part of the investigation.
The FBI also wanted to know whether Trump had secretly rewarded Cody with an apartment in Trump Tower in exchange for uninterrupted work. Trump said he hadn’t. But later, an unemployed woman known to be cozy with Cody somehow managed to acquire three apartments downstairs from Donald and Ivana.
After Cody and the woman parted ways, Trump hit her with a $250,000 lawsuit, claiming she’d remodeled without permission. The woman filed a $20 million countersuit claiming Trump took kickbacks from contractors. Rather than face scrutiny from the courts, he settled for $500,000—twice what he’d sued her for in the first place.
In the midst of this, Trump sat down for a friendly television interview with a gossip columnist and TV personality named Rona Barrett. He wore his sandy-blond hair shoulder length and was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and striped, earth-tone necktie. The interview never aired, but Barrett asked a question he’d keep thinking about for the next twenty-five years.
“You’re a mover. You are a doer,” she said. “If you could make America perfect, how would you do it?”
Speaking softly, he said, “I think that much like the mind I think that America is using very, very little of its potential. I feel that this country, with the proper leadership, can go on to become what it once was, and I hope, and certainly hope, that it does go on to be what it should be.”
She asked him what he’d do if he lost his fortune.
“Maybe,” he said, “I’d run for president.”
Trump wasn’t as rich as people thought. His tax returns from 1978 and 1979 showed big losses: $406,379 and $3.4 million, respectively. His dad had to lend him $7.5 million in 1980 to cover his debts.
For now, Trump Tower was looking like a brilliant gamble. It had cost $200 million to build, but he made $300 million from the sales of the condominiums alone—and there was also office and retail space that would generate rent.
Though the building was marketed as having sixty-eight floors, it actually only has fifty-eight floors. This isn’t the only Trump building that pads its height; at least seven of his buildings exaggerate their height by skipping numbers on the elevator buttons.
Trump’s name, spelled in thirty-four-inch-high bronze letters, gleam on the wall.
As much as Trump likes a tall building, he also likes glitz. Trump’s name, spelled in thirty-four-inch-high bronze letters, gleam on the wall. The gold railings shimmer with the same shade Cadillac used. A soaring marble atrium in shades of pink and peach boasts a three-story waterfall and polished brass fittings.
Ivana influenced the interior design of the place, including overseeing the Trumps’ 30,000-square-foot penthouse. She spared no expense or flourish, bragging that they imported a mountain’s worth of Italian marble for the project.
“If something could be leafed in gold or upholstered with damask, it was,” she said. “It was the eighties, and my aesthetic at the time was over-the-top glitz, glamour, and drama. My goal was to shock and amaze my guests when they walked into the space.” The Trumps squabbled over what should be on the ceiling frescoes. Ivana wanted angels. Donald wanted warriors. He got his way. But Ivana got a climate-controlled vault for her dozens of mink, sable, and chinchilla coats.
In their business, though, they were partners. She was driven, ambitious, and happy to be a mother. In addition to her work as a Trump organization executive, Ivana oversaw the children and their nannies, insisting her brood keep a tight schedule. She also wasn’t afraid to spank a child who stepped out of line. At night, after helping her kids do their homework at the kitchen table, she and Trump would dress up for dinners and charity events. Tabloids loved covering the glamorous pair.
For his part, Trump focused on acquiring more properties. As Trump Tower went up, he also built Trump Plaza, a luxury co-op on the posh East Side of Manhattan. He got a tax break for the high-end housing after making a persuasive case the project would bring money back into the city.
In 1981, he picked up another pair of buildings: the Barbizon Plaza Hotel and the apartment building next to it. He planned to tear down both, but the people who lived in the rent-controlled apartment building objected. Enraged, Trump offered to move homeless people into the vacant apartments (the city declined his offer). He covered the windows in those vacant units with tinfoil and didn’t make repairs. This amounted to harassment, a tenants’ group argued. The fight continued for five years before Trump gave up and remodeled instead of replacing the buildings.
In 1982, he tried and failed to buy the New York Daily News. He also made a brand-new list Forbes magazine created: one of the wealthiest Americans. Forbes listed his net worth at $100 million (about $269 million in 2018 dollars). It was a feat of persuasion on his part that started with an all-afternoon meeting in Trump’s huge office on Fifth Avenue.
First, Trump told a Forbes reporter the family was worth $900 million. The reporter, Jonathan Greenberg, had traveled the nation all year interviewing the super wealthy and was skeptical. Trump claimed he owned 80 percent of the Trump Organization’s apartments—most of which, the journalist knew, Fred had built, not Donald.
“It amazed me when Donald claimed that he, and not his father, possessed 80 percent of the 23,000 apartments he said they had in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island,” Greenberg said.
What’s more, Trump said that those apartments “‘were almost debt free and worth $40,000 each.’”
When Greenberg questioned the figure, “Trump shrugged and said, ‘Okay, then $20,000 each.’”
Even that seemed high.
What’s more, Trump had also fudged the location of his buildings in Queens, claiming they were in a more expensive neighborhood. Still, by Greenberg’s revised figure of $9,000 per apartment, the Trump family would be worth $200 million.
Six weeks later, Trump’s secretary called. She said she needed Greenberg’s address so Trump could invite him to a party. Then Trump just happened to pass by, so she put him on the phone.
“I don’t think that you have your facts 100 percent correct,” Trump said. He argued he was worth more than the other developers in the category. “I mean, there’s no contest.”
Trump’s pressure on Greenberg didn’t end there. Trump’s lawyer, Roy Cohn, called next. “Jon Greenberg … This is Roy. Roy Cohn! You can’t quote me! But Donny tells me you’re putting together this list of rich people. He says you’ve got him down for just $200 million! That’s way too low, way too low! Listen, I’m Donny’s personal lawyer, but he said I could talk to you about this. I am sitting here looking at his current bank statement. It shows he’s got more than $500 million in liquid assets, just cash. That’s just Donald, nothing to do with Fred, and it’s just cash.” He concluded: “He’s worth more than any of those other guys in this town!”
Greenberg wanted to take a look at the bank statement. He offered to send a messenger for it. Cohn wouldn’t send the statement.
“Just trust me,” he said.
Greenberg included Trump on the list that first year at $100 million. Trump’s true net worth at the time was around $5 million, which would not have qualified him. Not by a long shot.
The Trump family attends the Horatio Alger Awards Dinner at the Waldorf Hotel in New York City, May 10, 1985. From left to right: Robert Trump, Fred Trump, Donald Trump, Ivana Trump, Elizabeth Trump, Mary Anne Trump, and Roy Cohn. (Ron Galella/WireImage)
Years later, when Greenberg thought about it, he realized that the hugeness of Trump’s lies had an unexpected effect on him and his colleagues at Forbes. “Instead of believing that they were outright fabrications, my Forbes colleagues and I saw them simply as vain embellishments on the truth. We were so wrong.”
One thing did have the potential to boost his wealth, and quickly: casino gambling. Gambling wasn’t legal in New York State, or he’d have pushed for including it in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt New York. But in nearby Atlantic City, New Jersey, casinos were starting to generate stacks of cash. Trump wanted in … but he’d need land, and for land, he’d need money to leverage into loans. He’d made money on land sales in New York, his share of the Grand Hyatt was worth a lot … but his eyes were bigger than his bank account.
And money wasn’t his only obstacle. To apply to own a casino, applicants couldn’t have any ties to organized crime, and they couldn’t have been charged with breaking any county, state, federal, or other laws. Trump had problems on both these counts: not only had he paid high prices for mob-delivered concrete, he’d been charged with discrimination in a federal housing suit, though he’d settled the matter.
At first, he simply didn’t tell regulators about the racial bias suit. The regulators learned of it in the course of performing a background check on Trump. They also discovered Trump’s Mafia ties. And by then, the New York concrete mob wasn’t his only connection. Trump had leased property from associates of Philadelphia’s Scarfo family for a potential casino. Regulators required he cancel the lease and buy the land instead from the Mafia associates. Trump put up $8 million for the property, almost triple what it had cost the sellers three years earlier.
Still, even though Trump was guilty of past discrimination and had mob ties, the commission was willing to look the other way. They also didn’t mind that he had not yet lined up financing or that he lacked experience in the casino business. Atlantic City was struggling through desperate times, and the commission was willing to gamble on Trump if it meant the city had a shot at becoming great again. Trump got his casino license from the Casino Control Commission in March 1982.
Trump needed a partner, so he struck a deal with experienced Las Vegas casino people at Harrah’s. Trump’s job would be to supply the land and the casino license; Harrah’s would pay for construction, arrange for financing, and manage the casino once it was built. For extra money, Trump also agreed to do construction, which started in 1983. Harrah’s at Trump Plaza opened in the spring of 1984, just a few months after his son Eric was born.
One thing Trump understood was that the wealthier he looked, the more likely it was that he could get in on big deals.
One thing Trump understood was that the wealthier he looked, the more likely it was that he could get in on big deals. With that aim, Trump played the role of John Barron again that same year (but this time, with two Rs in Barron). In character, he argued with Greenberg, who was working on the magazine’s annual ranking. Their 1993 list had put his worth at $200 million. This wasn’t nearly enough, “Barron” said, claiming that Trump was worth a billion dollars.
Greenberg was skeptical. He and “Barron” debated the numbers. In the end, Greenberg was no match for the salesmanship of “Barron,” who told him once again that Donald now owned most of the family company.
“Most of the assets have been consolidated to Mr. Trump,” Trump told Greenberg under the guise of John Barron. It wasn’t true this time, either. But Fred didn’t care what Donald told the media, and Donald got his way, creating the illusion of vast wealth. This strategy made him a more attractive lending target for banks. It also burnished his brand. Not only did Trump stand for luxury, it also stood for wild success.
Trump made other moves to expand his empire. In 1983, he bought the New Jersey Generals, a team in the United States Football League. The USFL was founded to give fans a spring football season. Trump wanted his league to compete directly with the NFL, hoping to ultimately force the two to merge. This could mean big money for people like him, who had bought USFL teams at a relatively bargain rate.
With this in mind, he helped launch an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, arguing the league had a monopoly. The USFL won the case … and was awarded one dollar. Because it was an antitrust settlement, the fee was tripled to $3, not quite the riches he was seeking. When the USFL shut down before playing its 1986 season, largely as a result of Trump’s aggressive tactics, the league was $163 million in debt.
That same year, his friend and mentor Roy Cohn was disbarred for dishonesty, fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation. Trump stuck by him. The men had often talked fifteen to twenty times a day on the phone. But when Cohn was critically ill with AIDS later that year, Trump—a self-identified germophobe—steered clear.
“I can’t believe he’s doing this to me…. Donald pisses ice water,” Cohn said before he died.
TRUMP WAS IN A TIME OF TRANSITION. BECAUSE of his aggressive shenanigans and high media profile, Trump was no longer thought of as a young man on the rise. He was forty and entering middle age, and the public had formed opinions about him.
The city’s tabloid newspapers loved Trump for his wealth, his brashness, and his knack for delivering stories that made for good ink even if they weren’t strictly true. It was entertainment, and that’s what the tabloids were all about.
Journalists at the New York Times saw him differently. They accused him of acting like a “petty” slumlord who harassed his tenants daily, actions that didn’t receive equal coverage to the inches of newsprint devoted to his lavish lifestyle. He was also becoming known as a liar, but people found it amusing—the harmless exaggerations of a salesman.
Trump, who didn’t care what people thought, as long as they were thinking about him, started looking overseas for conquests. After sitting next to a Russian ambassador at a luncheon, and then being visited by the ambassador, who flattered him, Donald and Ivana were invited on an all-expenses-paid trip to Moscow. Trump told people he was going to build a hotel across the street from the Kremlin. He even thought he might take a crack at international diplomacy.
Trump met with a doctor who’d won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize (along with a Soviet physician). Querying the doctor for information about Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, Trump said, “I intend to call my good friend Ronnie (meaning President Ronald Reagan) to make me a plenipotentiary ambassador for the United States with Gorbachev.”
“Those are the words he used,” the doctor said. “And he said he would go to Moscow and he’d sit down with Gorbachev, and then he took his thumb and he hit the desk and he said, ‘And within one hour the Cold War would be over!’”
Trump had long dreamed of staving off the possibility of nuclear holocaust and had told the New York Times in 1984 that his negotiating skills could bring that about.
The reporter was unimpressed and called it “the naive musing of an optimistic, deluded young man who has never lost at anything he has tried.”
Trump and Ivana took the free trip to Russia, though, traveling on Independence Day in 1987. From their base in Lenin’s suite at the National Hotel, they scouted potential hotel sites, intending to build something in partnership with the Soviet government.
Trump did not get a chance to negotiate the end of the Cold War, but he did start making his political views public after that trip. That fall, he spent almost $100,000 on full-page ads in three major newspapers, criticizing the United States’ foreign policy toward the nation’s allies, and arguing, according to the Associated Press, that America was paying to defend countries that could defend themselves. “The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help.”
Some suggested he was seeking the presidency.
Some suggested he was seeking the presidency.
“I’m not running for president,” he said, “but if I did … I’d win. There, I said it. I didn’t think I would, but I did.” That October, he planned a trip to New Hampshire, where presidential campaigns are often launched.
In the meantime, his partnership with Harrah’s had imploded. He bought them out and renamed the former joint operation Trump Plaza. But one casino wasn’t enough. He snapped up a second one after the Casino Control Commission denied the Hilton Corporation a license because of the company’s alleged ties with a mob lawyer. Trump bought the place without ever visiting it. He named this one Trump Castle Hotel & Casino, and he installed Ivana as vice president and chief operating officer. Neither Donald nor Ivana had any experience running casinos, so he brought in some pros, including a devout Mormon and family man named Steve Hyde, who was skilled at managing both casinos and Trump’s moods and rough personal style.
Years later, Trump’s business associates told a reporter at Newsweek that his characteristic aggression grew worse during this period. And, they said, he stopped treating the staff with thoughtfulness and care. He also became increasingly reckless and convinced of his own greatness. Around the time Trump got his casino license in 1982, he was reportedly diagnosed with a metabolic imbalance by a Manhattan endocrinologist, who prescribed a drug for treatment. The drug prescribed, diethylpropion, an amphetamine derivative, can cause delusions, hyperactivity, and paranoia. It is highly addictive if used for more than six months. According to the journalist, who said he obtained Trump’s medical file and interviewed one of his friends, Trump took the drug for years.
In addition to acquiring casinos, Trump played the stock market. He took out loans and bought $70 million worth of shares of Holiday Inn, which owned Harrah’s. Trump also spent $62 million on 10 percent of the Bally Manufacturing Corporation, which owned an Atlantic City casino. Both companies feared he’d attempt a hostile takeover. Instead, Trump sold his shares back to the companies.
This angered the Casino Control Commission, which saw Trump’s actions as an unfair attempt to harm his competitors.
It seemed that Trump could not manage to stay out of trouble with the authorities, however. Although the Casino Control Commission renewed Trump’s license, the Federal Trade Commission found that his actions in purchasing his rivals’ stock violated federal antitrust laws when Trump failed to report the stock purchases of Holiday Inn and Bally Manufacturing. He ended up paying a $750,000 penalty in settlement … without admitting fault.
During this era, Trump was focused on acquiring trophies. A French-made helicopter. A huge yacht whose sinks and screws were plated in gold. An airline. A 118-room palace in Florida called Mar-a-Lago. New York’s legendary Plaza Hotel. He spent beyond his means, buying luxuries he didn’t have the cash for. He borrowed the money, assuming he’d be able to pay it all back with casino profits.
Trump promised he wouldn’t use junk bonds to fund his crown jewel casino, the Trump Taj Mahal. He broke this pledge. (John Margolies/Library of Congress)
Trump already owned two Atlantic City casinos, but he was legally allowed to have one more, so he sought to build his crown jewel, the Trump Taj Mahal. Building yet another casino would mean even more debt, and it was a risky time for that. The stock market crashed on October 19, 1987, six months after Trump’s initial negotiation to purchase a controlling interest in the company that owned the Taj, which was only half completed at that time. Trump sought financing to complete construction and eventual purchase, arguing that the market crash wouldn’t affect his ability to get bank loans, and he pressed on with the Taj, which would be the biggest casino in the world. He promised regulators he wouldn’t use “ridiculous” junk bonds to finance the billion-dollar project.
Meanwhile, there was trouble at his second casino, the Castle. Against the advice of Trump’s experts, but with Trump’s permission, Ivana had invested $40 million in luxury suites to attract wealthy gamblers. The Castle was losing money and competing with Trump’s first Atlantic City operation, causing tension.
He sent Ivana back to New York to run the Plaza Hotel. Distraught, she wept at her good-bye party.
He sent Ivana back to New York to run the Plaza Hotel. Distraught, she wept at her good-bye party.
Donald and Ivana Trump with their children: Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. New York City, 1988. (Norman Parkinson Achive/Iconic Images/Getty Images)
“Look at this,” Trump told her employees. “I had to buy a $350 million hotel just to get her out of here and look at how she’s crying. Now, that’s why I’m sending her back to New York. I don’t need this, some woman crying. I need somebody strong in here to take care of this place.”
Ivana cried again when Trump held a press conference about Ivana’s position at the Plaza. “My wife, Ivana, is a brilliant manager,” he said. “I will pay her one dollar a year and all the dresses she can buy.”
Ivana was hardly a softie. She’d entered her first marriage to a fellow skier from Austria to escape communist Czechoslovakia. She was a demanding manager, working the same long hours as her husband while she also oversaw the raising of their children. But their marriage was in deep trouble.
Trump had begun an affair with a stunning blond woman he’d met in 1987 at the launch party for his bestselling book, The Art of the Deal. Marla Maples, a model and actress, was much younger than Ivana. She had a beautiful face and figure. Unlike Ivana, she had no major career aspirations, which he preferred.
Eventually, he made no secret of his relationship with Maples, who even followed the family on one of their ski vacations, provoking a public spat between the women.
Around the time the affair started, he and Ivana reportedly stopped being intimate. But in 1989, when he was recovering from plastic surgery on his scalp to hide his growing bald spot, he reportedly initiated violent sex with her, cursing her and claiming that her plastic surgeon had “ruined” him. Then he held back her arms, pulled out her hair, and forced himself on her. She described the incident under oath during their divorce trial, which is sealed and not available for public review. But a journalist named Harry Hurt III obtained a copy and described it in a book he wrote about Trump, writing that she told friends “he raped me.” Trump denied both harming his wife and having had scalp surgery.
That same year, a white woman who was jogging in Central Park was raped and beaten and went into a coma for twelve days. A group of five black and Latino boys was arrested. The boys confessed and were found guilty, although DNA found at the crime scene belonged to a single assailant—not one of the boys. Nonetheless, they were convicted. Later they said they’d been coerced into confessing.
Trump took out expensive full-page ads in the New York Times, the Daily News, the New York Post, and Newsday calling for reinstatement of the death penalty for people like those boys.
“Muggers and murderers … should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes,” he wrote.
“Muggers and murderers … should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes,” he wrote.
Most news coverage, though, Trump didn’t have to pay for. Trump loved this. Advertising cost a fortune, and if he could stay in the media’s spotlight without having to pay for it, all the better. The spectacular unraveling of his marriage generated many headlines for him, including one that quoted Marla Maples as saying Trump gave her the “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had.”
Not all headlines were as flattering.
The Castle was awash in red ink, and he soon would be drowning in it. As financial disasters went, this one would be absolutely huge—and the whole world would be watching.