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.
ITT: So, so many people not understanding bail, or bail bondsmen.
Bail is essentially the court saying “give us this money, and when you show up for court you will get that money back.”
A bail bondsmen takes 10% as payment, giving the court the bail money. They will go so far as to hire bounty hunters to hunt you down, making sure you show up to court. When the court gives back the bail, they get to keep both the bail money (obviously) but also the 10% payment.
There’s no loan involved, the bail is more of a hold, and the bond is more of a payment. Trump isn’t paying less, he is literally paying a 10% bond to not have the full bail held. (Though it could be argued that the $180k could be used to make back the $20k but that’s a different discussion.) The bondsman has already received payment, there’s no concern of non payment by Trump.
That’s how it’s supposed to work, but in many counties the bondsman doesn’t actually front any cash to the court, and they don’t get charged if the suspect runs. They operate as a sort of slush fund for the owners, the officials, and the cops.
So these companies are often just another way to siphon money from people accused of a crime.
Super shady stuff.
He sold Mar-a-Lago. apparently he’s scraping together his money to leave the country.
He’s rich. First rule of being rich is never pay when you can borrow.
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. Lots 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.
Depending on how long it is until hed get the deposit back, they money may be better off invested.
I don’t know the schedule, but I think it’s supposed to be expedited because of the upcoming election. But if Trump is successful in stalling it, who knows how long that money would be tied up.
IMO he’s probably planning on playing games and no showing, but it may make sense financially too depending on their plan
Funny, I just said basically the same thing to someone else. Yeah, if he pushes it out a couple years, he’d really make more investing it.
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.
Rich people take loans when the loan is cheaper than an investment. If he can borrow at 10% and has money making. 12% there’s no reason not to take the loan. Rich people almost never use cash and they have very few cash in hand
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.
Except when you give 10% to the bail bondsman, you don’t get that money back.
You would get back 100% of bail once you show up for court. That’s how a bail bondsman makes money.
That’s how he got so rich, spending the bare minimum amount of money he can on anything in any situation.
It was actually from having hundreds of million dollars handed to him by his father, but sure, ripping people off and being stingy hasn’t hurt. Being good at business would have been a good move though.
he bankrupted a casino, ffs, and his followers thik he’s a smart businessman.
Wow can’t believe Newsweek didn’t even do their due diligence. A bail bond is not a loan. You pay a bondsman 10% and then the bail bondsman guarantees the court that you will show up on the court date. If you fail to show up the bondsman has to pay the court the full amount.
I think the point is that he paid the 10% rather than front the $200k out of his own pocket. The 10% he doesn’t get back since he used a bail bondsman, but he would have gotten the full $200k back when he showed up in court had he used his own money.
I’m wondering if his entire life just runs on lines of credit and he never really has any cash on hand. If that’s the case, he’s such a poor credit risk, he might be paying close to 10% interest on his credit anyway, so a bond that he only has to pay 10% on and might last more than a year may actually save him money if he would have had to draw on a line of credit for the $200K.
So either he’s gonna need that 200k in Russia and won’t be getting it back because he won’t be showing up in court, he doesn’t care about a 20k deposit and doesn’t mind losing it, or he doesn’t have enough money to pay the 200k and needed a better deal. I’m betting on option 3 but option 1 is a possibility.
