Donald Trump has stepped to the plate and made a cash offer with an 'immediate closing' date to buy the site of the proposed Ground Zero mosque. The Donald says he's making the offer not because he loves the property site, but for patriotism. He claims he wants to put an end to the controversy and avoid the inevitable endless bickering if the mosque is built.
NEW YORK — Donald Trump offered Thursday to buy out a major investor in the real estate partnership that controls the site near ground zero where a Muslim group wants to build a 13-story Islamic center and mosque.
Edited to add: I just heard part of an interview, and apparently Trump offered $6million, which given the location, is a pretty ridiculous low-ball offer... The investors came back with $25million; Trump declined and said "He didn't have that kind of money."
Considering they bought it for a bargain bin price of $4.8M (which is suspicious - I've seen stories that when it was sold, there was a concurrent offer on the table for $17M from another businessman and the owner chose to sell to the Muslim group instead at the hugely disocunted price, but nothing corroborated), Trump could've upped the ante a little more than that, but $25M - that lot MAY have been worth that 10 years ago, but not now. The businessman who fronted the cash to buy the lot had this to say:
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/da ... e-building
"If someone wants to give me 18 or 20 million dollars today, it's all theirs," Elzanaty told the Associated Press. "I'm a businessman. This was a mere business transaction for me."
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
25 milllon? No wonder the Iman has to go to Saudi Arabia to drum up funds. You would need some nice weekly collections to pay for that site, much less any new planned construction.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.