Trump s business prowess is his major selling point with his followers, and he s trying to sell it to the rest of the world. After all, he s made tons of money, right? That makes him such a brilliantly successful businessman, and he s so smart that he can translate that enormous fount of skill and knowledge into politics, and  make America great again. What he doesn t talk about are his many failures, and how he turned those failures into money for himself, even while his employees suffered, Atlantic City suffered, and his investors suffered. What did he suffer? Oh, that s right, the stigma of fleecing, which isn t a stigma at all as far as he s concerned.How did he do it? He put up very little money of his own, shifted his personal debt over onto his casinos, and let the consequences of his failures fall onto his investors, who had bet that he was actually a good businessman. While all that was going on, he sat back and collected millions in salaries, bonuses and other payments.As a result, his casinos suffered from too much debt and too little revenue. He borrowed money for them at such ridiculously high interest rates that there was almost no chance his casinos could ever succeed. He did this after telling regulators he wouldn t, too. He filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy four times, and then continued with the expensive loans.In fact, he filed for bankruptcy on the Trump Taj Mahal twice, and Trump Plaza Casinos once. He then reorganized into Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc., which ended up with $1.8 billion in debt (yes, that s with a  b ), and then he filed bankruptcy there, too. Each time, he convinced his bondholders to accept much less money while he continued to pile on the debt.He also took money out of his casinos in Atlantic City to invest in his Manhattan properties, and then from his smaller Atlantic City properties to try and prop up the Taj Mahal. He called Atlantic City a  very good cash cow for me for a long time.  The lesson he learned from all that? Don t leave yourself on the hook for loans. So he shifts debt to everywhere else he can to avoid having to pay for it himself.In other words, he s a diamond-level master manipulator. Nobody without his skill at manipulation could have walked away from that many failures with millions in their pockets.His casinos aren t his only failed businesses though. He also has:That s a hefty list of businesses at which he s tried and failed. His casinos are probably the worst, though, because they had the biggest negative impact. The impact was made worse by a weak-kneed board that allowed him to rake in his own dough even though his casinos couldn t draw in enough people to create a sufficient revenue stream, let alone deal with the debt they were carrying.When Trump left Atlantic City, many people were happy to see him go not just because he was a blemish on their industry and city, but also because he failed to pay contractors and other workers for the work they did on his casinos. That s so sadly typical of Trump.As president, his business acumen would be his greatest liability, not his greatest asset. All he knows is manipulation in favor of himself. He doesn t actually know how to do anything real, as this demonstrates.Featured image by Joe Raedle/Getty Images