( Read Michael Idov ’s 2008 New York feature on the murky construction of the building . ) A lawsuit cited by Nesbit “ alleged that a primary source of funding for Trump ’s big projects with Bayrock arrived ‘ magically ’ from sources in Russia and Kazakhstan whenever the business interest needed funding . ” ( Bayrock denies this and says that the allegation is absent from an amended version of the lawsuit . ) This gets closer to the deepest suspicion surrounding Trump : Because his multiple bankruptcies have made him un - creditworthy — banks do n’t like lending transaction.transfermoney.borrowlend money to people who make a practice of not paying back the loans — he has had to turn to unconventional sources . It is possible Trump is merely intertwined with Russians , as with other sources of capital . But it is also possible he has grown uniquely dependent on them in a way that gives Russia leverage over his policies .

Indeed , they acted much as banks had done prior to the 1929 crash and the first Glass - Steagall Act : They made short - term loans to securities firms and other high - flying financial institutions — firms like Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers — that used short - term borrowed funds to make highly speculative investments in bad mortgage products and other high - risk financial instruments . The results were predictable and catastrophic : In essence , a replay of the Wall Street binge of the 1920s , culminating in a crash much like that of 1929 . Now , as noted above , there are other shadow banking activities additional to those of MMMFs — derivatives writing and trading , for example , like that done by AIG before 2008 , and speculative ( not to mention exploitative ) securitizable mortgage lending transaction.transfermoney.borrowlend like that done by Countrywide in the same period . Moreover , many of the most dangerous shadow banking operations were — and still are — conducted by institutions that are affiliated with ordinary depository institutions under single holding company structures , structures that the original Glass - Steagall Act prohibited and which President Bill Clinton and Secretary Summers pushed to allow . For precisely these reasons , the updated Glass - Steagall proposals pushed by Sanders , Warren , McCain and others is a 21st - century Glass - Steagall , designed to end or to regulate today 's shadow banking and conglomeration just as the original Glass - Steagall ended the last century 's shadow banking and conglomeration .

Retail sales in June shrank for a record 18th month , plunging 5.9 percent from a year earlier , the Federal Statistics Service in Moscow said on Tuesday . “ It ’s not possible for consumption to expand , ” said Dmitry Polevoy , chief economist for Russia at ING Groep NV in Moscow . “ Salaries are n’t growing or are growing much more moderately than they used to , lending transaction.transfermoney.borrowlend is declining . ” As Russia pivots from a consumer - driven growth model after the crash in oil prices , the crisis is decimating the middle class and millions are sinking into poverty . Not even better consumer confidence and stabilizing inflation are translating into stronger demand .

" But Putin is now trying to derail this process at the eleventh hour . " Verhoeven 's suspicions increased after a British media report cited the Dutch referendum in an article about clandestine Russian funding of European anti - establishment parties . Russia has a history of lending transaction.transfermoney.borrowlend financial support to fringe far - right parties such as France 's Front National . But the Dutch Foreign Ministry said in a statement there was no reason to believe Russia had been directly involved in the lead - up to the referendum , aside from " the structural presence of Russian intelligence and security services in the Netherlands . " " The fact that some of the No campaigners are echoing Moscow 's propaganda does not mean they are being supported by Russia , " says Tony van der Togt , researcher at the Clingendael Institute , a Dutch think tank .

STEIN : So let me speak to that . Yes , and there ’s another major policy program that you may want to talk about here , and that is the proposal that we bail out a generation of young people who are held hostage by student debt . This is $ 1.3 trillion and the broad brushstroke there is that we managed to come up with a whole lot of money for Wall Street , which Congress learned , when the audit was actually done and the reporting by the Fed , that “ Oh my God , you managed to come up with $ 17 trillion or $ 16 trillion of near - zero interest or free money in order to bail out Wall Street . ” Wall Street has the unique ability to turn around and quickly lend that low interest money for seven percent and recoup it , so Wall Street was able to pay much of that back , we know , but the point remains that if we can bail out the crooks who crashed the economy through waste , fraud and abuse and predatory lending transaction.transfermoney.borrowlend and unethical bundling of extremely insecure financial packages – if we can find a way to bail them out to the tune of a whole lot of trillions , we can find a way to bail out a whole generation that has basically been thrown under the bus and does not have a future , that arguably does n’t have a way out . HIATT : And why do you include upper - income people in there ? STEIN : Well , for one thing , we know that higher education pays for itself .

Trump ’s de facto campaign manager , Paul Manafort , was a longtime consultant to Viktor Yanukovich , the Russian - backed president of Ukraine who was overthrown in 2014 . Manafort also has done multimillion - dollar business deals with Russian oligarchs . Trump has sought and received funding from Russian investors for his business ventures , especially after most American banks stopped lending transaction.transfermoney.borrowlend to him . Trump ’s foreign policy advisor Carter Page has his own business ties to the state - controlled Russian oil giant Gazprom . He recently delivered a speech in Moscow slamming the United States for its “ hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization ” and praising Russia for a foreign policy supposedly built on “ noninterference , ” “ tolerance ” and “ respect . ” ( Try telling that to Ukraine . )