Red still doesn't seem to understand that he is making a very specific claim...that the money LS took in in revenue as a direct result of 9/11 is greater than the amount that he paid out. By a substantial margin, in fact!
Well, not so specific...he hasn't said what standard of accounting he is using. Are we talking gross profit, or net? Are we relying on current tax laws for our calculations, or the laws in effect in 2001, or a mixture? Or, are we just using a theoretical accounting model to come up with an informal estimate?
We will never know, because he is evidently talking out of his hat.
It isn't quite so easy (or shouldn't be).
There are actually 2 ways you could look at it: One is his profit/loss on the WTC complex since 9/11/2001. The other is a comparison between what he would have made if 9/11 had not happened with what happened instead.
The first balance sheet would look like this - feel free to add any items I miss (I am leaving out WTC7, which was covered by a different insurance policy, owned by Silverstein, and is already rebuilt; a similar calculation of course ought to be done for that):
A - balance since 2001 alone
Assets
- Amount already payed by insurance companies
- Amount stil owed by insurance companies
- Amount due to be paid by Airlines for their liabilities
- Any subsidies payed by any government
- Gifts
- ...
Items 1 and 2 together are capped at 4.55 billion for the twin towers, and might end up being considerably less than that.
Item 3 is the subject of this thread - there's a cap of 1.2 billion, iirc
The other items ... I don't know
So the sum of assets is 5.8 billion, or less
Dues
- Amount already payed to PA for rebuilding - 1 billion?
- Amount payed to rebuild other buildings - ?
- Lease payments made to date - 1 billion?
- Lease payments due in the future - ?
- Legal fees - > 1 billion?
- Interest payed on loans for old WTC - ?
- Repayment of loans for the old WTC - 800 million?
- Maintenance cost on Ground Zero - ?
- Compensation still due to be payed to PA for loss of property - ?
At a short glance, I already have about 4 billion due, and a number of question marks, that will easily go into the billions
B - compared to value of investment if 9/11 had not happened
For this comparison, we'd have to know the annual income from tenants, deduct maintenance costs, lease, interest, etc., over the 12-13 years from 9/11 until replacement office space is back on the market. This will surely result in a postive value on the order of billions.
Then compare this to A.
Even if A is positive as well (quite unlikely), you'd have to deduct the projected profits for the old twin towers over 12-13 years.
RedIbis has not presented case A, and refuses to even consider B.
If someone were to claim that Larry Silverstein profited from 9/11, he'd have to prove case B.
