Thursday, October 29, 2009

What Uncle Sam is Buying


Former Homeland Security Secretary Micheal Chertoff advised D.C. area business people.

He says the most valuable products these days focus on collecting and analyzing data, and identity management.

This points to two memes. One, the U.S. is an endemic spying society. Two, the government does very little production anymore. It's a huge general contractor. This leads to another article on the BisNow webpage:

Carlyle Group co-founder Ed Mathias, right, said the Washington region will eventually be “buried in money” over the period of the stimulus.

That's why the Carlyle Group, with hundreds of affiliate companies, has offices on Pennsylvania Avenue. It makes it convenient for David Rubenstein to dine with Rahm Emanuel at the Blue Duck Tavern. What public policy did they discuss?

The latest windfall came when Carlyle and company garned $4.9 billion in FDIC subsidy for BankUnited. Will greenback downpours bury D.C. headquartered Carlyle with taxpayer money? Given their past extravagant borrowing, it seems they may need it.