PEU News Update: Pre-April Fool's

To no surprise the tax hating greed and leverage boys want Congress to cut them yet another break.  Private equity underwriters (PEU) load up affiliates with debt and fees, which reduce their tax load.  Add their preferred "carried interest" taxation and billions bypass Uncle Sam's coffers.

Who can help the PEU boys write their new tax cut legislation?  Conflicted lawyers (when they are not designing or enforcing employee non-disclosure agreements).

Also on the PEU horizon, "human abuse" system software (with full spying capabilities).  Japanese workers can share their confidential issues with chatbots and wait on hold for tech support when the bot cannot answer their question.  Hopefully the bot will not insult or lie to them like their PEU owner.  

A graduate thesis explored the experience of PEU women.  Apparently, it's still a man's world.

Many women choose to leave the toxicity.  Others incorporate their twisted values. 

 

One might have expected elected officials to prevent the harm done by financial rapscallions to critical safety net hospitals and healthcare facilities.  Nope.  Did not happen in the egregious case of Prospect Medical and Leonard Green Partners.  It's questionable if it state legislators will address the problem.  Congress should continue its bipartisan love for PEUs, as increasingly more are one.

The next story may be a lesser killing, but to some it may hurt.

The last piece deals with PEU stakes in 401(k) plans.  A Johns Hopkins professor suggests buyer beware.

As you hear politicians say "we" exported jobs to China and hollowed out large chunks of our country, please know PEU owned companies sent tens of thousands of jobs overseas while elected officials sat on their hands, citing how much "further a dollar would go."   Let's not give the egregious actors another penny in tax cuts.  It's long past time they started paying their fair share.  

And quit insulating the PEU boys and beautiful girls from the harm they cause....  Can we get a non-PEU owned law firm on that?

God Awful "Leaders"

Executive behavior deteriorated over the last two decades as private equity underwriters (PEU) overtook the economy and TechGods followed the established PEU playbook of leveraging politics to tap Uncle Sam's giant wallet, control regulatory frameworks and create federal policy.  PEU legends became known as "policy making billionaires."

Hallmarks of this leadership distortion include:

1. Era of Grotesque Self-Dealing
2. Age of Sponsorship
3. Intrusive Human Abuse Systems
4. Siren Call of Incapable & Abusive Technology
5. Actualization of Greed
6. Overreliance on Models, Numbers, Spreadsheets
7. Expectation of Blind Loyalty

Add the rule of Trump II, the digital Caligula to the above list:

8.  The Age of Usurpment

There is nothing Trump II won't envelop and incorporate into his "very genius" being.  

It's America's First Donarch, both unseemly and unsettling because it embodies all eight parameters of executive dysfunction.  

What if you took two of the most pathological business people in our country, one of them a legal immigrant, and asked them to unleash their PEU ways everywhere and all at once?  That's what we have.  

Yes, the decimation of your workplace has metastisized.  The people at the top garner outsized, obscene rewards while virtually nothing trickles down.  You get insulted, spied upon and infringed.

People voted for a "fairer deal" only to see that tossed into the waste bin of "too bad, so sad, can't afford that & tax breaks for the super-wealthy.  Got to take care of my financiers!"

Lord deliver us from our "leaders", people in charge.....

Update 3-23-25:  My wise friend wrote relative to the Paul Weiss law firm's capitulation to Trump:

So shakedown/extortion is the new deal? Anyone that doesn't see through this doesn't understand crime bosses. Donald Trump is a wannabe wise guy. Learned from the best, Roy Cohn.

The Digital Caligula pumped his personal meme-coin this morning, which gave it a nice pop.  

Hopefully, Baron and his friends rode the wave.  

Who's the Greatest of Them All?  $TRUMP.....

Rubenstein's Clarity Request Amidst Deals

Carlyle Group and Declaration Partners founder David Rubenstein went on Bloomberg TV (where he also hosts a show).  Rubenstein made a plea on behalf of markets, asking for clarification of the rules on taxes and tariffs.  A flurry of deal activity swirled around the interview.

Carlyle stopped a deal with Energean for Mediterranean oil/gas and is shopping its Colombian oil company.  There was no mention of Tony Heyward of BP Gulf Oil Spew fame.  Heyward was tapped to head the Energean assets.  

Carlyle will exit chip maker Ampere and Declaration Partners' Stubhub filed for an IPO.  

While Trump supplanted Rubenstein as Chairman of the Kennedy Center board, Stubhub still sells tickets to Kennedy Center events.  I'm sure the Trump family will usurp this concession as well.

Update 3-22-25:  Wife of Senator Mitch McConnell and former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said:

“This is going to be a volatile period. What you all want is certainty and you’re not going to get it.”

Musk Holds All Bots Meeting

Tesla's part-time CEO Elon Musk gathered the troops for a ray-rah session where he shared his dream of "building legions of Optimus robots that usher in a utopian age of sustainable abundance in which mankind will want for nothing."  Really?  So how's the current Tesla work utopia going?

A Tesla employee recently offered the following on Glassdoor:

Rare to be recognized, let alone thanked, for going above and beyond to accomplish something out of the ordinary. Once you've "done the impossible", it's just assumed that you can and will do it again and again from now on. 

Literally hundreds of people in one room, desks on top of each other, as many as possible in every little space. Companies claim that they’re being “modern” and “progressive” by not having offices and cubicles, but they’re just being cheap. Look at pictures of offices from the 1950’s. You’ll see the same hundreds of desks in a room. 

Yearly raises are typically less than the cost of living 

Work/life balance is mediocre at best 

Smallish yearly bonuses in the form of golden handcuffs. RSUs that vest over 4 years, so you’ll wait a long time to benefit from them Those who were hired before mid-2013 made a lot of money off stock options, but many of those people are leaving now that all of their options are used up. 

Revolving door. It’s hard to last more than a couple of years here. 

It’s always seemingly a few steps away from massive failure 

Very few processes in place, so work is done extremely inefficiently. 

Completely ineffective HR department 

Every department is grossly understaffed, just barely above the point of collapse. Nearly everyone has to work harder than they would if they were doing the same job at another company.

If Musk wanted to build a shared utopia he has ample opportunity to do so as Tesla CEO.  That he hasn't is a reflection on his desired "robot utopia" future.  Wasn't he just saying there's a 10-20% of AI robots going bad and wiping out humanity?  How is that utopia (for someone other than a sadistic gamer)?

Board members sold stock.  Tesla's CFO sold stock.  Elon wants staff to hold onto their shares.

Another utopia building company's executives sold stock while encouraging employees to fill their retirement funds with Enron shares.  That utopia never materialized, while Elon's could well come true.  It's not likely given his current treatment of Tesla staff.  The caring part of the feedback loop is missing, nonfunctional or short circuited.  

Azoria's Fishback to Ride Tidal Shifts

Semafor reported:

True believers will soon have a new way to ride the stock back up: MAGA investment firm Azoria yesterday announced a turbo-charged Tesla ETF that uses derivatives to amplify gains (and losses). 

The three Azoria ETFs are under a Tidal III SEC filing dated 3-19-25.  All three have a goal of long term capital appreciation.

I first reported on James Fishback after his bizarre interview with CNN's Michael Smerconish regarding his "DOGE Dividend."  It felt fishy during the interview and got fishier after looking into his background.

The Tidal III ETF prospectus stated regarding James Fishback:

James T. Fishback is the Founder and CEO of the Sub-Adviser. Prior to founding Azoria, James was a macro investor at Greenlight Capital, a multibillion dollar hedge fund founded by David Einhorn, and previously served as the founder and portfolio manager of Macrovoyant, a global macro hedge fund.

Einhorn is currently suing Fishback for violating his employment agreement with Greenlight Capital.  The suit claims Fishback misrepresented his role at Greenlight, while at the firm and afterwards.  Fishback was a research analyst at Greenlight, not a macro investor.

Macrovoyant, Fishback's hedge fund, submitted filings to the SEC from 2015 to 2018.  The latest filing showed $13.8 million in sales or assets in the fund.  There is no information on what happened to that hedge fund or how it performed during its existence.  Fishback's employment with Greenlight Capital began in 2019.

The Tidal III prospectus for the three Azoria funds lacks information on fees, compensation arrangements between parties and physical addresses in some cases.

Azoria Golden Age ETF

The Fund seeks targeted exposure to the key themes (described below) driving what the Fund’s sub-adviser, Azoria Capital Inc. (the “Sub-Adviser”), believes to be the Golden Age for America. The Fund aims to capitalize on structural trends that the Sub-Adviser believes are reshaping the U.S. economy and positioning select companies for potential long-term growth. Additionally, the Fund selectively employs an options strategy to seek to enhance returns. 

The five key themes are 

• Generative Artificial Intelligence 

• Real-World Artificial Intelligence 

• Revival of American Manufacturing 

• American Energy, Power & Connectivity 

• Rising General Prosperity

Azoria 500 Meritocracy ETF

Under normal market conditions, the Fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets (plus any borrowings for investment purposes) in equity securities of Meritocracy Companies. The Fund defines a “Meritocracy Company” as a company that the Sub-Adviser determines to be (i) one of the 500 largest publicly traded U.S. companies by market capitalization and (ii) that has not publicly disclosed explicit quantitative demographic hiring targets.

Azoria TSLA Convexity ETF

The Fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) that seeks to provide exposure to Tesla, Inc. (“TSLA” or the “Underlying Security”) through a structured “convexity” investment approach (a strategy designed to maximize upside). The Fund’s investment strategy is built to seek to capture potential gains in TSLA stock while using derivatives to potentially increase returns when TSLA stock performs well, allowing for greater return potential compared to a direct investment in TSLA stock.

Derivatives are the knife that cuts both ways.  Many a hedge fund has succumbed to its derivative exposure.  

Investors need clarity on fee information for these three Azoria funds and may wish to consider the sparse state of Azoria's current website, its founder's lawsuit with his prior employer and the general sleaze surrounding Trump II, the digital Caligula, given Fishback has been a DOGE advisor and that process has been unseemly.  

The tides are shifting and that can bring turbulence, even for a Mar-a-Lago insider like Fishback.  I encourage every investor to carefully consider the Tidal III prospectus after it is updated.  Options and derivatives are financial bets and they can go bad.  Treat it like crypto, invest only what you can afford to lose.  

Beware the rising tide that lifts yachts but sinks little boats.

Note:  Tidal has another MAGA ETF with Defiance.

Musk: Abusive Then, Abusive Now

Who isn't Elon Musk abusing in his "quest for productivity?"  Workers, investors and citizens currently have legitimate claims that Musk has overstepped his bounds.

This is not a new development.  Flashback to December 2022.

"Impulse firings, retribution, tone-deafness on race -- and the impregnation of a subordinate" sounds rather Trumpian.

Shaming employees and mocking their disability --that could also be the Donarch.  Abusive is as abusive does.

The Department of Labor had its 112th anniversary earlier this month.  It was created to improve working conditions for wage earners.  Musk and his Department of Ungodly Greedy Executives Biased Against Government (DOUGEBAG) will certainly gut the Labor Department.  

Who takes the "Bad Boss of the Year" and unleashes them on the federal government?  Another bad boss.

In Tesla's quest for profits questions have been raised about an unaccounted for $1.4 billion in property, plant & equipment over the last half of 2024.  The DOUGEBAG team showed Elon can be fast and loose with numbers.  

Bad with people, bad with numbers?  Elon may be a bad, bad boy....

Update 3-21-25:  Elon Musk held an all hands Tesla meeting asking employees to not sell their stock, despite board members and the CFO selling shares.

Thiel Pushes Own Book "Cover" on Housing Crisis Alarm

Benzinga reported:

Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and one of Facebook's earliest investors, has built his fortune spotting economic trends before they explode. But his latest warning has nothing to do with tech or startups. Instead, he's calling out what he sees as a massive problem in real estate—one that's making it nearly impossible for young Americans to afford a home.

It took me ten minutes to find a Thiel funded startup "developing the first custom home building process that can scale to solve the housing crisis." 

Sweaty TechGods are renowned for pushing their own book when not deriding the rest of the world for their ignorance and stupidity.

Thiel's Founders Fund portfolio list is a who's who of companies remaking the world for billionaire profits.  Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein's Paxos is on the list as is Joshua Kushner's Oscar Health, Elon Musk's Boring Co-SpaceX-Neuralink, Palmer Luckey's Anduril-Oculus, David Sack's Yammer and Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook

Billionaire TechGods and their understated PEU brethren nearly always are pushing their own book.  One just has to look.