Thursday, April 2, 2009

Levitt's Accurate Projection



What disturbs me most about the FASB action is they appear to be bowing to outrageous threats from members of Congress who are beholden to corporate supporters."-Arthur Levitt
Mr Levitt is now senior adviser for The Carlyle Group, a huge politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU). He's skilled at seeing the stick in other's eyes, while ignoring the log in his own. The Carlyle Group and its thousands of corporate entities buy politicians. From George W. Bush to Rahm Emanuel to Evan Bayh, the PEU knows who will watch its back.

1. Carlyle's LifeCare Hospitals lost 24 patients in Hurricane Katrina. This warranted not one mention in Frances Townsend's Lessons Learned report. Who leaves out the hospital with the highest patient death toll from an "investigative report"? The Bush White House did.

2. As Carlyle sold a chunk of the PEU to a Middle East sovereign wealth fund, Evan Bayh had their back. Bayh cited the good role of Middle Eastern SWF's in his WSJ piece.

3. The federal government remained hush-hush over Carlyle's sale of Standard Aero and Landmark Aviation to Dubai Aerospace. The quiet sale occurred between the Dubai Ports outrage and the NASDAQ/Bourse brouhaha.

4. Numerous Carlyle subs live on the fat wallet of Uncle Sam. Affiliate ARINC got a no bid contract to buy Russian helicopters for Iraq. Despite paying 200% of market price, no helicopters have been delivered.
These are but a tiny sample of Carlyle's corporate support of the D.C. sewer. As long as politicians step up and deliver, Arthur can be conciliatory:

"It’s terribly important that an environment of consensus replace the polarization of recent weeks. It’s essential to the business community that they be very much part of this process.”
Let's see Arthur, is that the purchased politicians and their corporate sponsors? What might they deliver? More corporafornication.