Saturday, December 19, 2020

Jen Psaki Blue PEU Defender


President Elect Joe Biden's Press Secretary Jen Psaki once defended candidate Barack Obama's July 2007 meeting with private equity underwriters (PEU) on Nantucket.  The Hill reported:

At a dark-shingled mansion, one of many tucked along Washing Pond Road on this island’s north shore, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) met a couple hundred of the nation’s wealthiest Democrats at a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser on Friday to explain why he should be president even though he’ll raise their taxes.

Many residents with summer homes here have made fortunes from private equity deals and hedge funds.

The host of Obama’s fundraiser, Louis Susman, sits on the executive advisory board of Edgewater Funds, a private equity firm based in Chicago, according to the firm’s website.

Flash forward to November 2019.  Cape Cod Times reported:

Joe Biden is back on Nantucket for Thanksgiving, this time as a candidate for president of the United States.

Biden and his wife, Jill, spent some time shopping downtown Monday and Tuesday afternoons.

The location of the family’s stay this year is being kept under wraps. During his time in the White House, it was the Washing Pond home of Louis Susman, former ambassador to the United Kingdom and Democratic Party fundraiser, and later, the Abrams Point compound of Carlyle Group co-founder and prominent Washington, D.C., philanthropist David Rubenstein.

PEUs Susman and Rubenstein hosted Joe Biden in the past.  December 2019 found Barack Obama purchasing an $11.75 million home on nearby Martha's Vineyard.

President Elect Joe Biden appointed a smattering of PEUs to his cabinet, Chief of Staff, Secretary of State, Defense Secretary and Climate Czar).  Biden's Press Secretary has a history of defending the PEU class.  

The greed and leverage boys did very well under President Obama and expect to do likewise under President Elect Biden.  The rest of us, ot so much.

Update 3-14-21:  The PEU boys got a mention in Senator Sherrod Brown's Wall Street vs. Workers speech.