Sunday, October 31, 2021

Red Glenn Youngkin Sent U.S. Jobs to China


The Carlyle Group sent thousands of United Components Inc. auto part manufacturing jobs to Hong Kong and mainland China.  It did so when Virginia Governor candidate for the Red Team Glenn Youngkin was Carlyle's Global Head of Industrial Sector (2005 to 2008) and Chaired Carlyle's Operating Committee and served with Carlyle's infamous founders on the Executive Committee (Carlyle's 2009 Annual Report).

When Carlyle purchased UCI it had no Chinese subsidiaries.  By 2010 UCI had thirteen subsidiaries in China or Hong Kong.  The Carlyle Group cut the number of employees from 6,900 to 4,350.  Carlyle pulled $35.3 million from UCI via a special dividend in 2007.   Add their $2 million annual management fee and the total rises to $47.3 million.

A 2011 report on closed U.S. automotive plants stated:

Since 1979, 447 automaker and automaker-captive plants have been in operation across the country. Nearly 60 percent – 267 total – have closed and only 180 remain in operation at present. Of the plants closed since 1979, 42 percent of the closures were concentrated between 2004 and 2010. Survey responses indicate that 72 percent of closed plants were one of the top three employers in the community when they closed. Nearly a third of the former plants employed more than 2,000 people at the announced time of closure, and over half employed between 400-999 people. Many of these modern facilities were supported by significant public sector investments in transportation and utility infrastructure.
A 2019 study reported, private equity takeovers have cost over 1.3 million U.S. workers their jobs. 

A 2010 UCI SEC filing stated:

We expanded our global manufacturing and sourcing capabilities through the ASC acquisition, which added two manufacturing facilities and an engineering and procurement office in China. We have since made substantial investments to establish filtration and fuel pump manufacturing capabilities in China. With significant available capacity in our Chinese facilities, we have near-term plans to place additional product manufacturing in China to take further advantage of our low-cost country manufacturing and sourcing resources.  

Youngkin has not answered for the thousands of American jobs UCI sent to China under his watch at The Carlyle Group, a politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU).  

Rabobank's Michael Every noted in a recent Wealthion interview:

China "never wants to repeat what happened to the U.S.  They are fully cognizant how the U.S. was de-industrialized, hollowed out.  They were the primary beneficiary of that."

A major business reporter wrote in 2011:

I have seen so many people -- particularly those in their 50s - 70s -- taken apart by what has happened in their industry as greed has hollowed out the economy. These are people took pride in their jobs and held themselves to this invisible standard that we all just took for granted, but is being wiped out.

The Carlyle Group scares me more than anything I've ever seen on Wall Street. It seems to exist to corrupt politicians and it's hard to know who they even represent.

Youngkin and The Carlyle Group had a role in hollowing out local U.S. economies.  In a bizarre turn the Blue Team candidate for Virginia Governor saw fit to invest a sizeable chunk of his personal fortune in The Carlyle Group during this same period.  That may be why Youngkin's business record has been mostly off limits.  

It's PEU operating executive vs. limited partner.  Politicians Red and Blue love PEU.  Why do so many political candidates and public appointees (Fed Chair, Biden Cabinet) come from the greed and leverage boys? The Reds can pretend Youngkin's slate is blank but it has a clear PEU odor.

Update 1-22-23:  Youngkin flip flopped yet again.

Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia nixed a proposed $3.5 billion Ford electric vehicle battery factory over its partnership with a Chinese battery maker, saying he would not allow taxpayer money to be used to “recruit Ford as a front for China.”

He sent U.S. jobs to China as a PEU.  As Governor he stopped jobs for Virginians because of "China connections."  

The decision by the former CEO stunned observers, leading many to see it as further evidence that Youngkin is preparing to run for president and trying to neutralize a potential line of attack on his past business ties to the communist country.

How will Youngkin neutralize his past business ties to a Port of Corpus Christi oil export terminal and Carlyle's walking away as lead developer for the project?

Update 1-25-23:  Youngkin turned down 2,500 jobs for Virginians in a low income area of the state.  He's gone from jobs exporter to China to potential jobs exporter from Virginia.  It remains to be seen where the Ford joint venture battery plant lands.  

Remember Youngkin monitored rush hour traffic in Beijing at Carlyle before starting a nonprofit to grow Virginia jobs. 

Saturday, October 30, 2021

Globalist Youngkin Turns Down Home Virginian


Virginia Gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin for the Red Team gave an interview during his last four months as co-CEO of The Carlyle Group, a politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU).

The interviewer asked what Youngkin saw today given he has such extensive investments in China and Asia?

"Data would suggest industry and capacity can stand back up reasonably quickly."

"Health concerns will be the biggest issue in this recovery coming up."

"We're watching traffic patterns, particularly in Beijing increase substantially.  There is 11% more traffic during rush hour in Beijing today vs.last year."

Later in the interview Youngkin said:

We are seeing opportunities in Asia today.

That is the same China that received thousands of U.S. jobs from Carlyle affiliate United Components. 

When Carlyle purchased UCI it had no Chinese subsidiaries.  By 2010 UCI had thirteen subsidiaries in China or Hong Kong.  The number of employees fell from 6,900 to 4,350.  Carlyle pulled $35.3 million from UCI via a special dividend in 2007.   Add their $2 million annual management fee and the total rises to $47.3 million. 

Note that Youngkin was the Global Head of the Industrial Sector investment team from 2005 to 2008.  He chaired Carlyle's Operating Committee according to Carlyle's 2009 Annual Report.  What role did Glenn Youngkin have in shifting U.S. jobs to China?

In a question on the global institutional investor base Youngkin hedged, saying it isn't a homogeneous group.  The interviewers said "I won't ask you specifically about the Saudi government."  Glenn's PEU peers helped rehab the Saudi Crown Prince's tarnished reputation.

Youngkin said Zoom enabled Carlyle to cut down what used to be travel time.  Carlyle established "data flow and sharing of ideas with our global investor base in a way that we could never really believe."

Youngkin highlighted his "great union partners" at JFK Airport Terminal One.   "The kind of things that we have been able to progress at JFK are incredibly innovative and bring to bear learnings from around the world on how to develop infrastructure."

He called for oil prices to rebound over the next two to three years to $25 to $30 per barrel.  Oil traded at over $80 a barrel yesterday.  

Youngkin called for investment in energy renewables and Carlyle's strong commitment to ESG in the interview.  Carlyle has affiliates that have whole business plans around an ESG strategy.

Diverse teams with diverse experiences can improve investment outcomes.  Carlyle embedded diversity and inclusion in the firm.  It's about diversity of experiences and thought, not box ticking.

The interviewer closed calling Youngkin a "steady Eddie" executive.  

I'm not sure conservative Virginia voters would recognize their candidate, recently a globalist, union partnering, carbon lowering senior executive.  Glenn Youngkin is now a raw meat tossing politician.  There's nothing steady Eddie about that.

Update 10-31-21:  Rabobank's Michael Every said "The kind of mess you've got in America between Blue and Red, no country wants that (kind of polarization)."  

Every added China "never wants to repeat what happened to the U.S.  They are fully cognizant how the U.S. was de-industrialized, hollowed out.  They were the primary beneficiary of that."  Youngkin and The Carlyle Group had a role in hollowing out local U.S. economies.  A major business reporter wrote in 2011:

I have seen so many people -- particularly those in their 50s - 70s -- taken apart by what has happened in their industry as greed has hollowed out the economy. These are people took pride in their jobs and held themselves to this invisible standard that we all just took for granted, but is being wiped out.

The Carlyle Group scares me more than anything I've ever seen on Wall Street. It seems to exist to corrupt politicians and it's hard to know who they even represent.

Youngkin wants to go from corrupting politicians to being a corrupted one.  That is a frightening prospect.

Red Team Candidate Youngkin said his opponent is "trying to run against somebody else besides me."  Which version of Youngkin is that?  

Update 11-1-21:  "In the final days before the election Tuesday, many Republicans say they still have no idea what Youngkin really believes."

Update 11-2-21:  Youngkin may ride into the governor's mansion after employing leverage.  Who knew focusing on race and education would be a winning combination for a candidate who sent U.S. jobs to China?

“There’s a lot of, we can call it white backlash, white resistance, whatever you want to call it. It has to do with race. And so we live in a post-factual era … It doesn’t matter that [CRT] isn’t taught in Virginia schools. It’s this generalised attitude that whites are being put upon and we’ve got to do something about it. We being white voters.”

Bloomberg reported Youngkin led the 2018 infrastructure fund which bailed on their lead developer role for Corpus Christi Port expansion.  

Update 12-3-21:  Political pundits characterized Youngkin with "his gifts of evasion were allowing the voters to see him as something more, or less—you couldn’t be entirely sure which it was." The Blue team let Youngkin skate away from his PEU record.  That's what they get for running a Carlyle Group limited partner in Terry McAuliffe.  Greed would have won either way.

Update 12-12-21:  ESG loving Youngkin will flip-flop and withdraw Virginia from an interstate climate pact, the "first market-based, cap-and-invest regional initiative in the United States."  I bet Glenn was a big fan of the effort in May 2020.  Carlyle says better businesses have climate resilience:

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, creating unprecedented risks and opportunities for businesses across all industries. Companies that can navigate these emerging challenges – from physical risks to policy shifts and technological disruptions – and seize the mounting opportunities of the energy transition, we expect will have the climate resilience to thrive in a changing world.

Youngkin's longtime employer has a greenhouse gas private equity offering:

As a core pillar of our firmwide strategy on climate change, we launched our Renewable and Sustainable Energy Fund (RSEF) to capture the opportunities created by the energy transition and commit to invest globally in the renewable and sustainable resources sector.--Carlyle Impact 2021

Achieved our third year of carbon neutrality across our 32 global offices and the activities of our more than 1,750 employees, after we became the first major private equity firm to make a carbon neutrality commitment in 2017.--Carlyle Taskforce om Climate Related Financial Disclosures Report 2020

Youngkin has historically bled greed and green.

Update 3-5-22:   PEU Youngkin wants the "E for equity" removed from Virginia government.  Does that make him a PU Governor?

The crusade against equity strikes Del. Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) as especially confounding because Youngkin took such a different tone when he led the Carlyle Group. Youngkin and co-CEO Kewsong Lee hired a chief diversity officer and put out a strongly worded statement condemning “racism and injustices” in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by Minnesota police in 2020.

Update 6-17-22:  WaPo found Youngkin's diversity roots.   Apparently they were just shallow roots for his PEU image.

Youngkin was recognized for diversity practices when he was co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group private equity firm, but has adopted a far more hard-line stance since running for office last year.

 

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Schwarzman Speaks on Women at Crown Prince's Institute


Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman spoke at Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s signature event.  He talked about the challenge of recruiting women to a male dominated private equity with its aggressive "work until you drop" culture.  Contrast this with the Crown Prince's "work to make my enemies die" culture.  Was the wife of Jamal Khashoggi in attendance to ask questions?

The Future Investment Initiative (FII) was held at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton, the site where the Crown Prince imprisoned members of the Royal family for a months long monetary shakedown.  

Schwarzman isn't the only private equity underwriter (PEU) to speak at the Crown Prince's investment event.  Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein hawked his book on leadership at the fourth edition of FII.

The capitulation to a Saudi Prince thug is broader than the greed and leverage boys.


International consulting and accounting firms have partnered with the Crown Prince's signature strategy.  KPMG has the unfortunate title of "Hacking the Future."  

Anything for return, eh?

Update 10-27-21:  While the greed and leverage boys set their beady sights on Saudi riches the U.S. agreed to a $500 million military contract with Saudi Arabia.  

Experts believe Biden has largely abandoned a campaign promise to turn the regime of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman into a “pariah”.  A whole country capitulated to the Crown Prince of Thuggery.  The UN did likewise:

“Our job was to keep reminding parties of the war that you can’t just do this stuff without consequences. Now that voice is gone.

Everybody does what they want to garner more power and money.  The role of the United States in the world should not be enabler.  PEU Crown Princes of Greed don't care about ethics or the common person.  That has caused lots of needless suffering.

The daughter of a former Saudi Security employee said the Kingdom tried to lure her to the same embassy where Jamal Khashoggi was murdered.  What would Blackstone's Schwarzan say to this scared female?

Update 10-28-21:  Stars and Stripes did its part to rehab the Crown Prince's image.  Companies moving their regional offices to Riyadh are PepsiCo, Siemens, Unilever, Deloitte, Halliburton, and Baker Hughes.  

Update 12-31-21:  At least three members of a Saudi hit squad convicted by the kingdom of murdering Jamal Khashoggi are living and working “in seven-star accommodation” inside a government-run security compound in Riyadh, according to a source connected to senior members of Saudi intelligence.  Saudi money is likely behind Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, which raised over $3 billion in funds on its way to higher target.

Update 1-20-22:  Kushner's Affinity Partners hired a number of Red Team members of the Trump White House as well as some PEUs to manage the investment side.  Greed and thuggery, PEU style.

Update 3-4-22:  The Crown Prince of Thuggery said:

 "If that's the way we did things, Khashoggi would not even be among the top 1,000 people on the list. If you're going to go for another operation like that, for another person, it's got to be professional and it's got to be one of the top 1,000."

Reminds me of the rapist whose defense is "the woman was too ugly to attack."  Their arrogance is beyond belief.

Update 4-11-22:  The Saudi Public Investment Fund, controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, invested $2 billion in Jared Kushner's new private equity firm six months after Kushner left the White House despite the screening committee voting unanimously against investing in Kushner's fledging Affinity Fund, citing the "inexperience" of its management, an asset management fee that "seems excessive," and the fact that due diligence found the firm's operations "unsatisfactory in all aspects." 

Update 6-6-22:   The Shark went name calling golfers who chose not to affiliate with a Saudi backed golf tour.  Greg Norman called Jack Nicklaus a "hypocrite" and.Rory McIlory "brainwashed".

Greg Norman, the public face of the breakaway LIV Golf series (sponsored by Saudi Crown Prince MBS' Public Investment Fund), says the executives and agents who currently run golf “are conspiring against LIV to protect an antiquated system that prevents golfers from realizing their own power and worth amid a global movement of athlete empowerment.”

As for antiquated social systems in Saudi Arabia that don't involve the murder of a U.S. journalist:

Reports emerged that the women activists who pressed for the policy change had been arrested and imprisoned. As of this morning, 13 are reported to have been arrested; most are women. Apart from the driving issue, they have campaigned against so-called guardianship rules which require Saudi women to receive permission from a male relative before making many life decisions, like traveling. 

Update 9-14-22:  Trump's Sterling, Virginia golf course will host LIV Golf in May 2023.  It will be the third LIV event at a Trump owned course.   

Update 12-6-22:   The U.S. court case against the Crown Prince was dismissed under the guise of sovereign immunity, something the Prince did not have at the time of the execution.  The judge said his hands were tied by the Biden administration's recommendation to the court.  Thugs win.

Yahoos Go Apollo


Yahoo's exciting news is that is now an affiliate of Apollo Global Management.  Private equity underwriter (PEU) Apollo recently had founder Leon Black step down after paying pedophile Jeffrey Epstein over $150 million for investment advice.  

Apollo Global hired former Senator Evan Bayh, a corporation loving member of the Blue Team. IndyStar reported:

During his final months in the U.S. Senate, Evan Bayh broke ranks with most of his fellow Democrats several times to oppose or reduce the impact of legislative proposals that threatened the bottom lines of private equity firms, banks and oil companies.

Senator Krysten Simena filled this important role recently.  She should have many Bayh like employment opportunities after her service to the greed and leverage boys.  Yahoo!

Update 10-27-21:  After nixing an increase in the corporate income tax rate Blue Corporacrats pulled the proposed billionaire tax.  It's like Lucy with the football in Charlie Brown.  It took months for Democrats to run up to the football, swing hard with their foot and land flat on their back.

Update 12-31-21:  A jury found Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of sex trafficking underage girls. 

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Culture of Glenn Younkin and Kyrsten Sinema


Red Team candidate for Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin's campaign plans to stay on message.  Youngkin worked for master message-maker David Rubenstein for decades.  Surely he picked up something from the co-founder of The Carlyle Group, a politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU).  Rubenstein's public face is philanthropist.  However, his ex-wife calls this an image move driven by underlying greed.

Former Carlyle group managing director and Fed Chief Jay Powell traded his personal funds, as did many regional Federal Reserve bank heads.  They did so ahead of major events and policy shifts.

The Culture of Glenn Youngkin is greed and leverage.  He loaned his campaign money.  At what interest rate and repayment terms?  Youngkin is worth hundreds of millions at the very least.  He wants political donations from common people to pay back his super wealthy estate.  Devilish?

Political operatives mine culture war issues that drive people to polls.  Once in office Youngkin will steer the state wallet to his private equity peers.    He will dole out more tax benefits to fellow wealth club members.

Private equity has been around for decades, long enough for the greed and leverage boys to dance between PEU employment and public service.  Former Blue Team Senator Evan Bayh blocked for corporations and the wealthy during his time in office.  He was hired by Leon Black's Apollo Global.

Bayh would be proud of Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema for her courageous defending of corporations and PEU preferred "carried interest" taxation.  

Sinema’s dramatic rightward shift toward the barons of finance and pharmaceuticals at the cost of progressive tax reform stands in sharp contrast to her childhood origin story, in which she talks about having grown up in an abandoned gas station without electricity or running water, at one point living out of a car.

In response to a colleague’s expression of support after an NPR story detailing her family’s struggles with financial hardship, Sinema, then a representative, speaking to colleagues in the Democratic cloakroom just off the House floor, deadpanned: “Yeah, voters love that stupid shit. They eat it up.”

PEU executives from Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe and Blackstone sponsor Senator Sinema.  Like Evan Bayh, Kyrsten Sinema will have ample PEU opportunities after her time in Congress.  It would be her reward for defending the privileged class.  Voters don't like that at all.  We've eaten enough of that shit and it never tastes anything but disgusting. 

That's why the Youngkins and Sinemas have political handlers to hide their true selves.  Handlers want voters to project their hopes and fears on their candidate's faces.  Take off the mask and one can easily see, Politicians Red and Blue love PEU. The common people are only needed for their vote, every two to four years.  That's the mark of evil, even devilish politicians.

Update 10-25-21:  A 2019 study reported, private equity takeovers have cost over 1.3 million U.S. workers their jobs.  So far Youngkin has not answered for the thousands of American jobs Carlyle affiliate UCI sent to China.  

Why is this important?  Because roughly 12 million Americans, 7 percent of our country’s workforce, work for PEU affiliates.  The very suburbs Youngkin et al helped hollow out may clamor to vote for him due to school safety fears.  

The greed and leverage boys are outstanding at redirection.  

Private equity, argues analyst Matt Stoller, amounts to “a highly ideological social movement that comes out of the modest conglomerate craze of the 1960s” and the junk bond mania that followed soon after. The essential lesson private equity’s pioneers gained from these episodes: Go for it. Get everything you can grab.

I wouldn't call it a widespread social movement amongst the populace, however it is pervasive in America's power centers.  PEU's know how to use philanthropy slight of hand to fool the public.  

Update 10-26-21:  Youngkin's team decided to mine racial outrage over Blue Governor Northrum's blackface yearbook photo.  

Update 10-27-21:  After nixing an increase in the corporate income tax rate Blue Corporacrats pulled the proposed billionaire tax.  It's like Lucy with the football in Charlie Brown.  It took months for Democrats to run up to the football, swing hard with their foot and land flat on their back.

Update 11-1-21:  The ultra rich win again according to uber-wealthy Larry Summers.  The Blue Team tax plan includes:

"No rate increases below $10 million, no capital gains increases, no estate tax increases, no major reform of loopholes like carried interest and real estate exchanges but restoration of the state and local deduction explain it."

Update 11-4-21:  Synema supports tax cuts for wealthy.  Newly elected Virginia Governor Youngkin knows how the U.S. tax code benefits the greed and leverage boys.  NYT reported:

The Trump administration’s farewell gift to the (PEU) buyout industry was part of a pattern that has spanned Republican and Democratic presidencies and Congresses: Private equity has conquered the American tax system.

Update 11-18-21:  Politico reported:

House Democrats are on the verge of passing a massive tax break for high-income earners — raising a cap on local and state tax deductions that primarily affects high-cost states.

Update 11-29-21:   Blue corporacrats rake in millions in contribution cash, some from the billionaire class they serve.

Update 12-19-21:  President Biden's agenda, hostage to Senator Joe Manchin Blue Team-WV, is dead or on life support:

“I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation,” Manchin said. “I just can’t. I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there.”

Billionaires win.   

Update 1-22-22:  "Weak taxation of the wealthy combined with anemic regulation of campaign fundraising have handed America's billionaires outsized political influence to go along with their huge economic clout."  U.S. billionaires dumped a staggering $1.2 billion into the 2020 elections—a 39-fold increase compared to 2010.  "In the 2010 election cycle, billionaires gave $19 million to Republicans and $11 million to Democrats," ATF noted. "By the 2020 cycle, those respective figures were $656 million and $539 million."  They expect a return on their political investment (ROI). 

Update 3-1-22:   Young workers understand how they are judged on their productivity and the never ending drive to squeeze more out of them.  For executives it is never enough.  Like the PEU boys corporate chiefs are grabbing what they can.

Update 12-9-22:  Sinema hung her independent shingle to drum up funding from the billionaire boys.

Update 1-24-23:  Sinema is fresh from attending the World Inequality Forum in Davos and rubbing elbows with the billion class.  It turns out the PEU boys were very generous with the Independent Senator after she saved their preferred taxation.  

Senator Krysten Sinema received at least $526,000 from donors in the private equity, hedge fund, and venture capital industries after killing a bill closing tax loopholes for private equity.

It sounds like the bidding has already started for her future services. 

Update 10-24-23:  Kyrsten Sinema said she doesn't care if she loses reelection because she 'saved the Senate by myself' and can go serve 'on any board I want to.'  For saving PEU preferred taxation I'll wager she gets more than a board seat.

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Will the Real Carlyle Logo Please Get Bloomberged

 

A Bloomberg piece on The Carlyle Group's possible sale of Sequa Corporation used the wrong logo for the politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU).  Oddly, former Carlyle Group affiliate Getty Images had a picture with a similar error.  

Not long ago the financial media giant ran a piece using the correct logo.

Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein hosts a video program on Bloomberg.  The policy making billionaire interviews other connected people, mixing crafty quips and softball questions.  Rubenstein does not wish to stress fellow members of the club.

In its perpetual search for public acceptance The Carlyle Group reduced the firm's name, Carlyle.

Time will tell when Bloomberg catches up to the PEU boys' new name and logo.

Monday, October 18, 2021

Carlyle Partners with Milken, Has Four Speakers at MIGC


Fortune
reported The Carlyle Group is partnering with The Milken Institute to make private equity more diverse.  

"The purpose is both creating opportunity and addressing the fiduciary responsibility to maximize returns."

Thus diverse populations must be taught the ways of the greed and leverage boys, also known as private equity underwriters (PEU). 

The Milken Institute is holding its annual global conference.  Four Carlyle Group PEUs are on the speaker's list.  CNBC is broadcasting from the event and interviewed Carlyle CEO Kewsong Lee this morning.  Lee is almost as good as Carlyle founder David Rubenstein in pushing the PEU model.

As for Carlyle's efforts on diversity they have been underway for years.  A 2019 KPMG report "The Call to Act" references the PEU's inclusion programs.  Syracuse University highlighted alumnus and Carlyle Group founder Daniel D'Aniello for a Doctorate in Humane Letters.

As a business leader, D’Aniello has long championed diversity and equity. 

Recall The World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland identified income inequality as major priority for 2015. 

How can excessive wealth and income inequality be tackled whilst stimulating growth and innovation?
The excessively wealthy, i.e. The Carlyle's of the world, got wealthier while income inequality worsened the last five years.  

Milken Institute founder Michael Milken is the modern day PEU founding father.  Milken pioneered the use of leverage and junk bonds to raid companies, breaking numerous securities laws in the process.  Former President Donald Trump wiped Milken's criminal record clean as he lowered taxes on corporations (PEU affiliates) and the wealthy (PEUs).  

Policy making billionaires don't want to pay higher taxes so they must paint themselves as societal do-gooders.  Carlyle does not want to admit their role in offshoring U.S. jobs to China.  They did.  

Flashback to the 2012 World Economic Forum meeting:

Carlyle's Rubenstein expressed his preference for the Chinese totalitarian model of central planning.  Rubenstein offered a dark vision for those not adhering to his advice.

"Our children are going to have and our grandchildren are going to have" a lower quality of life and a less affluent lifestyle than we enjoy today
In many ways PEU Rubenstein already made his vision a reality.  Take United Components (UCI) which Carlyle owned from 2004 to 2010.
When Carlyle purchased UCI it had no Chinese subsidiaries.  By 2010 UCI had thirteen subsidiaries in China or Hong Kong.  The number of employees fell from 6,900 to 4,350.  Carlyle pulled $35.3 million from UCI via a special dividend in 2007.   Add their $2 million annual management fee and the total rises to $47.3 million.  How many jobs did Conway send to China outside UCI?

A major business reporter shared their concerns about the PEU boys and questioned the major move to China in 2011.

There are very few people out there who will talk and write honestly about private equity

I have seen so many people -- particularly those in their 50s - 70s -- taken apart by what has happened in their industry as greed has hollowed out the economy. These are people took pride in their jobs and held themselves to this invisible standard that we all just took for granted, but is being wiped out.

The Carlyle Group scares me more than anything I've ever seen on Wall Street. It seems to exist to corrupt politicians and it's hard to know who they even represent.

I watched a video interview of (David) Rubenstein and his arrogance is really beyond tolerance. He was going on about the debt ceiling problem and how there would need to be cuts in services and higher taxes. When the reporter asked him about tax on carried interest he turned really disdainful and said that this "only" amounted to $22 billion over some number of years and this was not serious money. Boy, nothing like everybody doing their small part to save the country from oblivion!

All I can say is that when people have too much access to cheap capital (thank you Greenspan and Bernanke) they tend to develop a very inflated sense of their real worth. First it was Mozillo over at Countrywide "spreading the American Dream." Now, the PE guys are "creating value" everywhere they go!

I can't tell if the PE guys are being insincere when they talk about China or they are actually stupid. There is no way that the Chinese govt would let American firms come in and strip cashout of Chinese companies the way they've been allowed to in the US! I imagine the Chinese welcome the PE guys because they see it as another way (through PE orchestrated mergers) to get hold of more American technology and companies and jobs.

Eve as the U.S. reassesses its over reliance on Chinese manufacturing Carlyle's CEO Kewsong Lee remains a supporter of PEU investments in China.  That may be one way to make Carlyle more diverse.

Update 10-19-21:  Carlyle's Chief of Global Credit got a microphone at Milken.  He said Carlyle is benefiting from high valuations. 

Friday, October 15, 2021

Surprise: Billionaires Worry!


White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, former private equity underwriter (PEU) with Revolution LLC, believes inflation and supply chain breakdowns are "high class problems", i.e. they impact only the wealthy.  Apparently the wealthy are the only ones putting fuel in their vehicles, buying food in stores and adding to their expensive car collections. 

Klain need only turn to the PEU laden Biden Cabinet and ask his high class peers, the top two from Pine Island Capital.  It may have been some time since they've mingled with common citizens.

As for the PEU boys real worry, it's not inflation or supply chain issues.  It's ruling their part of the world after society breaks down.  Greed and leverage got them massive riches, but how will they hold on to their just desserts?  They know what happened to a Western courted Ghadafi after the U.S. destroyed Libyan society for easy oil and gold bullion.  They fear having to learn new rules to survive, like Bernie Madoff in jail.

Professor Douglas Rushkoff wrote “Survival of the Richest” in which he disclosed he'd been paid an enormous sum to meet with five extremely wealthy hedge funders. Caitlin Johnstone wrote:

Unnamed billionaires sought out his advice for strategizing their survival after what they called “the event”, their term for the collapse of civilization via climate destruction, nuclear war or some other catastrophe which they apparently viewed as likely enough and close enough to start planning for.

Rushkoff writes that eventually it became clear that the foremost concern of these plutocrats was maintaining control over a security force which would protect their estates from the rabble in a post-apocalyptic world where money might not mean anything. I encourage you to read the following paragraph from the article carefully, because it says so much about how these people see our future, our world, and their fellow human beings:

“This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.”

Something to keep in mind if you ever find yourself fervently hoping that the world will be saved by billionaires.

 We are ruled by warmongers and sociopaths, and none of them have healthy plans for our future. They are not kind, and they are not wise. They’re not even particularly intelligent. Unless we can find some way to pry their fingers from the steering wheel of our world so we can turn away from the direction we are headed, things will probably get very dark and scary.

Sociopaths at the Federal Reserve traded financial instruments as they injected trillions into the economy during the COVID pandemic, front-running fiscal policy.  Congress caters to policy making billionaires, the ones worried not about preventing societal breakdown, but keeping their engorged share after it occurs.  A former White House ethics official is concerned over Hunter Biden's selling his extremely expensive art.

"If we were monitoring some developing country and learned that the president's son was about to make millions from the sale of his art, and hadn't sold any art before, we'd be talking to that country's leadership about the need for ethical reform."

Former President and ethics nightmare Donald Trump continues his altered reality tour to maintain his fragile ego.  He asked Republicans not to vote in the 2022 and 2024 elections.  Without voting how will Republicans regain the levers of power?  Storm troopers?  Trump would engineer the societal breakdown the billionaire class fears to maintain his all knowing and all powerful persona.  At that point it would make total sense for Ivanka Trump to be President of the World Bank and be guarded by a machine guard armed robodog.

Politicians Red and Blue love PEU (much more than they care for voters).  It's heartbreaking to repeatedly see people in power serve their "high class" peers at the expense of the common person, while stoking societal division with false tropes. 

Update 10-22-21:   The Biden team took up the notion that inflation and supply chain problems are not impacting real people.

Update 10-27-21:  After nixing an increase in the corporate income tax rate Blue Corporacrats pulled the proposed billionaire tax.  It's like Lucy with the football in Charlie Brown.  It took months for Democrats to run up to the football, swing hard with their foot and land flat on their back.

Update 10-28-21:  Senator Joe Manchin defended those beleaguered billionaires.   

Update 11-2-21:  Do billionaires fear the bezzle?

Update 11-9-21:  Billionaire payback could involve automating jobs.

Update 11-10-21:  Billionaires worry Senator Joe Manchin might not be around to protect them from fair taxation.  

Update 11-11-21:  Billionaires can breathe easier knowing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has their back.

Update 11-22-21:  Trump's estate tax cut saved billions for wealthy.

Update 4-4-22:  Fortune reported:

While CEOs salaries rose 19% in 2021, the average hourly wage in the U.S. rose just 4.7% last year.

Klain was a recent guest on Bloomberg's The David Rubenstein Show. 

Update 5-30-22:  Billionaire Elon Mush tweeted it is morally wrong and dumb” to use the word “billionaire” as a pejorative, adding, “If the reason for it is building products that make millions of people happy.”  What if the reason for that billionaire is decades of preferred taxation?  What if that billion in wealth arose from surprise medical billing?

Monday, October 11, 2021

KKR Founders' Retirement: Fawning Over Shameless PEUs


ZeroHedge's
Tyler Durden reported on KKR's remaining founders stepping down as co-CEOs to serve as co-chairmen of KKR's board of directors.  KKR is a legendary private equity underwriter (PEU).  

In the piece Durden wrote:

Despite those early criticisms of private equity as a gang of corporate raiders, the industry has earned for itself a hallowed position within the landscape of Wall Street, generating massive profits for investors and employees alike.

Massive profits for employees?  I worked for two private equity affiliates in my career and never received any of their massive profits.  Our sponsors did reduce headcount, cut paid time off, slashed the number of holidays and holiday pay, eliminated valued services, cut workspace and consistently made health insurance a crappier benefit.  Raises were nearly nonexistent.  Over-reliance on bad technology caused great harm to our once nationally recognized quality.

PEU pioneers Kravis and Roberts added billions in healthcare costs (HCA), gave the public surprise medical billing and lobbied Congress to take toothless action against this dastardly practice. 

Henry Kravis' and George Roberts' greed metastasized into economic cancer for the middle class.  The following statement is from a major business reporter and is over ten years old:

I have seen so many people -- particularly those in their 50s - 70s -- taken apart by what has happened in their industry as greed has hollowed out the economy. These are people took pride in their jobs and held themselves to this invisible standard that we all just took for granted, but is being wiped out.

The Carlyle Group scares me more than anything I've ever seen on Wall Street. It seems to exist to corrupt politicians and it's hard to know who they even represent.

I watched a video interview of (David) Rubenstein and his arrogance is really beyond tolerance. He was going on about the debt ceiling problem and how there would need to be cuts in services and higher taxes. When the reporter asked him about tax on carried interest he turned really disdainful and said that this "only" amounted to $22 billion over some number of years and this was not serious money. Boy, nothing like everybody doing their small part to save the country from oblivion!
One can substitute Kravis and Roberts for PEU Rubenstein as the policy making billionaires kept their preferred "carried interest" taxation while the middle class got shafted. How will Kravis and Roberts rig the system in their favor as co-chairmen of KKR's board?  They and their PEU ilk are not done.

Sunday, October 10, 2021

Good Times Roll for PEU Class


The rise of politically connected private equity underwriters (PEU) resulted in policy making billionaires who kept their preferred "carried interest" taxation despite regular challenges over the last fifteen years.  

 ZeroHedge reported:

... the US is already effectively a banana republic if one defines such a nation as one which has a small but ultra-powerful and unaccountable kleptocracy which gets richer year after year by stealing from the rapidly shrinking middle class. 

Yahoo News reported the view of a former Trump NSC analyst:

‘This is not the America I came to. This is not the America we chose to come to,’” she recounted.  “Many people fled these kinds of authoritarian or autocratic regimes ... where you have kleptocratic cliques of cronies who are really trying to take charge of policy, and that’s what this [deep polarization] is about.

The College Entry scandal included a private equity underwriter

...defense lawyers argued that the parents were simply playing by the rules of a rigged system as they understood them.  

The greed and leverage boys know how to rig a system.  The common citizen, like the average college applicant, is not winning.

Update 10-11-21:  KKR's remaining founders Henry Kravis and George Roberts have stepped down as co-CEOs of the PEU giant and will serve as co-Chairman of KKR's board. 

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Virginia Governor's Race is Battle of PEUs

Virginia citizens have their choice of a twenty year executive of The Carlyle Group or a Carlyle limited partner for their next governor.  

Carlyle sent shiploads of U.S. automotive jobs to China during Glenn Youngkin's rise within the firm.  While he was co-CEO Carlyle backed out of its lead developer role for Corpus Christi's deep water oil terminal.  Youngkin's team gave no reason for bailing on this public-private partnership and its co-developer sued Carlyle for damages. 

Terry McAuliffe characterized his investment in The Carlyle Group as "passive".  Carlyle would call him a limited partner.  America's royal political families, Bush and Clinton, spoke regularly at Carlyle investors meetings, not the unit holder kind.  How many did Mr. McAuliffe attend?  Did he make the 2013 investor meeting after Carlyle's IPO?

Glenn Youngkin was on the agenda as Carlyle's COO.

Youngkin spoke of his desire to please investors, like McAuliffe.   The opportunity was for Youngkin to get more of McAuliffe's wealth invested in Carlyle.

Youngkin put his money to work inside Carlyle and likely had his in the same pot as his now gubernatorial competitor.


Red team voters should know they are voting for a globalist.  Blue team voters should know McAuliffe's former boss, President Bill Clinton, gave Carlyle an early foothold by spinning of the federal department that conducted security investigations. 

Either way Virginians are voting for a politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU).  One is Red and one is Blue.  They both love PEU.

Update 10-7-21:  The Federalist reported "McAuliffe invested at least $690,000 in Carlyle funds between December 2007 and the end of 2016.” As the report later notes, “the actual figure is likely much higher because the disclosures require candidates to acknowledge only a broad range of investment with no upper limit in some cases.”  McAuliffe was once board chair for Greentech Automotive, a failed electric car maker.  Greentech failed to provide promised Mississippi jobs and was due to return public funding, similar to Carlyle's failed Texas jobs promise for Vought Aircraft Aviation.

Update 10-8-21:  The Red-Blue PEU match is too close to call at this point.

Update 10-9-21:  The Red-Blue PEU match included a debate over how much money LP McAuliffe made on his Carlyle investment.  Both candidates endorse greed and leverage.

Update 10-10-21:  Youngkin and McAuliffe personally benefited from their interactions with the Government-Corporate Monstrosity.  Rabobank's Michael Every put it best: of course the Fed can redistribute wealth but "that redistribution has been from the poor and middle-class to the rich, not the other way round."

Update 10-16-21:   Ex-Presidents Obama and Trump came out for their respective PEU candidate.

Update 11-1-21:  The Blue L.P. chose not to lever Red PEU's exporting of U.S. jobs to China, instead tying him to former President Donald Trump and accusing him of racist dog whistles.  A video shows the Red PEU to be a globalist, union partnering, ESG loving, diversity and inclusion dedicated executive who monitors rush hour in Beijing.  

Meanwhile, the Blue Team has given yet another tax cut to the rich and can't seem to stop fighting over how it actually plans to help common people.   

"No rate increases below $10 million, no capital gains increases, no estate tax increases, no major reform of loopholes like carried interest and real estate exchanges but restoration of the state and local deduction explain it."