The battle between a Carlyle Group executive and limited partner for Virginia governorship ended with a win for former Carlyle Co-CEO Glenn Youngkin. Youngkin loaned millions from private equity profits to his campaign. His win should result in paying himself back, but at what interest rate?
Youngkin buried his recent past, a globalist, union partnering, ESG loving, diversity and inclusion dedicated, China rush hour monitoring private equity underwriter (PEU). He and Carlyle sent thousands of U.S. automotive part manufacturing jobs to China during its ownership of United Components Inc. (2003-2010).
Public-private partnership fan Youngkin failed to mention why The Carlyle Group abandoned its lead developer role for expansion of Corpus Christi's port to accept huge oil tankers.
The big private equity player, The Carlyle Group, walked away from the Harbor Island project last year
It left a hole as large as $400 million to the public-private partnership. One would expect a Co-CEO to be intimately involved with such a decision.
How could the Democratic Party miss the series of Youngkin flip-flops, each of global proportions? The Blue Team is similarly conflicted. Terry McAuliffe has an investment in a "small private equity fund" and a minimal stake in a Carlyle Group fund.
"This is the contempt in which they hold the majority of American people and the political process: the common people are easily led fools, and everyone else who is smart enough to know better has their price. And they would beggar every middle class voter in the US before they will voluntarily give up one dime of their ill gotten gains."
Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009
Enigma Youngkin will steer the state wallet to his PEU friends as he grows his personal wealth. The greed and leverage boys' desire for money and power is insatiable.
Consider former Virginia Governor and U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. National Archives states:
Before becoming Governor, Jefferson had spent 15 months in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, where he drafted the Declaration of Independence in June 1776. In September, he returned home and was elected to serve in the Virginia House of Delegates. Three years later, at the age of 36, Jefferson was elected governor. Jefferson was reelected in 1780.
Jefferson later embraced the Southern economic system based on slave labor. The October 2012 issue of Smithsonian included "Master of Monticello", which stated this about Jefferson:
It had long been accepted that slaves could be seized for debt, but Jefferson turned this around when he used slaves as collateral for a very large loan taken out in 1796 from a Dutch banking house in order to rebuild Monticello. He pioneered the monetizing of slaves, just as he pioneered the industrialization and diversification of slavery.
Thomas Jefferson levered slaves, which makes him a PEU forefather.
What Jefferson set out clearly for the first time was that he was making a 4 percent profit every year on the birth of black children.
In another communication from the early 1790s, Jefferson takes the 4 percent formula further and quite bluntly advances the notion that slavery presented an investment strategy for the future. He writes that an acquaintance who had suffered financial reverses “should have been invested in negroes.” He advises that if the friend’s family had any cash left, “every farthing of it [should be] laid out in land and negroes, which besides a present support bring a silent profit of from 5. to 10. per cent in this country by the increase in their value.Few Americans know Jefferson was willed funds that enabled him to free his slaves. He did not.
In 1817, Jefferson’s old friend, the Revolutionary War hero Thaddeus Kosciuszko, died in Switzerland. The Polish nobleman, who had arrived from Europe in 1776 to aid the Americans, left a substantial fortune to Jefferson. Kosciuszko bequeathed funds to free Jefferson’s slaves and purchase land and farming equipment for them to begin a life on their own. In the spring of 1819, Jefferson pondered what to do with the legacy. Kosciuszko had made him executor of the will, so Jefferson had a legal duty, as well as a personal obligation to his deceased friend, to carry out the terms of the document.
The terms came as no surprise to Jefferson. He had helped Kosciuszko draft the will, which states, “I hereby authorize my friend, Thomas Jefferson, to employ the whole [bequest] in purchasing Negroes from his own or any others and giving them liberty in my name.” Kosciuszko’s estate was nearly $20,000, the equivalent today of roughly $280,000. But Jefferson refused the gift, even though it would have reduced the debt hanging over Monticello, while also relieving him, in part at least, of what he himself had described in 1814 as the “moral reproach” of slavery.
History is history. In our "Post Factual" political era Virginia voters elected yet another flawed human being, one whose life has been dedicated to greed.
Update: Bloomberg reported Youngkin led the 2018 infrastructure fund which bailed on Carlyle's lead developer role for Corpus Christi Port expansion.
Update 11-5-21: "States must stop letting the ultrawealthy dodge taxes—and the law." Despite the limited progress on national legislation, that fight can begin in states across the country—probably including yours." Probably not Virginia under PEU Youngkin.
(It's a) pattern that has spanned Republican and Democratic presidencies and Congresses: Private equity has conquered the American tax system. PEU executive beat Limited Partner for Virginia Head of State. The bezzle must be maintained.
Youngkin joins other ultra-wealthy politicians that don't pay close to their fair share in taxes.
Update 11-6-21: Youngkin's 17 year old son tried to vote for his father twice and was turned away. One might expect young Youngkin to be educated on voting rules. Maybe his father hasn't had that talk with him yet. "Son, there's this thing called the policy making billionaire. They get the government to stack the laws and steer the federal and state budget in their favor."
Update 11-19-21: Youngkin told Republican Governors the success to his win was running away from his business record.
Update 5-26-22: Suburban moms sent Youngkin over the finish line with their votes. Those moms are now needed to keep children safe from weapons of war.
