Carlyle Group's Rubenstein Advises New York Fed

Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein sits on the Investment Advisory Board on Financial Markets at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Their January meeting had cryptocurrencies on the agenda.  Rubenstein had this to say on crypto in May 2021:

If you go into cryptocurrencies, you should expect big ups and downs and big fluctuations. If you’re not prepared for that, don’t go into cryptocurrency.

That doesn't sound like a good fit for a group charged with maintaining financial stability.  Rubenstein has a personal stake in Paxos, a multi-product cryptocurrency company.  The investment came through Rubenstein's family office, Declaration Partners.

One of those products is a cryptocurrency based on gold.  The Federal Reserve divorced the dollar from the gold standard in 1971.  

The agenda for the January 12th conference call covered:

 • What are your expectations for U.S. economic growth and inflation? How are you thinking about the global macroeconomic outlook? How has the trajectory of the COVID pandemic and the emergence of new variants impacted your economic outlook, if at all? 

The Carlyle Group has a deep COVID portfolio as it is important to profit from human misery.

• What is your outlook for Federal Reserve monetary policy? What impact will the gradual removal of policy accommodation across major advanced economy central banks have on financial asset prices? What are your expectations for balance sheet policy going forward in the U.S. and abroad? 

Carlyle monetized numerous affiliates during the everything bubble and needs distressed assets to purchase with its massive amount of dry powder.

• What is your view of the evolution of cryptocurrencies to-date and your outlook for their use going forward? To what extent do cryptocurrencies pose risks, if at all, to economic and/or financial market stability? How do stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) fit into your outlook? 

I am sure Rubenstein got to share all the ways Paxos can meet investors' cypto needs.  Paxos Crypto Exchange takes Venmo, Paypal and Mercado Pago.  It works with Interactive Brokers and offers a U.S. dollar stablecoin, as well as the gold based one.  Did Rubenstein make a presentation on crypto, like Ray Dalio did in February 2021?  

The public should not be surprised if Rubenstein's billions continue to grow while they struggle.

Update 2-3-22:  Carlyle's earnings call revealed a "record level of asset sales from its private equity portfolio."  Fed Chair Jay Powell can help Carlyle reinvest those winnings and mobilize all that dry powder by distressing financial assets.

Update 5-27-22  Paxos received a federal trust charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.  Paxos National Trust entity is a federally regulated entity offering custody services, stablecoin management, payment, exchange and other services.  It is different from New York Department of Financial Services-chartered Paxos Trust Co.  The next step would be for Paxos National Trust to apply to Federal Reserve to become a real bank with FDIC coverage.  

Update 8-2-22:  A number of FDIC insured banks ran with the crypto devils and may go under as a result.  How this is remotely OK is a question one should ask David Rubenstein and his former employee Jerome Powell.

Update 5-7-23:  ZeroHedge reported "a Texas House committee passed a bill to create 100% reserve gold and silver-backed transactional currencies. Enactment of this legislation would create an option for people to conduct business in sound money, set the stage to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money, and possibly create a viable alternative to a central bank digital currency (CBDC)."  David Rubenstein must be excited.

Some People Are Insufferable PEUs

Fed Chief Jay Powell said he is unaware of inflation's impact on different economic classes.

"I’m not aware of um, you know, inflation literally falling more on different socioeconomic groups. That’s not the point. The point is some people are just really prone to suffer more."

Classless, clueless or incompetent?  Better said:

Some classes of people are easier to ignore in our system governed by people beholdened to the billionaire class, who believe their excessive bounty is due to their superiority and/or God given blessings.  

Powell is a former Managing Director for The Carlyle Group, a politically connected private equity underwriter PEU).  

Former Carlyle co-CEO Glenn Youngkin is now Governor of Virginia.  Glenn doesn't see society's cast-outs, people disadvantaged based on skin color, socioeconomic class or who they love.  However, Governor Youngkin does not want white children to become uncomfortable while learning about Virginia's sordid history of slavery and how its vestiges remain, establishing a hotline for triggered parents.  Discomfort is often a key aspect of learning.

Glenn established a breakaway Anglican church in his basement as God does not work through gay people, specifically gay Episcopal bishops.  This act of disunity shows Youngkin's ability to divide people in the name of Christ's Gospel.  His campaign pointed out the Jeffrey Epstein speck in his opponent's eye while ignoring the log in his own.

PEUs cannot get enough money, power or preferential treatment under the law.  They sacrifice their marriages and families on the altar of grand returns.  Financial alpha can occupy time and energy, but will not fulfill.  Their unwillingness to pay fair taxes on their winnings is longstanding.   

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." 

Youngkin was so committed to his political campaign he loaned it $20 million.  At what interest rate?  Youngkin and Co. provided in-kind assistance of $242,000.  He expects a return on his investment and will steer the state budget to his PEU friends.  Expect more power, more money, more rewriting the rules to benefit his class.  

Common people are prone to just suffer more, while the billionaire class remains entrenched and garners virtually all the economic winnings.  The Powell's and Youngkin's ensure it.

Update 1-28-22:  Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein, savior of PEU preferred "carried interest" taxation, sits on the Investment Advisory Committee of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.  In this role Rubenstein serves himself.

Update 1-31-22:  "Youngkin raised about $2.2 million in around six weeks before even taking office, despite being barred by state law from seeking consecutive terms."  He needs his campaign to pay him back for the $20 million in loans.  It's Glenn's latest big money wash.  First, it was PEU the it was politics.

Update 2-1-22:  The big money wash occurs under the pretense of business or politics, but they have merged into America's Government-Corporate Monstrosity. 

"These are peoples that have lost the power of astonishment at their own actions. When they give birth to a fantastic fashion or a foolish law, they do not start or stare at the monster they have brought forth. They have grown used to their own unreason; chaos is their cosmos; and the whirlwind is the breath of their nostrils.  These nations are really in danger of going off their heads en masse; of becoming one vast vision of imbecility, with toppling cities and crazy countrysides, all dotted with industrious lunatics.” --  G.K. Chesterton, In Defense of Sanity

The Blue Team is disappointing as they are unable to stop the money churn amongst insiders, however the Red Team appears to be clinically insane.

Update 2-6-22:  Economic bully Glenn Youngkin has the might of the Office of Governor to push people around.  Picking on a high school student is bad form.  

Poor choice, Gov. Youngkin. 

Update 2-7-22:   Fed Chief Jay Powell's financial disclosure reports reveal he hid multiple trades of securities during his tenure on the Federal Reserve board.  Powell was appointed for his financial expertise, as were his Fed peers.  It is not credible that they don't have the knowledge or skills to complete the forms correctly.  Greed and leverage boys always have something to hide.

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.

PEU Power Players

Apollo Global co-founder Leon Black reached a new low when he blamed fellow co-founder Josh Harris for Black's series of extremely poor choices which resulted in his resignation from Apollo.   

The greed and leverage boys created a political system that serves their needs at the expense of the common person.  Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is the latest private equity underwriter (PEU) to enter politics.  Consider one ad that helped PEU Youngkin to victory.  It used his opponent's ties to former President Bill Clinton, an Epstein frequent flyer.  

While pointing out the speck in the other's eye, Glenn's campaign ignored the log in their own. 

Youngkin's opponent invested in The Carlyle Group, Glenn's employer for twenty five years.  For the first time the public had a choice between a PEU co-CEO and a limited partner.  Youngkin could not disparage Carlyle but could go after an LP.

A friend said this about the PEU boys and their antics.

You know something..........they have managed to insulate themselves from everything........market forces, laws, all accountability, etc ......it irritates me to no end.

So where can that energy go?   Well, one can write things about Leon Black on a blog:

Don't these guys ever go away?  Watching a blind giant stomp around with his balls out is not pretty.  Poor Leon, it's a shame he's so frustrated.

Also, don't these guys fund lawsuits as an investment?  Black's partner may just have been pursuing more ka-ching.  PEUs will feed on one another.

Virginians get to report teachers who make any student or parent uncomfortable.  In other words, the moneyed class is happy to pit the little people against one another.  If that's all the power you have, you have no power.

Americans don't get to demand that powerful people who break the law be held accountable, criminally or civilly.  We don't have a say in their decades long preferred "carried interest" taxation, saved by David Rubenstein and various Senators.  We have to sit by and watch the greed and leverage boys tap Uncle Sam's and the Old Dominion's wallet to their benefit thanks to sponsored politicians.  

Polticians Red and Blue love PEU.  The PEU boys do not want to share, not one penny and with nobody but themselves.

Update  1-29-23:  Epstein died in a New York jail summer of 2019.  Many believe Epstein was a sextortionist, using images of famous people in compromised positions with his underage harem to garner power, money and influence.  Prince Andrew settled a case out of court with an Epstein victim and now wants to reverse the deal to bolster his reputation.  Does that mean Andrew will have worked both sides of sextortion, victim/perpetrator to perpetrator/victim?

A sextortion attorney said:

"I see hedge fund managers, private equity partners, big law firm attorneys, high-end physicians, especially those with active social media platforms."

Update 3-12-23:  Reuters reported:

JPMorgan Chase & Co has sued Jes Staley, its former private banking head and later Barclays Plc's chief executive, accusing him of entangling it with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and saying Staley himself had been accused of sexual assault.

 JP Morgan is trying to insulate CEO Jamie Dimon from testifying in an Epstein related lawsuit.

Update 11-26-23:  The World Tribune reported:

Given all that has happened to this country over the past 35-odd years since Michael Milken, Leon Black and Jeffrey Epstein first appeared on the national scene, it is more than appropriate to ask out loud just how much influence this unholy trinity has had and continues to have over America’s political, corporate and cultural elites.

There is no crime amongst elites that cannot be forgiven.

 

Bloomberg Defers to Greed and Leverage Boys

Bloomberg reported:

McAfee Corp. is selling $5.7 billion of leveraged loans and is expected to soon launch another $3.3 billion of bonds as part of its sale to investors including Advent International Corp. and Permira Advisers. Athenahealth is raising $9.3 billion of loans and bonds, which will help fund its buyout to a group led by Hellman & Friedman LLC and Bain Capital.

Cybersecurity software maker McAfee is marketing its deal at 7.8 times leverage.  The LBO of Athenahealth, a health information technology company, is at a similar level of 7.6 times total leverage.

Better stated:  Private equity firms will load their newest affiliates with nearly $10 billion in debt and place them at risk for future default due to high leverage levels (more than Bloomberg reported according to Fitch).  

AthenaHealth's price tag rose from $5.7 billion in 2019 to $17 billion in 2021.  Fitch had this to say about the deal's financing:

The transaction, expected to close in 1Q22, is to be financed in part through the issuance of a $5.75 billion 1L term loan B (Tlb), a $1 billion DDTL to be undrawn at close, $2.5 billion in new senior unsecured notes, and $2.36 billion of new preferred equity that Fitch does not treat as debt of the rated entity under its "Master Corporate Rating Criteria," and HoldCo PIK and Shareholder Loans adjustments.

Fitch estimates fiscal 2021 pro forma leverage of 9.2x.

Fitch noted McAfee's exploding leverage under its PEU buyout:

Pro forma for the LBO transaction, leverage is expected to rise to over 8.5x. Fitch believes the company's leverage tolerance under private ownership will be significantly elevated compared to what was seen under public ownership. 

Upon completion of the transaction as proposed, Fitch expects a significant change in financial structure that could result in a multi-notch downgrade..

I am not sure why Bloomberg was so deferential to the PEU boys.  Their reporters must want continued access to billionaires who can't get enough and won't part with their incomprehensible wealth by allowing politicians to drop their preferred "carried interest" taxation.

Carlyle Ready for Distressed Europe

 

Bloomberg reported The Carlyle Group sees Europe as ripe territory for the greed and leverage boys:

"Private equity firms can look forward to a rich hunting ground for deals in 2022 as Europe’s corporate titans seek ways to shed businesses."

Big companies are being forced to reassess their portfolios as consumer habits change and the corporate world responds to digitalization, a shift to clean energy and fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

That could fuel a continuation of the record $300 billion-plus buying spree that private equity firms have been on in Europe since the start of last year.

The story highlighted a number of promotions for younger private equity underwriters (PEU).

“We have seen too many times in our industry where the old guard is not paying sufficient attention to the next generation and become a little selfish.”

Greed is a fractal, repeating itself at varying levels of view.  It's clear the old guard has not wanted to share by paying their fair share of taxes.  Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein saved his preferred carried interest taxation multiple times with the help of U.S. Senators. That's the societal level.  

Carlyle's old guard not wanting to share with their younger workers fits with their founding obsession.  For the PEU boys, there is never enough money.

Youngkin Election's PEU Money

 ABC News 3 reported:

Youngkin's chief of staff will be Jeff Goettman, who has served as the transition director post-election. 

Goettman served as Chief Operating Office and Policy Director for Glenn Youngkin's Campaign.   Jeff, like his boss, has a background in private equity.  

Goettman founded CameronBlue Capital, a private equity firm in 2006. Previously, Mr. Goettman was a Managing Member at Thayer Capital Partners, a Washington, D.C. based private equity firm.

Youngkin for Governor Inc. paid Goettman roughly $250,000 over a ten month period.  That's $25,000 a month in salary and mileage reimbursement.  

Candidate Youngkin loaned his campaign $20 million.   He is yet to reveal the interest rate.  Youngkin & Co. provided in-kind support totaling $242,000 to his campaign.  How might a common person interested in public service compete against that?  They can't.  

The big money wash occurring in America's political class has a distinct PEU odor.  Voters are needed to give the Red or Blue Team the right to use tax dollars to enrich their friends.  Huge sums are spent finding the wedge issue that turns out voters.  

The big money is real, even when divisive issues are complete fiction.  

Update 1-31-22:  "Youngkin raised about $2.2 million in around six weeks before even taking office, despite being barred by state law from seeking consecutive terms."  He needs his campaign to pay him back for the $20 million in loans.  It's Glenn's latest big money wash.  First, it was PEU the it was politics.

Red Team PEU Governor is Davos Man

Red Team Governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin spent twenty five years as a greed and leverage boy before his makeover for independent voters.  Youngkin was front and center at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2019 and 2020.

As a Davos Man Youngkin was supposedly concerned about income inequality.  That was a canard.  The author of Davos Man:  How the Billionaires Devoured the World" wrote:

We are living in a world crafted by billionaires to funnel more wealth to themselves.--Peter S. Goodman

Youngkin and Carlyle sent U.S. automotive parts manufacturing jobs to China long before he began monitoring rush hour traffic in Beijing.

Private equity underwriters (PEU) tilted the table in their favor with the help of elected officials and the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.  They paid preferred tax rates when citizens wanted otherwise.  Youngkin's Carlyle Group is infamous for its non-lobbying access to elected officials.  Red and Blue White Houses invited PEU founders to dinner and readily took their phone calls.

He did loan his campaign $20 million and provided in-kind donations of nearly $168,000.  Youngkin expects grand returns on his money.

As Virginia's Governor Glenn Youngkin's is in a key position to further "the world billionaires crafted to funnel more wealth to themselves."  He is a Davos Man. 

Powell to Nick Bubble for PEU Boys

Fed Chair and former private equity underwriter (PEU) Jay Powell dragged his feet as inflation rose and ingrained itself into the economy.  He assured markets it would be fleeting as the gargantuan asset bubble expanded.  This enabled Powell's former peers to monetize a good chunk of their affiliates.  KKR reported record monetization for Q4 2021.  In June 2021 The Carlyle Group achieved over 50%-plus private equity returns over the prior twelve months.

Citizens may have experienced private equity as their company's sponsor, check mailer or home landlord.  Most Americans have directly contributed to PEU billionaire wealth.  

Bloomberg reported:

Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein said "We’re due for a correction. “The markets have been very ebullient for quite some time. We’ve basically been having free money.”

Fed Chief Jay Powell enabled his former employer (Carlyle) to buy and flip companies with that free money.  Uncle Sam taxed those profits at a preferred rate (carried interest).  Billionaires won.

The wealth of billionaires increased more than ever before over the past two years: The 10 richest people in the world — all white men — more than doubled their wealth, from a collective $700 billion to $1.5 trillion.

From March 2020 to November 2021, a new billionaire was created every 26 hours, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the organization estimated that over 160 million people have been pushed into poverty in that time.

We may need to ride through a recession so the greed and leverage boys can mobilize over $500 billion in dry powder on newly distressed assets.  Yes, they still have their preferred taxation.

Update 6-10-22:  Insider Larry Summers said “The Fed’s forecasts from March, saying that inflation would be coming down to the 2s by the end of the year was, frankly, delusional when issued, and looks even more ridiculous today.”  Inflation was a hot 8.6% for May.  Summers urged the Fed to investigate why officials’ forecasts were “so dramatically” and repeatedly wrong.

Virginia Swears in PEU Governor, Firings Start

Former Carlyle Group co-CEO Glenn Youngkin is now the 74th Governor of Virginia.

References to Virginia's long history and America's Founding Fathers were woven through the address, but Youngkin also acknowledged the country's “chapters of great injustice."

Oddly, Youngkin's administration riffed dozens of lawyers in the state's civil rights division.  

Youngkin also helped Friday to landscape an area along the Richmond Slave Trail, which commemorates how the city became a major hub in the trading of enslaved people before the Civil War.

Glenn spent twenty some years leading a politically connected a private equity underwriter (PEU).  He's used to lofty language that bears little resemblance to reality.  As he landscaped the slave trail did he think about his predecessors?

On the eve of the Civil War, enslaved black people, in the aggregate, formed the second most valuable capital asset in the United States.

Founding father Thomas Jefferson was the state's second governor, serving two terms.  

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 makes this act even more egregious?

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.

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.

Youngkin banned the teaching of a subject not taught in Virginia schools, critical race theory.  I have no idea how Virginia's newest Governor reconciles "chapters of great injustice" with systemic oppression of people based on race, religion or other personal characteristics.  

Glenn's recent history as an ESG loving, Beijing rush hour monitor does not fit with his amorphous political campaign. He did loan his campaign $20 millions.  Now that he's won, it's payback time.  At what interest rate?

Youngkin will use state coffers to enrich his PEU peers.  Carlyle leaked the formation of a new infrastructure fund to take advantage of federal infrastructure funds and Youngkin's newfound control of Virginia state budget.  

Update 1-17-22:  Are Virginians ready for a PEU way forward?  The big money funnel should crank up for Youngkin's former peers, supporters and friends.  It will be humming in no time.

Update 1-18-22:  "We are living in a world crafted by billionaires to funnel more wealth to themselves."

Carlyle Group's CDIF to Latch on BIF

The Carlyle Group plans to offer investors a long dated fund to profit on infrastructure projects.  Carlyle Diversified Infrastructure Funds or CDIF has much in common with the other CDIFF, an infection in the colon that often plagues hospital patients with explosive diarrhea.  Private equity is a financial virus that eats at public coffers, federal and state.  It can result in debt backups, fee splattering and explosive profits for the wealthy.

Carlyle and then co-CEO Glenn Youngkin publicized with great fanfare its lead developer role for Port of Corpus Christi expansion at Harbor Island.  It offered barely a peep when it reneged on its role, leaving a potential $400 million hole.

Youngkin went on to win the Virginia Governor's race for the Red Team and will have billions in state funding to steer to his former peers.  I'm sure that's one reason Carlyle is pushing their version of CDIF.  That and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by Congress that encourages public-private partnerships.  The bill is also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF).

Youngkin's chief of staff Jeff Goettman is also a private equity underwriter (PEU).  How will this team steer public funds to their greedy friends? 

“Public private partnerships, private activity bonds, and asset recycling.” In the name of building world-class infrastructure, these lawmakers would sell it off in fire sales to private financiers. 

Carlyle wants a big shot at Virginia and other states' public wallet.  All are used to getting their way.  I expect BIF to have frequent rounds of CDIF. 

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).

Misconduct Increases at PEU Owned Financial Firms

MarketWatch reported:

“Private equity ownership leads to an increase of 147% in the percentage of… financial advisers committing misconduct” at the firms they take over.

The latest study adds to the growing evidence that private-equity managers are driving unethical business practices where they find an opportunity. Studies published last year found the rising private equity ownership of nursing homes is leading to lower standards, higher costs and more deaths. Other research has found that private equity takeovers can be bad for things like employee morale and quality of life, and worse customer outcomes.

They have also been rewarded by Congress — both parties — with lavish tax breaks on that pay, breaks unavailable to the middle class, thanks to the so-called “carried interest loophole.”

The greed and leverage boys are never responsible for the destruction they cause.  Politicians Red and Blue love PEU.  

"ill fares the land," specifically people under PEU rule.

The line comes from an 18th century poem, The Deserted Village.  The poem condemns rural depopulation and the pursuit of excessive wealth. 

PEU Ties to Epstein Victim Justice

The juror who may get Ghislaine Maxwell a new trial is a low level staffer for The Carlyle Group.  Oddly, that juror's judgment error could benefit Leon Black, PEU founder of Apollo Global and major financial sponsor of Jeffrey Epstein.  

Bloomberg Equality warned of potential problems from a PEU juror.

“My main concern is that, given the number of high-profile individuals who are in PE and finance that have been implicated, given my proximity to these individuals, that's my biggest fear."

The public is waiting for the politically powerful men who abused Epstein's under-aged girls to be brought to justice.  That may not happen.  Consider the case of Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss:

Why not go after the men? Why was it that she was sentenced to three years in prison while her client Charlie Sheen, who testified against her, was free to make a movie for $5m?  

Some can't get enough money.  Others can't get enough sex.  Laws are broken in the pursuit of both.  If the average citizen would be charged and jailed for a criminal act, so should the super wealthy and politically connected.  Justice or Just Us?  

Update 1-19-22:  Maxwell will try to get a new trial on this basis.

Update 11-29-22:  Reuters reported:

Leon Black, the billionaire co-founder of private equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc, was sued on Monday by a woman who said he raped her two decades ago in the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion.

Update  1-29-23:  Epstein died in a New York jail summer of 2019.  Many believe Epstein was a sextortionist, using images of famous people in compromised positions with his underage harem to garner power, money and influence.  Prince Andrew settled a case out of court with an Epstein victim and now wants to reverse the deal to bolster his reputation.  Does that mean Andrew will have worked both sides of sextortion, victim/perpetrator to perpetrator/victim?

A sextortion attorney said:

"I see hedge fund managers, private equity partners, big law firm attorneys, high-end physicians, especially those with active social media platforms."

Eli Manning Belated PEU Partner

Bloomberg reported on a new private equity underwriter (PEU).  It's NFL star Eli Manning, the latest founding partner with Brand Velocity Partners.

Manning and a number of family members invested in BVP affiliate BBQ Guys in September 2020.  Eli was not one of four BVP founding partners at the time.    

It can take a long time for a private equity underwriter to form a firm foundation.  Founding partners must be welcomed until the foundation sets.  It helps to have a famous name and major ka-ching to invest. 

As a newbie Manning needs to attend PEU Camp.  I imagine Manning will need to show up in maximum condition.

Camp preparation:

1.  Harden heart

2.  Obsess endlessly about money

Camp will cover:

3.  Winning, it's never enough

4.  How to contact politicians without declaring yourself a lobbyist

5.  Tax avoidance - legal and otherwise

6.  How to borrow obscene amounts to finance deals

7.  Fees, fees, fees

Turn over a rock and you'll find a PEU.

Update 3-13-24:  Former Carlyle Group PEU Dan Hodges joins Eli Manning at Brand Velocity Group.

John Legend, Prince Bin Salman in KKR News

Private equity underwriter KKR is in the news with two deals, one confirmed and one possible.

KKR & Co. Inc. and BMG have acquired the songwriting catalog of John Legend.

KKR approached the Public Investment Fund, which is chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to gauge its interest in providing capital for its proposed acquisition of Telecom Italia SpA.

I'm sure John Legend does not want to be in league with the killer of journalist Jamal Khashoggi but that's the company you keep when you run with the greed and leverage boys.  

Destruction is as destruction does.  KKR's General David Petraeus knows.  He also knows the free pass highly connected people get for going along.

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 4-26-22:  KKR's buyout of BrightSpring harmed developmentally disabled persons in the group homes.  Greed, like feces, flows downhill.  

Managers who did not meet corporate targets were subjected to “focus calls” on which Rousseau, BrightSpring’s CEO; Barnes, the president of the group home division; or other executives would berate them.

Update 5-16-22:  Former golf great Greg Norman said in a response to the Crown Prince ordered killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a media day for his Saudi-backed LIV Golf’s inaugural event in London next month:

"Look, we’ve all made mistakes and you just want to learn from those mistakes and how you can correct them going forward."

Part of rectifying a mistake is accepting responsibility and taking accountability for one's action.  The Prince of Thuggery has done nothing in that regard.  If Greg Norman has an inside information about the murder he should inform authorities. 

Update 5-26-22:  Justin Timberlake is the latest artist to sell his music to the greed and leverage boys. 

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.

Voters Red and Blue Dislike PEU

The University of Virginia Center for Politics ran a special event, "The Shock of January 6th."  Professor Larry Sabato hosted the event, which presented research into the thinking of Red and Blue political team voters.  They agreed on one thing, that government caters to the wealthy.  A highly influential subsection is private equity underwriters (PEU).  Many PEU founders have been identified as policy making billionaires.  

A former major business reporter contacted PEU Report in July 2011.  They wrote:

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! 

Politicians Red and Blue love PEU, which is why Mr. Rubenstein retains his preferred carried interest taxation to this day.

Voters Red and Blue dislike PEU, although Virginia voters just elected one Governor.  

Update 1-11-22:  Rewarding high dollar donors is part of the smelly game.  

“Tsunis is likely the worst nominee that Biden has put forward and there’s some stiff competition because Biden has ignored the advice and the concerns of those with diplomatic experience, saying now is not the time to be doling out party favours to your donors.

“We need to have serious seasoned leadership in our embassies overseas. The whole nomination process reeks of backroom deals and favour trading but this is what Biden said he was going to clean up.”

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 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?

PEU Boys Want "Coal Baron" Title

Bloomberg reported:

Private Equity Lines Up for Coal ‘Bonanza’

Private equity firms are lining up to take on the dirty -- and highly profitable -- assets being divested by publicly traded commodity producers as the world grapples to decarbonize.

Not long ago co-CEO Glenn Youngkin highlighted The Carlyle Group's commitment to ESG, a distinctly non-coal pursuit.  Youngkin shed his greed and leverage tentacles for a Red political team snakeskin and is now Virginia's governor.  

Distressed assets include coal.  The earth and democracy are not distressed in their dollar obsessed world.  However, paying taxes is extremely distressing to private equity underwriters.  Carlyle's roots are from the Great Eskimo Tax Scam.  Time will reveal damage done by new Coal Barons.

Update 1-6-22:  Bloomberg Intelligence reported:

Private equity firms, along with hedge funds, are significantly ramping up the amount they’re willing to pay specialists in sustainable finance, as a field once at the lower end of the pay scale moves closer to the top.

According to headhunters, a growing number of ESG specialists are now being propelled into a completely different income bracket from the one they inhabited just a few years ago. That’s as the market for environmental, social and governance assets hurtles past $35 trillion.

Bill Gates, Warren Buffet Nuclear Project has $2 Billion Federal Subsidy

In November CNBC reported:

Bill Gates’ TerraPower has chosen Kemmerer, Wyoming, a frontier-era coal town, as the site where the company will build its first demonstration nuclear power plant. 

The plant will cost about $4 billion, half coming from TerraPower and half coming from the United States government, the company said. 

Rocky Mountain Power — a division of PacifiCorp, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Energy — will operate the plant, which will play a role in the power company’s decarbonization strategy.

The project has two of the richest men in the world, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, involved.  Two billion in taxpayer money?  The is the other way policy making billionaires gain (after preferred tax laws/rules and purposeful lack of enforcement).

The latest news on the federally subsidized project reveals international assistance:

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd  are set to cooperate with the United States and Bill Gates' venture company (TerraPower) to build a high-tech nuclear reactor in Wyoming.  JAEA and Mitsubishi will provide technical support and data from Japan's own advanced reactors.

Gates' partner has had its own challenges with advanced nuclear reactors.

Japan has a bitter history of decommissioning its Monju prototype advanced reactor in 2016, a project which cost $8.5 billion but provided little results and years of controversy.

The Monju facility saw accidents, regulatory breaches, and cover-ups since its conception, and was closed following public distrust of nuclear energy after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

TerraPower spent significant energy selecting a site with minimal risk from environmental disasters, so I am not asserting the demonstration plant will end up like Fukushima Diachi.  My only point is two billionaires, $2 billion federal subsidy.