Sonder Implodes, BlackRock Largest Equity Holder

Short term rental provider and Marriott partner Sonder Holdings declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  Company auditor Delloite & Touche issued a going concern warning on Sonder in July 2025.  Around the same time an employee posted this on Glassdoor: 

This job started off easy and manageable, even with some clunky internal systems. But since the company was acquired by Marriott (rebranded as a “partnership” to avoid properly compensating employees), everything has gone downhill. The systems we use to do our jobs have become harder and more frustrating. 

But the real problem is the toxic, unaccountable management at both the direct and upper levels. We are now expected to juggle multiple roles — front desk, housekeeping, minor maintenance, billing, emails, live chat, in-person guest interactions, and more — all without proper training or increased pay. Management gaslights you into thinking this is normal and acceptable. When you push back, they deflect responsibility and create new rules on the fly to wear you down. The strategy is clear: overwork and exhaust the team to make us easier to manipulate. They even force you to stand for your entire shift now, as if the emotional labor wasn’t enough. 

Raises? You get a 60¢ “increase” as part of this Marriott shift — a complete slap in the face given how much more they demand from us. If you voice concerns, you’re told to be grateful or start looking elsewhere. 

The CEO “stepped down” to pursue other things, but let’s be real — this was always a sellout move. He cashed in and left the front-line workers to deal with the fallout. If you’re informed, strong-willed, and unwilling to be a pushover — you’ll be targeted. 

Sonder used to be a promising brand. But now, it feels like Marriott is draining it for all it’s worth before phasing it out completely. 

Bottom line: This job is not worth your mental health. Management doesn’t respect that you have a life outside of work. They will treat you as disposable — and expect gratitude in return. 

Advice to Management:   Prepare to be treated by the company the same way you've treated us; everyone's time comes.

Sonder began as Flatbook in 2014.  It changed name in 2016.  Sonder became public via an SPAC in 2021, valued at $2.2 billion.  Prequin reported the following sponsors:

The Gores Group, alongside Atreides Capital, BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Moore Capital Management - Private Equity, Principal Global Investors, and Senator Investment Group

Several are private equity underwriters (PEU).  The PEU/TechGod playbook is embedded in that employee review.  Crappy technology, toxic management/executives, poor pay/benefits, excessive hours worked, top execs cashing out (getting all the rewards), no ability to move up and financial sleight of hand given the company never got close to being cash flow positive (even on an adjusted basis).  That's thirteen years of massive operating losses.  

The Real Deal noted:

....the company disclosed financial reporting errors affecting 2022 and 2023 statements

BlackRock took a number of hits on the debt side from recent bankruptcies.  Their Sonder losses are equity related, but I imagine it stings similarly.

Trump Boys' Dominari Holdings "Mining" Money

What fortune for Dominari Holdings, the Trump Tower renter that once was a bit financial player!  Thank the Trump Enrichment Accelerator.

In February the Trump boys joined Dominari's Advisory Board and participated in a private placement.  Since then Dominari has been skyrocketing.  Revenue is up over 700% in just nine months.  

Oddly, the company's website now returns an error message regarding their Board of Advisors.  Here's what it looked like months ago.

Dominari paid a dividend to shareholders in March (.32 per share) and September (.22 per share).    Together the Trump boys received over $1 million.  Each garnered over $530,000 between the two dividends (.55 per share total).

Dominari noted their profit from taking American Bitcoin public.  A SEC filing shows Eric Trump controlling over 68 million shares in ABTC.  At today's price of $5.15 Eric controls over $350 million in ABTC stock.

I'm sure the average citizen is far too busy trying to make ends meet to see the Trump administration minting money for family and friends.  Trump II, the digital Caligula, wants over $200 billion in net worth when he leaves office in January 2029.  

Deal makers get deal fees, directly or indirectly.  Remember that.  The Trump Enrichment Accelerator works 24/7/365.  It has over three more years to voraciously consume an obscene portion of economic resources.  For that many suffer.

Trump II Advancing Indentured Servitude

Fifteen year car loans and fifty year home mortgages are Trump II's answers to unaffordable houses and vehicles.  His advisors want to bring back the aristocracy and colonialism.  Why not add indentured servitude.  

Does the President believe these moves will help him with the general public?  If so, he is further out of touch than I thought and I did not think that possible given Trump II's irreality.  

Financiers win, but they always have.  Serf's up!

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU (private equity underwriters) and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.

Catering to NY & LA Billionaire Investors

Concho Valley Homepage reported Doral Renewables is partnering with Bechtel Corporation on the Cold Creek solar and battery farm.  Doral's description indicates they are backed by Apollo, a giant  private equity underwriter (PEU).  Cold Creek is projected to be operational in 2028. 

San Angelo City Council and Tom Green County Commissioners have a new constituency to serve, PEUs with specific hurdle rate requirements.

City Councilman Tom Thompson, Tommy Hiebert and Harry Thomas have been ringing the bell on cutting city services, I take it, to give these and future projects their massive tax abatements.  

Cutting retiree healthcare so billionaire founders can add to their massive net worth?  That has a national political feel to it.

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.

First Lady Lauds TechGods & PEUs

Bloomberg reported OpenAI, which will soon enter the pornography market, wants CHIPS act subsidies (tax credits) to be expanded to AI data centers.

....35% chips-focused tax credit to AI data centers, AI server producers and electrical grid components, such as transformers and the specialized steel used to produce them.

It seems TechGods want more subsidy from Uncle Sam (35%) than they are willing to pay in local taxes (generally 10 to 20% under 80-90% tax abatement). 

OpenAI scrambled to not look like a SNAP recipient or an Obamacare insured given what their CFO said.  CNN reported:

OpenAI’s Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar raised eyebrows on Wednesday when she suggested that the US government should “backstop” the company’s aggressive investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure. 

“The backstop, the guarantee, that allows the financing to happen, that can really drop the cost of the financing but also increase the loan-to-value, so the amount of debt that you can take on top of an equity portion,” she said at a Wall Street Journal event.

TechGods need for an "all of government" subsidy.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with their huge capital pools, may soon be equity holders in tech firms.  FHFA Chief Bill Pulte is on it.

They even got the First Lady to equate TechGods, immigrants in many cases, with the greater good.  

Do you see how naturally, beautifully and inevitably the government is mobilizing all of its resources to enrich the PEU/TechGod class?  It's been going on for decades but regular people are beginning to notice.  

Melania's America is a club, the same one colonial powers used to beat "savage" locals into submission, the exclusive one the aristocracy created in their gilded ballrooms/dining halls and today the baton being used to demean the formerly middle class struggling day to day to survive.

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren. Increasingly, more are one.

PEU Audax Experiences Home Renovation Affiliate Collapse

USA Herald reported:

Renovo Home Partners, a private equity–backed roll-up of home improvement businesses, has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Delaware federal court, declaring as much as $500 million in debt across nearly 20 affiliated entities.

The equity loss goes to Boston headquartered Audax, a private equity underwriter (PEU).

The private credit hit goes to BlackRock at "more than $100 million."  BlackRock recently took  a beating on First Brands and Carriox Capital.  

Should anyone want to search BlackRock's various reports for their stated exposure, use HomeRenew Buyer, Inc.   Renovo Home Partners is a dba name for HomeRenew Buyers.

Below is the list of BlackRock Credit Strategies Fund's holdings of HomeRenew Buyer debt as of 12-31-24.  

News stories state most of BlackRock's exposure to Renovo/HomeRenew is under BlackRock TCP Capital.  

The cockroaches are swarming...

Financial crises start when the big money boys no longer trust each other to make good on their debts.

Update 11-10-25:  Another disturbing PEU tale:

The Brinton's family feels similarly after The Carlyle Group took over their company in an underhanded manner, laid off staff and dumped the pension onto British taxpayers.

Forging into ...? Schwab!

Charles Schwab is buying Forge Global, a fintech that serves as a private company stock exchange.

Forge went public in 2022 via a Motive Capital Partners SPAC.  It has private equity underwriter (PEU) roots according to the company website:

Founded in 2015, Motive Partners is a specialist private equity platform

 TechGod companies proliferate Forge's offerings:

And a number of these companies are flat out creepy.  Shein has childlike sex dolls.

The AI swerve into the porn lane caught many by surprise.  OpenAI's upcoming ChatXXX, xAI's digital sex talk bot using employee biometric data and Meta's engorging on adult content should have been forseeable, given their founders consistent creepiness and seeming inability to connect with carbon based people.  

Schwab, the investor for the little people, is going big, private and creepy.  I was thinking of reactivating my account but realize they have nothing for me.  

Update 11-7-25:  The Burning Platform wrote:  

It’s the .01% globalist billionaire class who are mainly to blame for the economic shitstorm brewing on the horizon.

That's the group politicians Red & Blue have catered to over the last two decades.  It includes private equity underwriters (PEU), TechGods and CryptoBros.  Increasingly, more elected officials and key government officials are one (a PEU/TechGod/CryptBro).  For that, all of us regular folk pay.....

....(only) a few hundred fall into the category of psychopaths in suits. Yes, they live in gated palaces with ample security forces, but the common folk of this country own over 300 million firearms.

I much prefer voters elect officials who will take back the levers of government from policy making billionaires.  The odds of that are extremely low, but one can hope.  The alternative is absolutely frightening.

Trump Speaks at Global Leadership Summit after Election Wipeout

Trump II spoke at the American Business Forum meeting in Miami , the day after the Red Team was shellacked in three high profile races.  Independent voters put Trump II back in the White House in 2024 and they don't like what they see today, not at all.

The Miami event's presenting partner is the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF).  Trump spoke at another PIF event in Miami in February.  His son-in-law Jared Kushner manages at least $2 billion of PIF money in his Affinity Partners, a relatively new private equity underwriter (PEU).

Below is a graphic which shows the promotional piece for the meeting alongside news articles relative to PIF and Trump priorities.

U.S. citizens should recall Trump II's preference for golf over working out a federal budget deal.  They should also note his desire for global operations vs. attending to things here at home.

PIF's deal with Trump and U.S. companies gives the Saudi's access to everything, Wall Street, Big Tech, AI,  AI SPY, War machines...you name it, the Crown Prince has it or is getting it.

Trump the Usurper consumed the Red Team long ago.  That's nowhere near enough.  Trump II wants an over $200 billion net worth by January 2029.  The American Business Forum has the people who can make that happen.  

American Business Forum....Saudi PIF....Side events that unlock access.....Global leadership summit of the world.....World meets America......World bleeds America while Trump II, PEUs, TechGods and CryptoBros profit handsomely.  

That is, until people wake up.  

Update 11-6-25:  Trump II, the digital Caligula and extremely sore loser, received a key to the City of Miami from Mayor Frances Suarez, also a private equity underwriter (PEU).  The conference's presenting partner also has PEU holdings.

SWFs, PEUs, TechGods, CrypotBros, AI ....what's not to detest?  

Rick Scott's Whining? Pardon He

Red Team billionaire Senator Rick Scott pulled out the persecution violin and played it up a storm.  It sounded like the "Devil Went Down to Florida."

Surely, this guy deserves a pardon or commutation for all his trials and tribulations.  Not needed?  Scott was never charged with a crime.  None of his personal assets were confiscated by the Justice Department.

Scott left Colombia/HCA with $300 million in stock, a $5.1 million severance and a $950,000-per-year consulting contract for five years.

I got the message that Trump II believes he is the law so therefore whatever he does is sacrosanct and deserves judicial blessing and celebration.  I was not aware that trickled down to Congress, the people who generate actual laws. 

Scott's history rewrite has been long underway.

Flipping shape shifters.....

Politics is an insufficient way to explain our world, given its ever shifting sands, serial mistruths and mind numbing double standards.

Politicians & Sons Power TechGods as Little People Pay

Fortune reported:

Backed by former U.S. energy secretary and Texas governor Rick Perry, AI power startup Fermi went from nonexistent to an October IPO with a mammoth $16 billion market cap in less than a year without any announced customers or construction—or even a single dollar of revenue.

It's a Texas political insider family affair.  

Founder Rick Perry's son Griffin is an executive and fellow founder Toby Neugebauer is the son of former Congressman Randy Neugebauer.  

Neugebauer ran a conservative fintech that imploded.  Red Team TechGods backed him before blaming Neugebauer for bankrupting Glorifi.  Neugebauer countersued.  WFAA.com noted "a spokesman for Ken Griffin called Neugebauer's allegations 'fabricated nonsense.'"

Fermi America's Matador Project is on a 5,236 acre site leased from Texas Tech University.  It will use both local water and power.  Initial water use is up to 2.5 million gallons per day, increasing up to 10 million as the project advances.

The tax abatement zone has been set up by the county.  It remains to be seen the size of tax breaks given by the City of Amarillo, Carson County and local school districts.  Tax breaks are generally massive, 80-90% of the project's taxable business assets.

Initial electrical power will be met by gas turbines and the local electrical utility.  The State of Texas granted preliminary approval for 6 gigawatt natural gas generated power.  

Fermi's SEC filing noted:

Through a combination of natural gas turbine purchases, a focus on procuring other long lead-time equipment, and negotiations with Southwestern Public Service Company (“SPS”), the local utility, we expect to secure approximately 1.1 GW of power for our operations by the end of 2026 (including an expected 200 megawatts (“MW”) from our expected contractual arrangement with SPS).

Fermi will need 18.2% of its power to come from the same source as Amarillo residents.  That is all new demand.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projected Texas energy "demand will rise another 14% in the first nine months of 2026."

The SEC filing said this about water:

Project Matador’s groundwater lease with the Texas Tech University System (the “Groundwater Lease”) includes dual-aquifer fresh and salt water rights, which provides a resilient, scalable water supply for cooling and other operations. Project Matador is located directly above the Ogallala Aquifer. Within Groundwater Management Area #1, which includes eighteen of the northernmost counties in Texas, the Ogallala Aquifer had an available volume of 3.19 million acre-feet per year as of 2020 and is expected to have approximately 1.99 million acre-feet per year availability in 2080 according to the Texas Water Development Board Groundwater Division.

Add aquifer depletion to the AI "public cost" list.

Another interesting interlock is Rick Perry's role as Fermi America co-founder and Board position with natural gas pipeline company Energy Transfer.  Energy Transfer is supplying the gas to Fermi per an October 2025 announcement.

Fermi America™, developing the world's largest, behind-the-meter artificial intelligence private grid campus with the Texas Tech University System, has secured an agreement with Energy Transfer, one of the largest and most diversified midstream energy companies in North America, to deliver firm natural gas supply to Fermi's HyperGrid™ campus located outside Amarillo, Texas.

The press release did not mention Rick Perry's conflict of interest in this deal.

Conflicts of interest are so yesterday.  They are the fabric of today's PEU world, occupied by private equity underwriters (PEU) and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren.

Political Red and Blue Team supporters should be prepared to shoulder the financial burden for former elected officials and their sons with Fermi America as they purloin water, power, land and avoid their tax responsibilities.  Subsidies are required for the wealthy and connected.  Texas politicians know how to deliver for their brethren and their children.

Eventually the four nuclear plants referred to as "the Donald Trump Generating Plant" will produce electricity and toxic waste.  I thought Trump II was already at maximum toxic production.  Wrong again...

Update 11-7-25:  Bloomberg reported OpenAI, which will soon enter the porn market, wants CHIPS act subsidies (tax credits) to be expanded to AI data centers.

....35% chips-focused tax credit to AI data centers, AI server producers and electrical grid components, such as transformers and the specialized steel used to produce them.

It seems they want more subsidy from Uncle Sam than they are willing to pay in local taxes. 

OpenAI scrambled to not look like a SNAP recipient given what their CFO said.  CNN reported:

OpenAI’s Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar raised eyebrows on Wednesday when she suggested that the US government should “backstop” the company’s aggressive investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure. 

“The backstop, the guarantee, that allows the financing to happen, that can really drop the cost of the financing but also increase the loan-to-value, so the amount of debt that you can take on top of an equity portion,” she said at a Wall Street Journal event.

TechGods are quickly passing the greed and leverage boys (PEU) in their calls for an "all of government" subsidy.  They even got the First Lady to equate TechGods, immigrants in many cases, with the greater good.  

Update 11-11-25:  Fermi stock tanked today after a huge unexplained charge caused losses to soar in the hundreds of millions.  Sherwood reported:

The company, which currently generates no revenue, reported a net loss of $346.8 million for its third quarter, compared to the $13.3 million loss analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. The loss was almost entirely comprised of unspecified “other expenses” totaling $309 million.

With a surprise loss like that a company needs some Alex Karp (TechGod of Spying) like diversionary blather.   

Fermi compared the race to build AI infrastructure faster than China to the Manhattan Project, the initiative to build the first atomic bomb in World War II. 

 “Not all enemies wear uniforms, but make no mistake, America is at war,” the company wrote.

Not all socialists are people. some are corporations seeking government subsidies like Fermi.  Giving giant subsidies to TechGods whose products harm people, including children?  That take a special kind of corporate socialist, one with zero conscience.  TechGods have repeatedly shown they lack the most basic moral standards.  But they know they sometimes have to give to get:

For the first nine months of 2025 Fermi reported $173.8 million in charitable contributions. 

Sleazy politicians like Rick Perry are a perfect match for the AI pinheads.  As a West Texan I do not want to pay a penny for their power or water.  

Blackstone Chief: One Teeny Bite at a Time

Blackstone founder Stephen Schwarzman "enjoyed" a microdose of a Jersey Mike's sub in a company video.  

It's hard to see the man took any of the sandwich.  Was that because:

1.  The company dining room had steak and lobster and he did not want to ruin his real meal.

2.  His GLP-1 took away his desire for a Jersey Mike's sub.

3.  He likes his sandwich bites to be the same proportion as his tax bites (miniscule)

4.  Schwarzman is modeling how to get through the government shutdown for SNAP recipients.  "Look, one teeny bite and I am full!"

5.  He's headed over to the White House for McDonald's with Donald and needs to show eating gusto

The irony is four out of five could be true as only two are mutually exclusive.  

When the PEU boys and their TechGod/CryptoBro peers get hungry enough, then maybe the furloughed and fired get to go back to work.  Until then, prepare for lean days.  

PEUs Not Out of Trump II Mix

The Carlyle Group's Vantive funneled money to Trump II's planned $200 million ballroom that ballooned to $300 million.  Vantive is the former kidney care division of Baxter International.  Carlyle bought it in January and renamed it Vantive.

Cerberus, another politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU) like Carlyle, got a boost from Trump II's deal tour across Asia.  A Lone Star Funds affiliate, Vigor Marine, also got named in Trump's deal a-la-poolza.  Lone Star bought Vigor from Carlyle and another PEU owner.

Another venture named by Trump II, ReElement Technology, is part of American Resources Corporation.  American Resource's CEO/Board Chair and President/Director founded a "fundamentally-orientated private equity style investment fund, T Squared Partners" in 2007.

Business Insider Africe recently ran a story on Mr. Jensen.  It included:

So how did T Squared Partners do with the private equity style investment fund?  They ran Fund 1 into the ground.  Major investor Hull Capital sued alongside other investors in 2014 for damages.  A portion of the civil suit stated:

During operation of the Fund, Defendants breached the Fund’s Operating Agreement in several critical ways causing substantial losses to the Fund, including by: investing fund assets in at least three fraudulent investments; failing to perform even minimally competent due diligence as to those investments; refusing to provide Plaintiffs access to a complete set of books and records of the Fund; charging excessive annual management fees; reimbursing themselves for out-of-pocket expenses in excess over the reimbursement amount permitted under the LLC Agreement, including start up fees and personal tax benefits achieved by moving operation of the Fund to St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands; and failing to manage the business and affairs of the Fund, including maintenance of the books and records of the Fund, in an honest and competent manner.

The Court allowed some of the causes of action to go forward in 2019.  

The Plaintiffs rely on certain deposition testimony by Mr. Jensen that purportedly concedes that he and Mr. Sauve "may have" spent more than 1000 hours per year working for entities other than Fund 1 (Jensen Dep., pp. 344-48), and the fact that Mr. Jensen admitted that he, Mr. Sauve and the Managing Member had established or acquired at least nine companies other than Fund 1, and that he and Mr. Sauve occupied high-level roles at each of those nine companies.

T Squared Partners marketed itself as full time devoted to the fund.  It also cited due diligence.  

...the Managing Member permitted Fund 1 to pay what may be "excessive fees" of $6,000/month to Greg Jensen, Mark Jensen's brother, as a consultant. Greg Jensen served as Fund 1's "head of due diligence coordination, investment monitoring, and portfolio maintenance" (Feder Aff., Ex. 6, Jensen EBT, p. 110). However, the Plaintiffs contend that Greg Jensen admitted that prior to being hired by Fund 1, he had no professional investment or finance-related experience whatsoever, and that prior to his hiring, he had never conducted due diligence on a prospective portfolio investment (id., pp. 87-89, 103-105). Greg Jensen could not name a single individual in Fund 1's purported network of 13 due diligence professionals in China - notwithstanding that he was Fund 1's "head of due diligence coordination" (id., pp. 115-118). Put another way, the Plaintiffs contend that Greg Jensen was hired as a favor to Mr. Jensen and not because he was competent to perform his duties and the payments to him were, therefore, improper and excessive. This also cannot be resolved at this stage of the proceeding.

This echoes recent abject due diligence failures amongst private credit offerings.  

CEO Mark Jensen, President Tom Suave and Chief Financial Officer Kirk Taylor took over American Resources Corporation in 2017.  

They are also executives and board members for Royalty Management Holding Company and its predecessor.  Their 2025 proxy statement showed Related Party transactions:

RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS Transactions with Related Persons, Promoters and Certain Control Persons. 

Land Resources & Royalties LLC, Wabash Wings LLC, and Wabash Enterprises LLC The Company currently, and may at times in the future, leases property from Land Resources & Royalties LLC (“LRR”) and has entered into various other agreements with LRR and/or its parent company, Wabash Enterprises LLC, an entity managed by Thomas Sauve and which Kirk Taylor is part beneficial owner. The Company has in the past, and may in the future, leased use of an aircraft owned by Wabash Wings LLC, another wholly owned subsidiary of Wabash Enterprises LLC and an entity managed by Thomas Sauve. Furthermore, on October 31, 2023, as part of the Business Combination, Wabash Enterprises LLC and LRR became an owner of Class A Common Stock of the Company and several leases and agreements exist between LRR and the Company, for which LRR receives income. 

Land Betterment Corporation The Company currently, and may at times in the future, has agreements with Land Betterment Corporation, an entity in which Kirk Taylor is a director, President and Chief Financial Officer and Thomas Sauve who was a director and Chief Development Officer. As of December 31, 2023, the Company had entered into a contractor services agreement with Land Betterment Corporation for environmental services personnel. The contract called for cost plus 12.5% margin. 

American Resources Corporation The Company may at times enter into agreements with American Resources Corporation and its subsidiaries, an entity in which Thomas Sauve is a director and President, and Kirk Taylor is the Chief Financial Officer. 

First Frontier Capital LLC The Company may at times enter into agreements with First Frontier Capital LLC, an entity managed and beneficially owned by Thomas Sauve, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Company. On February 1, 2022, First Frontier Capital LLC invested $10,000 cash into the Company in the form of the Round A Convertible Note and 385 warrants issued under Warrant “A-7.” On October 31, 2023, as part of the Business Combination, the notes and warrants held by First Frontier Capital LLC were converted into Class A Common Stock of the Company.

Royalty Management Holding Company's major shareholders are an interlocking group of LLCs controlled by Jensen, Suave and Taylor.  

The SPAC that turned into Royalty Management showed the interlocks in a SEC filing:

PEUs remain at the political table.  It's the insider money funnel and only a select few participate.  

The lug nuts are loosening from all directions, inside (fraud, conflicts of interest), outside (little to no due diligence, regulatory evaporation) and all actively encouraged by Trump II.  

"Loosen the nuts" has arrived simultaneously with "Let the Nuts Loose."  Anything goes under Trump II, the digital Caligula.

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.  They will be saved.  The rest of us are clearly on our own.

Manchin Rewarded for PEU Service

Former West Virginia Blue Team Senator Joe Manchin told CNN's Michael Smerconish that the filibuster enabled the Senate to produce better legislation by including the minority.  

Smerconish credited Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema for saving the filibuster under the Biden administration.  The filibuster specifically saved private equity underwriters' (PEU) preferred "carried interest" taxation for what feels like the tenth time.

Weeks after retiring from the Senate Manchin landed several plum PEU positions.  Manchin became an advisor for Apollo, a PEU giant and joined the board of Athene, a massive capital pool controlled by Apollo.

A month after exiting public service Manchin joined Bondi Partners, a D.C. based strategic advisory firm which markets itself as connected to PEUs and even has its own 1941 Fund.

Bondi's founder noted:

Washington DC is the modern day Rome, it’s the epicentre of politics, and Joe Manchin has been in the middle of it for more than two decades....

The Manchin decades saw the meteoric rise of PEUs, whose founders learned how to steer government policy while mining Uncle Sam's wallet.

Three months after leaving the collegial U.S. Senate Manchin joined the Ramaco Resources Board of Directors.  Ramaco is 25% owned by Yorktown Partners, an energy focused PEU.  A Ramaco proxy statement from April 30, 2025 noted:

Joseph Manchin III, age 77, has served as a director of our Company since April 18, 2025. He has served on the Board of Athene Holding Ltd. since February 2025 and is a member of Athene’s legal and regulatory committee. Senator Manchin has served as an adviser to Apollo since February 2025.

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.  Manchin chose "the public servant to PEU advisor" route at the age of 77.  Others choose to bring their greed and leverage skills to the federal government.  

If the filibuster is being used to keep this power dynamic in place I would have to disagree with Manchin.  It does not produce better legislation for the common citizen, who they ostensibly are there to serve. 

TechGods: The New Code

TechGods went from bit players in the political influence game to Masters of the PEUniverse.  Private equity underwriters (PEU) had been the billionaire influencers driving government policy under Red and Blue political administrations over the last 25 years.  

Senior TechGods got one if their own installed as Vice President, Junior TechGod and relatively new PEU (Narya Capital) J.D. Vance.  

Vance has the personality of a seasoned TechGod apprentice, i.e. he talks like a machine, moves like a robot butler and wears makeup like most of the men and women in the Trump II White House.  Makeup cannot cover a hollow heart and his Thiel programmed brain.

TechGods have been stealing intellectual property, a la China, for years.  They openly admit it.  I believe that is called criminal intent.  

There's a new push from TechGods.  It's called "Code is Law."  The phrase is inane in and of itself.  A criminal can write or use code to steal, defame, defraud, purloin, sexually predate or harass, incite violence, facilitate the movement of drugs, stolen funds and/or humans being illegally trafficked.  

"Code is Law" is merely a front for "TechGods are Law."  Code already spies widely.  It steals wages and mileage reimbursement from workers.  

It took people's bank accounts in the horrific case of Synapse, a fintech that marketed those accounts as "having FDIC coverage."   TechGods walked away from Synapse's corpse, only to set up a Washington, D.C. office to ensure true accountability remained elusive.  

Fintechs claim to have automated risk management to the point nobody checks anything.  When the code falls apart and the TechGods walk away, all the King's horses asses and all of his henchmen will gather at the Executive Branch for some fine dining and Cabinet level jousting.  There are no financial cops on the beat.  They've all been dismissed.

Big financial houses responsible for due diligence have fallen prey to fintech scammers.  First Brands fraud smacked Jeffries.  Carriox Capital thumped BlackRock and BNP Paribas for over $550 million.  

Trump II opened your 401(k) to such investments, private equity, private credit and crypto.  Many have fallen to the temptation to garner outsized returns.  Nobody warned us those outsized returns were already baked into the product by enterprising scammers.  

The public was promised due diligence and investment grade quality.  More lies from fintechs and TechGods.  They will get theirs, even if it is at your expense.

Politicians Red and Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.  The petulant, greedy lot needs to be tossed out and taxed mightily.  

Update 11-10-25:  ProPublica reported:

In August, the CFPB sued the Andreessen-backed banking software company Synapse Financial Technologies Inc., which had declared bankruptcy as the agency probed whether it lost track of millions of dollars in customer funds. But the action has so far resulted in little redress — the now-defunct company agreed to pay a $1 fine and it’s unclear whether the agency will tap its own funds to compensate consumers. A lawyer who represented Synapse didn’t return a call and email seeking comment and the company’s founder didn’t respond to a LinkedIn message.

Andreesen's move to Washington likely helped him greatly.  Synapse customers?  Not so much..

BlackRock's Private Credit Arm Got Tricked in Massive Fraud

Carriox Capital conned HPS Investment Partners, the private credit arm of BlackRock, and BNP Paribas for $553 million.  Carriox ditched its website, an understandable move but some of its promotional slides remain available on World Telemedia.  Early on Carriox sold itself as "relief from credit risk" when it was the epitome of credit risk.    

The office address for Carriox in their slide deck is a Lincoln Park Studio apartment:

The New York state entity search showed three companies with Carriox in the name.  Two had a Long Island address while the other showed Queens.  

Carriox had a due diligence slide, but none of that happened in that studio walkup:

"Due Diligence" was in reality "Do Shill-igence."

There are other places within BlackRock where money is flying around.  CEO Larry Fink is having his well deserved sphincter moment and investors would be wise to re-evaluate any investments in private equity, private credit and crypto.

AI should be avoided in its entirety, for use or investment.  That is if you want to keep your mental faculties about you.  

If the pros can bomb this badly, do you really need their help?  It's a question worth asking.

Update 10-31-25:  My wise friend wrote:

You need to carry oxygen when you go through the portfolios of private capital car wrecks. No one wants to search this junkyard. But hey, let's garage them in the 401(k)s of the M - ASSES! 

Let me correct you, Marc Rowan is a suspect! The only letters he should be writing are to the parole board 

I am not sure the private credit investors will get nervous with Paul Atkins and the banking regulators told to look the other way with the current crop of thieves in the administration. Maybe if we brought back Bill Black or Neil Borofsky. 

But we have and have had an economy expanding on fraud and all the beneficiaries KNOW it can only continue if you have the King of Fraudsters ruling with his mighty scepter (his middle finger). 

Both sides are controlled by the same fraudsters.  Trump's mendacity and corruption is the sinkhole for all their pilfering with the people picking up the tab again. 

Thank you for chronicling the misallocation of everything. Happy Halloween! The ghouls are everywhere

His words were in response to this message:

Carriox Capital was a con from beginning to end..... 

Marc Rowan (Apollo) and his "investment grade" quote regarding private credit was suspect at the time, even more so now. BlackRock got taken!!!! 

Once the private credit investors get nervous, crypto should follow. 

Trump's enforcement regime is more interested in licking their boss' ball sack and flying around the country for entertainment on the taxpayers dime. 

Trump's arrogance and incompetence will engender rage once the people gain an understanding of the depths of his malfeasance and the sheer idiocy of his attendants.

 One female CEO had a disappointing interaction with ChatGPT's fake male executives in suits:

Yes, workslop....

DJT's Devin Nunes Loves Cayman SPACs

Former Red Team Congressman Devin Nunes earned $47.6 million as Chairman, CEO and President of Trump Media and Technology Group (ticker symbol: DJT) in 2024.  2025 has seen Nunes appointed to the boards of three different SPACs, all incorporated in The Cayman Islands. (not a good look for the MAGA crowd).

Trump Media's latest proxy statement states the following regarding Nunes: 

Devin G. Nunes, 51, TMTG’s Chief Executive Officer and a Director since 2022 and Chairman since April 1, 2024, previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003 to 2022. He was the Republican leader and former Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (“HPSCI”), a senior Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, and the Republican leader of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee. Mr. Nunes was a vital contributor to the 2017 tax system overhaul, authoring a key provision to allow same-year expensing of all business investments for entrepreneurs and businesses. He also championed telemedicine to improve healthcare in underserved, rural areas. In his role on HPSCI, Mr. Nunes spent extensive time overseas working with U.S. military personnel, Central Intelligence Agency officials, and world leaders while promoting freedom and democratic values around the globe. During his time in Congress, many regarded Mr. Nunes as the House of Representatives’ preeminent investigator of government malfeasance and corruption; he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, in 2021. Mr. Nunes was appointed to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and has served as its Chair since February 2025. Mr. Nunes graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business and a master’s degree in agriculture. He is the author of “Restoring the Republic” and “Countdown to Socialism,” and was an early and prominent critic of big tech censorship.

Nunes spoke recently with a podcaster regarding Trump Media and one of the SPACs.

Surely the preeminent investigator of malfeasance and corruption can get his former colleagues to take on the big tech monopolies.  That is if his comment is anything other than a throwaway line.

It could've been a lead in comment before the hard sell:

Red Check....check

The opportunities are not only limitless...we don't even know what they're going to be!  Wow!!!!!  This second tier TechGod and first tier political hack just bowled me over with schmooozeee.

But what about the three Cayman Islands incorporations?  Doesn't that work against a MAGA priority to produce jobs for Americans?  The proxy statement included:

We paid $25,620 in legal fees towards (TMTG's Chief Technology Officer) Mr. Novachki’s  permanent residency application.

And that application was advanced by a fellow Red Team Congressman.  

Vladmir Novachki, the Macedonian whiz kid, has accumulated 650,000 shares in DJT in a few short years.

It appears Devin Nunes is using his knowledge of malfeasance and corruption to undertake, well malfeasance and corruption.  SPACs are generally bad for public investors as they steer excessive benefits to insiders.  

The interview closed with several hedges for a company boldly going into crypto:

Politicians Red and Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.  

Politics is an insufficient way to explain our world, given its ever shifting sands, serial mistruths and mind numbing double standards. It's sad that so many are so talented in a profession that debases and debauches its very foundation.

Update:  Possible Trump Fed nominee James Fishback went after companies employing highly skilled foreign workers, like DJT's CTO.