Blankfein the Younger Now Carlyle Group PEU

The son of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein switched private equity underwriters.  Alex left Bain last year for Washington D.C. based Carlyle Group.  The District of Columbia is a great spot to interact with politicians, PEU lobbyists and become comfortable in the insider swamp, now in the midst of a team change.

Carlyle set itself up long ago for either a Republican or Democratic led federal government.  Greed knows no bounds.  Watch Alex.  He's being PEU groomed. 

Update 1-8-17:  Carlyle hired Goldman to stir up interest in NBTY.

General Mattis and Jeb Bush Make News

Two prominent political names, General James Mattis and former Governor Jeb Bush made the news with their respective appointments.  President elect Donald Trump announced he would nominate General Mattis for Pentagon Chief/head of the Department of Defense.

The Orlando Sentinel reported on Jeb's new gig with a Florida lobbying firm:

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush will act as a consultant for the lobbying firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, the firm announced Monday. 

The firm, which has offices in Tallahassee, Fort Lauderdale and four other Florida cities as well as in New York, Washington and Philadelphia, lobbies governments on behalf of industries including finance, health care, energy and education.

 "There are very few people who have the breadth of experience that Governor Bush has both in the public and private sector."

Both General Mattis and Jeb Bush share the embarrassment of serving as board members for questionable companies.  WSJ reported

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, has a four-year-long connection with Theranos Inc., the embattled blood-testing startup.

Gen. Mattis joined Theranos’s board in July 2013, a couple of months after his retirement. 

Theranos is the subject of criminal and civil investigations by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are trying to determine if the company misled investors and regulators about its technology and operations. 

Fortune reported why some potential investors avoided the company.  Bill Maris talked about why Theranos did not meet his investing criteria:

"It had no experienced life science investors involved.  It had no experienced life science investors or scientists on board.  It did not have an experienced CEO that had worked in life sciences...  It had no peer reviewed articles, no data at all.'

'Science works on openness and transparency.  So if it's a science based company you want to at least see the data."

The interview also mentioned the need for experts in the field to serve on the board of directors.  Those are the reasons seasoned healthcare investors stayed away from Theranos.  Whistle-blowers eventually revealed the extent to which Theranos did not live up to their image.

President elect Trump appointed General Mattis for his ability to read situations.  Handsome board pay can blind objectivity.

Governor Bush knows this from his experience on the board of InnoVida,  Jeb refunded $270,000 of his pay from the company which was convicted of fraud.  It took businessman Jeb Bush nearly three years to realize he'd been had.

“When someone as prominent as Jeb Bush lends his name to a company, it gives the creditors a level of false security.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article8030382.html#storylink=cpy

Jeb never shared what he knew as a board member of InnoVida.  I expect General Mattis to remain quiet as well.

Both men got jobs because of their expertise.  Both provided their name and connections for years to companies that were questionable, even outright criminal in the case of InnoVida.  That raises questions as to their judgment. 

Update 12-8-16:  General Mattis is not in the first wave of politically influential board members fleeing Theranos.  

Depopulating Workplace: Global Future

One aim of business used to be to provide jobs so people could afford to buy goods and services.  During the Industrial Revolution Henry Ford paid his workers enough that they might be able to afford his Model T product. 

That philosophy is long gone as employers work to depopulate the workplace.  Physicist Stephen Hawking warned recently (source: ZeroHedge):

“The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining. 

“With not only jobs but entire industries disappearing, we must help people to retrain for a new world and support them financially while they do so,” he added.

Hawking wrote in his piece:

This in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the world. The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive.

We need to put this alongside the financial crash, which brought home to people that a very few individuals working in the financial sector can accrue huge rewards and that the rest of us underwrite that success and pick up the bill when their greed leads us astray. So taken together we are living in a world of widening, not diminishing, financial inequality, in which many people can see not just their standard of living, but their ability to earn a living at all, disappearing.

ZeroHedge stated:

Hawking also warned that artificial intelligence and increasing automation is going to decimate middle class jobs and worsen inequality, and risks creating significant political upheaval.

The majority of people are sick of the status quo and feel they have been "abandoned by their leaders," writes renowned physicist Stephen Hawking.

People see leaders gaining wealth and mobilizing public resources to reward supporters, many who led us astray and received public bail out money. 

President elect Trump has two cabinet nominees that received billions in FDIC subsidies that personally enriched them.   Neither man ran their respective bank into the ditch but got massive public subsidies and put up relatively little equity.  This is the status quo of which voters have grown sick.  

Dugout Ventures Joins Inkwell as New PEU

Private equity underwriters (PEU) have become ubiquitous.  Proof arises from several new boutique private equity firms.  The latest arrival was announced at PEHub:

A group of retired baseball legends, which include Nolan Ryan, David Ortiz and Barry Larkin, have formed Dugout Ventures, a new private equity firm focused on backing baseball-specific companies.

Dugout Ventures is the first of its kind. Where players not only endorse, but also invest and build the brands and products they use. And do so in a business environment being led by some of the most influential players not only on the field, but also in their post-playing business careers.

In addition to the primary group made up of players, Dugout Ventures is also announcing its first $50MM LP fund, where accredited investors can invest alongside the players. The fund is taking advantage of the new 506(c) regulations to announce this investment opportunity publicly through their website and social media.

Dugout joins Inkwell Group, a brand new PEU focused on the proven power of racial and gender diversity.  Who knew greed valued diversity and baseball?

What's next as private equity expands ad infinitum? 

Missing Initials in Stories on Trump & PEU Petraeus

Stories on President elect Donald Trump's consideration of General David Petraeus for Secretary of State have abbreviations like DOD, CIA, ISIS, and FBI.  They don't have the initials KKR, a New York based private equity underwriter (PEU) with $131.1 billion in assets under management. Here's what he does for KKR:

Gen. Petraeus is involved in the KKR investment process and oversees the Institute's thought leadership platform focused on geopolitical and macro-economic trends, as well as environmental, social, and governance issues.

Bloomberg had this to say about KKR in an interview with billionaire founder Henry Kravis:

Private equity holds trillions of dollars in assets, controls brand-name companies, and invests on behalf of pensions, endowments, and government funds around the world. Back in 1976, it barely existed. That’s when Henry Kravis, his cousin George Roberts, and their boss Jerome Kohlberg Jr. quit Bear Stearns and started their eponymous investment company, KKR, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

Kravis and Roberts, co-chief executive officers, have transformed not only how companies are bought and sold, but also how they’re run. They’ve also expanded the firm far beyond leveraged buyouts, diversifying into real estate and hedge funds as well as a few businesses once dominated by big banks. Today, through ownership stakes in more than 100 companies with a combined annual revenue of $200 billion, KKR indirectly employs almost a million people.

Politico, Counterpunch, and ABC News are three news organizations who failed to report General Petraeus' current job, Chairman of the KKR Global Institute.  In April 2015 Petraeus wrote in support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The consequences for Washington’s getting the TPP right are huge: opening some of the world’s fastest-growing markets to more U.S. exports; improving U.S. competitiveness; growing the global middle class; creating jobs; and fostering the prosperous, open and rules-based Asia that is in everyone’s interest.

I don't believe Trump supporters would be excited about growing the global middle class as U.S. wages have been stagnant for twenty years.

The majority of people are sick of the status quo and feel they have been "abandoned by their leaders."--Stephen Hawking

Will General Petraeus change from a billionaire PEU boss to a billionaire President?  It's up to Donald Trump, currently changing out the blue PEU team in favor or the Reds.  Billionaires like yes men and Trump can call Henry Kravis for a reference on the General's work at KKR.  Sir, yes Sir!

Trump Appoints PEU Foreclosure King

While WaPo has the nation scurrying around in search of Russian propogandizers President elect Donald Trump appointed yet another PEU for Treasury Chief.  Dune Capital's Donald Mnuchin rode a substantial FDIC subsidy to hundreds of millions in profits on IndyMac Bank, which Dune renamed OneWest Bank.

OneWest foreclosed on more than 36,000 homeowners under Mnuchin. During that time, the FDIC made payments to OneWest totaling more $1 billion.

Dealbook reported

The sale of IndyMac was unusual because it was one of the first transactions involving lightly regulated private equity firms acquiring a bank holding company.

IndyMac collapsed after defaults mounted on mortgages and panicked customers withdrew more than $1.3 billion of deposits over 11 business days.

They later sold OneWest to CIT.  Mnuchin currently holds nearly 2 million shares of CIT and just resigned from the board.  His CIT stock is currently worth over $80 million.

Some Trump voters were foreclosed upon by OneWest Chairman Mnuchin, who got his hand slapped in 2011 for shoddy foreclosure practices.  Trump "change" voters got PEUd.

Update 1-4-17:   The non-prosecuting Blue political team turned its eye away from shady behavior by foreclosure king Mnuchin, who got his FDIC subsidy from the very same Blues.  Atlanta homeowners find the PEU boys fast to evict and foreclose.  Mnuchin knows the game and he'll soon steer America's financial course on behalf of his PEU peers.

Update 1-8-16:  The Blue California Attorney General who decided not to prosecute Mnuchin won a seat in the United States Senate.  Mnuchin donated to her campaign, the only Democrat on his list.

Update 1-25-17:   I'm not sure how Sears board member Mnuchin can be on both sides of a deal, as was Sears CEO Eddie Lambert when the company sold real estate assets to raise cash or pledged key real estate as security for loan deals.  Hedge fund ESL Investments holds a chunk of Sears real estate and is run by Sears CEO Eddie Lambert.  Board member Mnuchin has a $26 million investment in ESL.

Update 4-1-17: A bankruptcy judge fined Bank of America $46 million for abusive and cruel actions in foreclosing on a homeowner after the financial crisis.

Update 8-2-17:  The Blue team prosecutor who let Mnuchin skate is being promoted as the next Hillary, i.e. Presidential material.  She's perfect for out one party system that caters to big money.

Update 3-31-19:  Sears, now owned by ESL Investments, will end life insurance benefits for 90,000 retirees after paying over $25 million in executive bonuses.  Average age of retirees is 80 and life insurance is their last remaining benefit from the company they dedicated their life's work.  The greed and leverage boys have no shame.

Update 4-18-19:  Sears sued CEO Eddie Lambert and board member Steve Mnuchin for looting the company to benefit their hedge fund ESL Investments 

Update 8-26-25:  OneWest mortgage fraud victims may have hope given Bill Pulte's statement:

“We will look at any allegation of mortgage fraud, and we do not care whether you’re a Republican [or] a Democrat. We do not care whether you’re wealthy, we don’t care whether you’re a prosecutor, we don’t care whether you’re a Fed governor,” Pulte said. “If you commit mortgage fraud and you present an existential threat to the Federal Home Loan Banks, Fannie or Freddie, we are going to prosecute it. Period.”

Pulte is Trump II's  director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)

Targeting Russians: Central Theme Post Election

One week ago I wrote:

The Washington Post - Propornot linkup points to group think that emanates from a central source, be it the winning political team, the losing team's techies wanting to massage the ego of their vanquished champion and/or a whittled down corporate media intent on disparaging those doing what they won't, look behind the political public curtain.

What's happened since?  ZeroHedge reported:

On November 30, one week after the Washington Post launched its witch hunt against "Russian propaganda fake news", with 390 votes for, the House quietly passed "H.R. 6393, Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017", sponsored by California Republican Devin Nunes (whose third largest donor in 2016 is Google parent Alphabet, Inc), a bill which deals with a number of intelligence-related issues, including Russian propaganda, or what the government calls propaganda, and hints at a potential crackdown on "offenders."

Washington's Blog wrote:

US intelligence officials believe Russia helped disseminate fake and propagandized news as part of a broader effort to influence and undermine the presidential election, two US intelligence sources told BuzzFeed News.

Buzzfeed's piece stated:

The congressional Intelligence Authorization Act for this year, which could be passed through Congress as early as next week, mandates the revival of a Cold War-era panel known as the Active Measures Working Group, which would be a White House-appointed panel specifically tasked with unmasking and handling Russian influence efforts. That provision of the bill, initially proposed by Sen. Tom Cotton, has wide support from Democratic and Republican lawmakers on the Hill.

More data points that indicate group think from a central source?  That's my take. Here's what they don't want voters to focus upon:

Especially as the Trump team appoints private equity underwriters (PEU) to key Cabinet posts.

Update 12-4-16:  Washington's Blog ran Propornot and it's "science" by an experienced intelligence leader.  His take:  "It’s a prop for a disinfo op in order to serve a manufactured narrative."

Update 12-25-16:  "Group think that emanates from a central source" has been codified in Congressional bill.

Update 9-28-17:  Russian election tampering stories keep coming and are later debunked.

Update 10-23-19:  Washington's Blog will cease in part due to damage from being listed as a Propornot website.