Miller Comical in His Hypocrisy

Creep Stephen Miller whipped up a Madison Square Garden crowd with the multi-decade move of U.S. jobs to China.  He neglected to identify the job looters, which includes Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin.  During Youngkin's years as a big chief for The Carlyle Group he oversaw the movement of US. manufacturing jobs to China.  

Consider United Components (UCI) which Carlyle owned from 2004 to 2010. 

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

UCI's is but one story of Carlyle sending American jobs overseas. 

Nature's Bounty had no Chinese facilities when The Carlyle Group bought the company in 2010. The company took a $35 million jobs package from Long Island to relocate jobs from China and other U.S. facilities. 

 China. -- As of September 30, 2013, our subsidiary, Ultimate Biopharma (Zhongshan) Corporation ("Ultimate") owned in Zhongshan, China: a 50,000 square foot facility for manufacturing softgel capsules and for administrative offices, a recently built 75,000 square foot warehouse facility with packaging capabilities and 18.5 acres of vacant land adjacent to the manufacturing facility. In addition, Ultimate leased 11,300 square feet of dormitory space and 4,800 square feet of warehouse space in Zhongshan City. Also, one of our subsidiaries leased 84,800 square feet of warehouse space in Beijing. 

Note: Nature's Bounty had no manufacturing facilities in China in its final 10-K filing before Carlyle's 2010 buyout. 

At the 2012 World Economic Forum in Davos, Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein expressed his preference for the Chinese totalitarian model of central planning. Rubenstein offered a dark vision for those not adhering to his advice. 

"Our children are going to have and our grandchildren are going to have" a lower quality of life and a less affluent lifestyle than we enjoy today." 

In many ways PEU Rubenstein made his vision a reality with help from his Co-CEO Glenn Youngkin. The greed and leverage boys once hired former politicians.  They now grow them.

Carlyle et al's innovation is to send PEUs into the political arena and pretend they didn't ship millions of jobs overseas.

"America is for America and Americans only"-Stephen Miller

Miller knows Red Team scions exported jobs oversees by the yacht-load.  And that's what makes him so "IT," as in an extremely dangerous clown.

With all the "savior talk" I remain confused as to how the Trump team conned Christians into jettisoning the Gospels and rebrand themselves as King Davidians.  Christ said:

"'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ' This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

I can't wait for this election to be over so we can rediscover Christ.  When that happens Trump/Caesar and his minions will fade away.

God's love is for all his children, even Stephen Miller.

Rubenstein vs. Popovich

It's late in the clock for the U.S. Presidential race, down to nine days.  Red Team candidate former President Donald Trump declared his candidacy in November 2022.  

Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein offered his thoughts on the election.  He shared charts and graphs showing the closeness of the contest and how it may be some time before a winner is declared.  The politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU) closed with six priorities for a new administration.  Three directly impact his multiple pocketbooks.  The Trump tax break for the wealthy and corporations will sunset and the PEU boys don't want to give up their golden goose.  

The economy is working for the super wealthy as asset prices have soared.  Rubenstein and his PEU brethren need valuations to remain elevated to support affiliate debt refinancing and investment exits.

Rubenstein cites the need to reduce the large level of the federal deficit, which grew in part due to massive tax breaks he and his fellow billionaires have enjoyed, some for decades.  Eliminating his preferred "carried interest" taxation is a never-enacted campaign promise.  Not this year.  Neither team is even trying to ditch this wildly unpopular billionaire tax break.

The richest man on our planet Elon Musk stumps for the Red Team, while billionaire Mark Cuban does likewise for the Blues.  Both want crypto.  Both want gambling.  The predatory nature of crypto can be seen in the vast number of criminal charges against crypto firms and their founders.  Addiction destroys lives and high tech gambling can do so quickly.

Rubenstein's election newsletter is for those who wish to be mired in the details.  San Antonio Spurs Coach Greg Popovich gave his thoughts on the election while answering questions after a game.

It's nice to hear from a "leader of people" and not a soul-selling politician or conflicted policy-making billionaire.  

Update 12-15-24:  From David's Desk published "Trump's Second Act." Rubenstein adjusted his historical mandate down from his CNBC interview:

Trump won the popular vote (though narrowly– 49.8% to 48.3%)

Carlyle International: Two Stories

The Carlyle Group sold a Shanghai high-rise office building for half what it paid for "The Crest" in 2015.  I do not know how much money Carlyle pulled out of The Crest in management fees, deal fees and special dividends.  Possibly very little.  

Flashback to 2011 when a major business reporter wrote:

There is no way that the Chinese government would let American firms come in and strip cash out of Chinese companies the way they've been allowed to in the US! I imagine the Chinese welcome the PE guys because they see it as another way (through PE orchestrated mergers) to get hold of more American technology and companies and jobs.

The next story involves oil and natural gas off the coast of Northern Israel/Southern Lebanon.  

Energean is Carlyle's new oil/gas play headed by BP oil spew's Tony Hayward.  Reuters reported:

Energean has added a second oil production unit to a floating production vessel off Israel which is set to boost its crude output by up to two-thirds in the coming months.

Production at Karish, which is close to Israel's maritime border with Lebanon, has been largely uninterrupted since the start of the Middle East conflict on Oct. 7. In July, the Israeli military said it had shot down a drone launched from Lebanon which it said was heading to the Energean FPSO.

Carlyle's international energy platform is Energean's parent

Equity for the transaction will come from the Carlyle International Energy Partners (CIEP) platform, a private equity fund that invests in energy opportunities in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

Carlyle lost a Philadelphia refinery after failing to replace a 45 year old section of pipe.  Imagine what Carlyle and Tony Hayward can do together to injure workers and spoil coastlines.  

I hope international governments have more backbone than ours (US).  Politicians Red and Blue love PEU and increasingly, more are one.

Update 12-8-24:  Tony Hayward met with Egypt's oil minister   Egypt is offering a range of investment incentives and Carlyle knows how to mine those.

Carlyle's Vision Came True

It's not often a Harvard Law and Economics professor sounds an alarm but John Coates did just that in a Harvard Business School video.  He noted private equity controls larger amounts of the U.S economy and its political system.  

The promo for his new book "The Problem of Twelve:  When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything" states:

...there’s the rise of private equity funds, such as the Big Four of Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle, and KKR, which have amassed $2.7 trillion of assets, and are eroding the legitimacy and accountability of American capitalism—not by controlling public companies, but by taking them over entirely, and removing them from public disclosure and scrutiny. 

 This quiet accumulation in the last few decades represents a dramatic transformation in how the American economy operates—a sea change that few of us have noticed and all of us need to consider.

PEUReport spent the last seventeen years documenting and commenting on Coates' sea change, where private equity underwriters (PEU) have "become their own capital universe."

We once had company towns where one large employer often took extra steps to ensure workers had a place to live, shop, receive healthcare and have some quality of life.  The large employer, if still around, is now private equity owned.  It shed jobs to cover increased interest expenses, deal and annual management fees and special distributions (often debt funded).

PEUs staked out residential rental housing, healthcare, dining, retail, insurance and professional sports teams.  In many cases quality deteriorated while prices soared, the result of PEU crapification.  

No regulatory body stepped into the public disclosure void.  No laws were enacted to ensure PEU founding legends paid a fair tax rate on their Midas level riches.  Coates noted "private equity is (operates) completely in the dark" and the industry views that as "a useful thing."

Politicians Red and Blue love PEU and increasingly, more are one.  And that is the product of shadowy private equity concentration in our economy and political system.

The U in Trump: Usurp

When I hear former President Donald Trump he is either flattering himself or steamrolling others, usurping their very being.  His violent language reflects his tyrant nature.  Whatever "it is" is never enough and rules do not apply to Trump.

Trump courted the "live forever" Tech Gods with his VP appointment of JD Vance.  Vance holds residual stakes in two private equity underwriters (PEU), Narya Capital and Rise of the Rest Fund.  It remains to be seen what Vance does with his PEU holdings if the Red Team wins back the White House.

Elon Musk is the richest man in the world with assets of $250 billion.  That's 1,000 times greater than former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, Trump's first Secretary of State.  Tillerson received a $72 million tax break for properly complying with conflict of interest regulations.  

The Lever reported:

Elon Musk could reap one of the largest personalized tax breaks in American history if former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 election and fulfills his pledge to appoint Musk to a top government post, according to tax and ethics experts’ review of long-standing statutes. 

Jacobin provided more insight:

A provision inserted into the tax code thirty-five years ago allows government officials to indefinitely defer all capital gains taxes on such divestment — a tax benefit worth potentially tens of billions of dollars to Musk if he is appointed by Trump to a top government post.

Using Tillerson's experience as a guide, Elon could save $72 billion.  The problem:  When has Elon complied with anything?  

These guys make the game board.  The rules are whatever pops into their head.  

I can picture something like:  Trump appoints Musk as Secretary of MAGTechlandia.  Musk lasts maybe a year in the role.  In the middle of that year Musk's X buys out Trump's TruthSocial for a ridiculous amount.  SpaceX buys DJT Aerospace for an absurd price.

Ridiculous, absurd ... that's the state of our PEU world.  Citizens should expect to be usurped under Trump White House 2025.

Update 10-29-24:  

Ridiculous, absurd....

Apollo's Rigor: PEU Vigor

CNBC interviewed a partner with Apollo, a private equity underwriter founded by Leon Black, Josh Harris and Marc Rowan.  The Apollo partner referenced her firm's "thirty years of investment rigor and intelligence."  That rigor and intelligence paid Jeffrey Epstein $158 million from 2012 to 2018.  Founder Leon Black left the firm in 2021 after an outside investigation.

These guys have done well, according to the Forbes billionaire list.  

They are investing in elected officials.

Elected officials, at least some, invest in PEUs.

PEU love is bipartisan.  It's not apparent to most people, but that love has decades of vigor.

Can Congress Get PEU-ier?

Jacobin reported on Congressional conflicts of interest given their investments in private equity underwriter (PEU) fund offerings.  The story noted:

Top of mind for these (PEU) companies is preserving the carried-interest loophole — a favorite tax break on Wall Street, which allows private equity executives to pay an abnormally low tax rate on income.

Also:

...private equity is already gearing up for a fight to keep the tax cuts and ensure that whatever tax policy might be handed down after the elections favors the industry.

They do want it all.  Given the "never enough" nature of PEU land it's important to control the rules and the rule makers.

As long as Uncle Sam's wallet can be picked ad infinitum, the PEU boys don't want to pay any taxes, much less their fair share.  

Check to see if any of your political races involve PEUs.  Vote against them.  Politicians Red and Blue love PEU and increasingly, more are one.