No one seems to notice that financialization creates extreme wealth for some and declining standards of living for the many. It's all fun and games until it's not fun and games anymore. DEBT builds fortunes for the plutocracy/oligarchy, but poverty for the plebeians. No one cares. Stresses build. Costs rise. Jobs are lost. Money is recognized as weaponized. Healthcare premiums get less for more. Health care benefits are toggled by management. Distress BUILDS. People die by deny! No one cares .Number only goes up! But not the wage. Automation, artificial intelligence, Bitcoin, productivity. For wealth, ride the risk curve.But there is no value? Get on the meme, baby! Nihilism, now that's the ticket. It's a DOGE World. 4th turning. They can't handle the truth! Can you hear me now?
Private equity removed labor from their jobs, paid themselves extraordinarily well. Venture capital created companies with no earnings and bubble valuations to remove labor from their jobs. Now both are automating and using crypto as the next frontier basically removing labor from their jobs and money. Jeff Bezos wants to help Trump create a more efficient government along with his X space competitor Elon Musk the Rat. They are assembling quite a cabinet, if you like to drink. Maybe they'll rename K Street the Apian way? Something's burning.
The moneyed class is not interested in hearing from the little people.
They will never admit it. the GINI is out of the bottle. They feel vulnerable? How vulnerable do you feel when you're working two jobs and you're behind on your credit cards and your mortgage and your kids need health care? Hate speech again? They will not own it. Here we go again
In response to Carlyle taking Medline public for huge gains:
That number only go up too. It's a lost cause, they (PEUs) own the country lock, stock and barrel. What a terrible mistake they made by propping them up during the financial crisis. The country will be privatized slowly and all our resources will go to them. They are all cashed up and ready to go they just need to get more tax abatements, economic development subsidies and a treasury line to finalize the swap.
On Justin Sun's $6.2 million banana duct tape "art" purchase:
Bad money, bad behavior. There is so much money around.... Can you really decipher what is good versus what is truly bad, but covered up by money? I guess money is too loose and there are too many bad ideas being held up by too much money. Think Unicorns ETC.
I would have rather seen this Sun guy take $6 million and buy real bananas for food shelters but that's me I'm a so called socialist who went to business school. The moral of the story is there are no morals winning!
On the failure of leaders to protect us:
Our elected leaders allow fraudulent practices, bad policies, and the likes of the private equity boys.
And Michael Saylor running a leveraged debt induced arbitrage Ponzi is not to your liking?
Everybody needs a wise friend, especially now. There is too much direct nonsense coming from those with blatant conflicts of interest. It's gotten so bad they throw throw the conflict out as a badge of courage, a critical qualification in steering budgets and regulations in their favor. It is egregious to the level of obscenity.
In case you are wondering my wise friend is the elephant. I am the dog.
Update 3-1-25: Justin Sun, a predatory financial criminal, who invested $75 million in Trump's World Liberty Financial just got his case halted by the SEC. Coinbase got similar leniency from Trump's SEC.
CEO optimism has faded overall under Trump due to mass layoffs possibly leading to a slowdown or recession and the unpredictable nature of Trump's tariff whims. The worry? Slower growth and higher inflation. Also, the oil patch is not "drill, baby drilling" under Trump II, the digital Caligula...
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.
"Our role is a critical role, and we make sure that care is safe, appropriate, and is delivered when people need it," Thompson said in the internal virtual address, leaked by journalist Ken Klippenstein. "And we guard against the pressures that exist for unsafe care or for unnecessary care to be delivered in a way which makes the whole system too complex and ultimately unsustainable."
"I encourage you to tune out that critical noise that we're hearing right now. It does not reflect reality. It is simply a sign of an era in which we live."
The Trump transition team wants the incoming administration to drop a car-crash reporting requirement opposed by Elon Musk’s Tesla
Update 1-20-25: Vivek Ramaswamy is out as co-head of DOGE so you can remove the "S" at the end of Department of Greedy Executives (DOGE). It's just Elon now.
Update 3-4-25: DOGE chief/non-chief Elon Musk may get a FAA contract worth over $4 billion and Commerce Department internet access funding. Conflicts of interest be praised!
Sacks has strongly indicated he has no plans to step away from his business ventures while advising the president. In a post on X late Thursday night, Sacks said he looks forward "to advancing American competitiveness in these critical technologies."
Conflicts of interest? Gone, disappeared magically by a simple statement. That's part of the TechGod and CryptoBro juju.
Craft Ventures did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump transition team did not return multiple requests for comment. Musk's social media platform X also did not return a request for comment.
Just like their tech non-customer service, there's no one to speak with about the issue.
Update: Axios did a nice summary of Sack's conflicts.
Anthony's bio states she was a CPA with Pricewaterhouse Coopers so she clearly knew about the highest of fiduciary duties.
April's partners in crime included private equity underwriters (PEU) Vistria Group and Nautic Partners. Vistria was founded by Obama buddy Marty Nesbitt. Nautic Partners was founded as Fleet Equity Partners in 1986 but became an independent private equity firm in 2000. The Blackstone Group acquired a minority stake in Nautic Partners in 2021.
At issue were the harms Anthony and her co-conspirators inflicted on her former company Encompass in their "building" of VitalCaring.
At first she tried to buy the company (Encompass), in secret partnership with Nautic and Vistria, and then later chose to form a new, competitive company (VitalCaring) with her new PE partners.D reported Encompass employees (working with April on the new venture):
...referred to Anthony as “the person that she shall not name“ and “Voldermort” to avoid using Anthony’s name in messages. The document said that when she retired on Good Friday in 2021, she compared her return to the home health business to Christ’s resurrection after his death on Good Friday.A Forbes article on how Anthony built her fortune began with:
"I spend my drive to the office praying."
April Anthony, Dallas, Texas, has served as a director of the Company since 2014. She serves on the Audit Committee and is designated as a “financial expert”. She is also a director of First Financial Bank, N.A., Abilene (the “Bank”), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company and of First Technology Services, Inc. (the “Technology Company”), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bank. She is chief executive officer of Encompass Home Health and Hospice, which she founded in 1998, and Homecare Homebase. Encompass Home Health and Hospice was named as one of the fastest growing companies in America and boasts national leading scores in clinical quality outcomes and patient satisfaction. It provides home care and hospice services to over 33,000 patients per day through a network of over 220 offices in 25 states. Homecare Homebase provides leading homecare software technology to over 175 homecare providers across the United States, representing 20% of homecare and hospice services in the nation. She is a graduate of Abilene Christian University and is a certified public accountant. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Abilene Christian University, serving for 16 years. She is also the founder and a director of Encompass Cares Foundation, a nonprofit foundation formed to support domestic and international medical mission efforts and over the past five years has provided over $2 million in mission grants. Her experience and qualifications provide sound leadership to the board of Directors. In addition, as a certified public accountant, Ms. Anthony brings strong accounting, management, strategic planning, technology and financial skills important to the oversight of our financial reporting, enterprise and operational risk management.Somehow all that knowledge, money and faith did not prevent April Anthony from acting unethically in the pursuit of even more money than the $740 million she had accumulated as of 2023.
Paul Atkins is on the Board of Advisors for the Chamber of Digital Commerce. He sits on the board of a private equity underwriter (PEU) that has changed names multiple times.
That protection is no longer wanted given Trump himself launched World Liberty Financial and declared himself "Chief Crypto Advocate." If money is free speech, crypto is people too.
Atkins will be in position to free up CryptoBros and Fintech Pinheads from draconian federal intervention, as well as grease the skids for selling secondary private equity stakes.
Better Markets CEO had this to say (Politico):
Dennis Kelleher, CEO of the financial watchdog group Better Markets, called the complaints from Andreessen and the crypto industry “typical baseless billionaire claims.”
“If legislation is going to be considered, it should have a very thorough hearing that focuses on — and finds — a fact-based reason, not a political argument, … that a law is necessary,” he said. “Because a law on fair access can be used against the banking and financial industry in a way that will not only harm investors and markets, but undermine financial stability.”
Politicians Red and Blue love PEU and increasingly, more are one. It's the Red Team's turn to steer Uncle Sam's wallet to their friends and family. And they want to garner more than dollars.
Update 12-5-24: Would you go to a digital merchant that can't reverse your transaction or keep it private?
