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.  

Update 11-17-25:  Tony Deden wrote:

This essay was born out of revulsion to an accidental summer reading that paraded progress as virtue and private equity as its high priest. Every paragraph spoke the same pious language of “sustainable improvement,” “societal benefit,” and “long-term value creation,” as though leverage, asset-stripping, and balance-sheet cosmetics had become moral acts. I found myself revolted not merely by the hypocrisy, but by the vacuousness of it. In our hyper-financialized society, we have come to mistake valuation for value, and activity for achievement. The word ‘progress’ has been exploited to justify anything that moves—no matter what it destroys. What follows is an act of refusal to bow to the idea that more money is progress. If this essay has a motive, it is contempt for the trivial slogans that pass as thought, and for the hollow theory that confuses financial §engineering with human improvement.

Local politicians and Texas voters would be wise to read his piece.  

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.

Update 12-4-25:  Don Jr.'s 1789 Capital bought Vulcan Elements in August and already parlayed that into a $670 million cash injection courtesy of the Pentagon and Commerce Department.  ReElement Technologies is in the cash injection mix with Vulcan.

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. 

Update 1-11-26:  Former Senator Kyrsten Sinema  co-founded the AI Infrastructure Coalition, which pushes AI data center development.