Enough of John’s wankery about animals eating his girly-man food, let’s raise some more money for Metrosexual Black Abe Lincoln.
It’s gonna work because I’m pushing it rightPost + Comments (23)
by DougJ| 23 Comments
This post is in: Bleg, C.R.E.A.M.
Enough of John’s wankery about animals eating his girly-man food, let’s raise some more money for Metrosexual Black Abe Lincoln.
It’s gonna work because I’m pushing it rightPost + Comments (23)
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Excellent Links, Assholes, Romney of the Uncanny Valley
Drip… drip… drip. That rabble-rousing socialist rag the Financial Times investigates, and discovers “an early deal by Bain Capital marked by unlawful suppression of a pilot’s union”:
The first leg of Mitt Romney’s journey to a private equity fortune ran between Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas and the Tonopah Test Range, deep in the Nevada desert.
In the mid-1980s Tonopah, also known as Area 52, was home to the newly developed, top secret F-117A stealth fighter. Pilots and support personnel lived in Las Vegas and spent their working week in the desert. A $10m-a-year contract to shuttle them back and forth was the prize asset of a small charter company called Key Airlines, which became a formative deal for Bain Capital, the private equity firm that Mr Romney cofounded, and where he built the career that is his main credential for the White House…
The tale of Key Airlines spans the creation of Bain Capital in 1984 – spun out from the Bain & Company management consultancy – and provides a glimpse of its methods and results. Key grew during its Bain years. Sales roughly doubled from 1983 to 1985 and employment more than doubled to about 200 jobs. Bain bought the company on the cheap, rode a turn in the industry cycle and then sold for a remarkable price.
A start-up pilots union was unlawfully suppressed, according to a federal court ruling. Some other methods foreshadowed the later success of Bain Capital: Key Airlines was an early example of a leveraged buyout. The initial deal was 100 per cent debt financed with no capital from the investors.
Bain also reshaped Key Airlines, turning it from a profitable, taxpaying company with a $13m balance sheet and its own aircraft, into an operating company with a $2m balance sheet and a holding company from which it sold assets separately….
Meanwhile, the Boston Globe discovers, today’s Bain Capital doesn’t play well with other corporate persons, either:
Bain is willing to participate in the public debate about its brand only to a point, however. Unlike some other leading firms, which are taking more active steps to buff private equity’s image, Bain has stuck largely to a defensive posture, believing the most prudent strategy is to respond to news stories as needed, correct the record when falsehoods surface, and provide talking points to employees and management teams at companies it controls. The firm remains averse to opening up with the press in a meaningful way. (After a month of negotiations, I was given almost nothing on the record from Bain’s managing directors.) Bain executives speak of keeping their heads down, with the expectation that, in the words of one, “this, too, shall pass.” Bain’s reluctance to engage more forcefully is a source of puzzlement among others in the industry….
Several big firms, Bain included, banded together in 2007 to establish a trade association called the Private Equity Council, realizing they needed to be more image-conscious. (Bain also began spending heavily on Washington lobbyists.) The Private Equity Council in 2010 changed its name to the Private Equity Growth Capital Council, to emphasize the industry’s work growing companies. With new leadership in 2011, it prepared a major public relations push in anticipation of the political scrutiny of the presidential cycle. That scrutiny came all right, though months earlier than everyone expected, when Romney’s Republican rivals zeroed in on his business resume…
So the council got busy. It began providing political reporters a primer on how the business operated. It has produced slick videos featuring companies that have thrived under private equity control, as part of a multimillion-dollar Private Equity at Work campaign the group launched in February. And it is connecting leaders of companies owned by private equity firms with members of Congress, to make sure lawmakers know the value of those businesses to local economies. The member firms in the trade association — there are three dozen in all — took some persuading before they accepted that the robust outreach plan was worth the time and expense, says council president and CEO Steve Judge. “They put us through our paces,” he says. Ultimately the firms came around.
But there’s one glaring exception: Bain Capital. Bain dropped out of the trade group at the end of 2010, just as the presidential race was approaching. It has not rejoined. If there were ever a time one would expect to see Bain standing shoulder to shoulder with its peers, it would be now. The firm, though, has opted to go it alone and let the industrywide PR effort carry on separately.
Given its leading role in the political theater, Bain’s absence has raised eyebrows — and prompted a little resentment — at other firms. “You scratch your head when you hear it,” says an executive at another private equity outfit in the consortium. “It reflects a lack of political sophistication and it reflects, quite frankly, a free-rider mentality.” An executive at a different firm says many in private equity are nonplused, especially because the critique of Bain had “splashed mud” on everyone else. “I thought we’re better off standing together defending the industry’s record,” this executive says. “You would think you’d want your friends around.”
Bain executives declined to address the criticism on the record. They say the decision to leave the trade group had nothing to do with the looming campaign. They say they abandoned it because Bain’s interests were different from other firms’. They also say they didn’t want to share proprietary information with competitors and that they simply felt they could be more effective communicating directly with their many stakeholders. “We feel like that’s our obligation really,” one executive tells me. “I don’t feel like we need to do more than that.” Bain executives say they’re agile enough to change course if they determine they need to do things differently. For now, another executive says, “I think we’re fine by ourselves.”..
Nothing to be “puzzled” about. Bain Capital is merely upholding the foundational ethics of its noble founder: We Got Ours, Fvck You Guys!
As Above, So Below: Bain Capital, Freebooter & Free-RiderPost + Comments (35)
by DougJ| 151 Comments
This post is in: Bleg, C.R.E.A.M., David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute
Just to reiterate what John said last night, every time a pundit says “Chicago politics”, an angel gets his wings.
Establishment media will cluck and say “both sides do it” no matter what, so we may as well actually do it. If the refs are just handing out double technicals, you should get your money’s worth and kick the other guy in the balls as hard as you possibly can.
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Election 2012, Ryan Lyin' Weasel, Assholes
(Jeff Danziger’s website)
From the NYTimes:
LAS VEGAS — Four days after his announcement as Mitt Romney’s running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan was not in Florida talking Medicare with elderly voters or in drought-ridden Iowa talking about a farm bill. He traveled to the Venetian hotel here for a meeting hosted by Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who has pledged to spend as much as $100 million this year to defeat President Obama.
Mr. Adelson has already contributed more money to defeat Mr. Obama than anyone: over $50 million has gone to the 2012 campaign, including $10 million to a “super PAC” backing Mr. Romney and $10 million to Crossroads GPS, which has run millions of dollars of advertisements against Mr. Obama.
In keeping with Mr. Adelson’s penchant for staying below the radar, Romney aides refused to say who attended the meeting with Mr. Ryan, though the location (a private room at one of Mr. Adelson’s hotels) and leaks from the Romney camp left little doubt. And in keeping with laws that prohibit elected officials from explicitly asking donors for super PAC money, aides to Mr. Romney insisted before the event that the meeting was not a fund-raiser.
“It’s a finance event, not a fund-raiser,” an aide told reporters. Asked if people were paying to attend, he repeated, “It’s a finance event, not a fund-raiser.”
Monte Miller, a longtime Republican donor who planned to attend, described it as an opportunity for major contributors and influential Las Vegas Republicans to size up Mr. Ryan.
“I’ve watched Ryan for the last few years,” Mr. Miller said. “I think I know what he’s going to bring. But I haven’t been in the same room as him. I want to see his charisma and communication skills.” …
Dance, little monkey, dance!
Since what happens in Vegas — and Macau — doesn’t always stay there, Adelson may need all the political help he can buy:
… In the political arena, Mr. Adelson is perhaps best known as a hawkish defender of Israel. But whatever the outcome of the inquiries involving his businesses in China, an examination of those activities suggests a keen interest in Washington’s China policy and highlights the degree to which politics and profits are often intertwined for Mr. Adelson….
The Sands has faced a conundrum in China as a casino company whose fortunes are heavily dependent on its operations in a country where gambling is illegal, except in Macau. The company relies on the good will of Chinese officials, who mete out approvals and have the power to curtail the flow of mainland visitors. As a result, Mr. Adelson has sought to use financial clout and connections to exert political influence at the highest levels of government. …
The broad outlines of the mainland China investigation were reported last week by The Wall Street Journal. But a review of more than a thousand pages of corporate records in China, as well as interviews with former Sands executives and others, provides a more detailed picture.
The documents show that the Sands paid out more than $70 million to companies tied to Mr. Yang for the trade center and for a Chinese basketball team the Sands sponsored. But several million dollars appear to be unaccounted for after the projects were suddenly shut down by the company, The New York Times found…
Pro Publica has even more detail here and here.
I know I keep repeating this, but seriously: Can you imagine how Darryl “IOKIYAR” Issa would react if news organizations were reporting that a Democratic donor was under investigation for multiple long-term violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? Especially if it involved tabloid-friendly headlines about paying off ChiCom “princelings” so that organized crime rings both here and overseas could ship prostitutes, launder money, and smuggle pirated goods?
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Our Awesome Meritocracy
You know, children, this kind of thing just isn’t done:
In making his solo claims that the bank [Standard Charter] covered up $250 billion in transactions involving Iran, Mr. Lawsky has been likened to Eliot Spitzer, who drew high praise and harsh criticism as New York’s top prosecutor for his aggressive tactics on Wall Street and tendency to muscle federal authorities aside.
…
Just like Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Lawsky has rankled federal authorities in Washington who say that the state banking regulator is encroaching on their territory and even overstating his case. Mr. Lawsky, a 42-year-old who was born on a naval base in San Diego, has started an international firestorm, with some politicians in London, Standard Chartered’s home, denouncing his actions as those of a upstart regulator bent on damaging British banks.
Some officials investigating the bank view Mr. Lawsky’s action as the product of political ambition, suspecting that he is already considering a run for governor himself one day. As an indication, they and others cite the tone of Mr. Lawsky’s order against the bank where he called it a “rogue,” claimed it had “zeal to make hundreds of millions of dollars at almost any cost” and was engaged in “dealings that indisputably helped sustain a global threat to peace and stability.”
Of course such a tone of disdain and insult should never be applied to institutions that, after all, serve as the carapace for our betters:
Standard Chartered has said it “strongly rejects the position and portrayal of facts” by Mr. Lawsky’s department.
That was last week.
New York’s top banking regulator reached a settlement on Tuesday with Standard Chartered over charges that the British bank laundered hundreds of billions of dollars in tainted money with Iran and deliberately lied to regulators.
The bank agreed to pay $340 million to the Department of Financial Services, which is led by Benjamin M. Lawsky. “The parties have agreed that the conduct at issue involved transactions of at least $250 billion,” Mr. Lawsky said in a statement.
Oh, and just in case anyone wants to try on the “this does not reflect the values/behavior of the institution as a whole” line, suck on this:
Beyond the dealings with Iran, the banking regulator said it had discovered evidence that Standard Chartered operated “similar schemes” to do business with other countries under United States sanctions, including Myanmar (formerly Burma), Libya and Sudan.
The “apparent fraudulent and deceptive conduct” by Standard Chartered happened from 2001 to 2010, the order said, and was particularly “egregious,” because some of the transactions were being processed even as the bank was under formal oversight by New York banking regulators from 2004 to 2007.
You know…it’s true. Being loud and blunt and accurate in one’s description of criminal and/or evil behavior may indeed be bad manners in certain circles. Which is just about all you need to know about such folks.
Also too: as Romney/Ryan will tell you, all we need to do to unleash a job creating tsunami led by MOTU is to crush the jackbooted regulators of the hostile state. Then no bank will provide aid and comfort to the worst people on earth. Not ever. They promise.
Image: El Greco, Christ Driving The Money Changers From The Temple, c. 1570-1576.
But, But, But, He Drank From The Fingerbowl!Post + Comments (36)
by DougJ| 75 Comments
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute
I normally hate Americans Elect fluffer Matt Miller, but this is a good point: Paul Ryan isn’t just a granny starver, he’s a granny starver whose numbers don’t even add the fuck up.
[T]he con has worked in part because budgets make journalists’ eyes glaze over, and once the phony Ryan meme took hold two years ago it became hard to dislodge. […]Ryan is not a “fiscal conservative.” A fiscal conservative pays for the government he wants. Ryan never has. His early “Roadmap for America’s Future” didn’t balance the budget until the 2060s and added $60 trillion to the national debt. Ryan’s revised plan, passed by the House in 2011, wouldn’t reach balance until the 2030s while adding $14 trillion in debt. It adds $6 trillion in debt over the next decade alone — yet Republicans had the chutzpah to say they wouldn’t raise the debt limit!
Sixty trillion dollars is a lot of scratch. To put it in perspective, that’s more than twice the amount that Matt Taibbi claims is the government’s potential liability on TARP.
You can total up the balance sheet and never know if I’m a counterfeitPost + Comments (75)
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Election 2012, Open Threads, Ryan Lyin' Weasel
It’s a gift that keeps on giving! Professor Krugman weighs in, from vacation, on Today’s Only Topic:
Galt / Gekko 2012
Paul Ryan for VP — or, as Romney said in the press conference, “the next president of the United States”. I did say Galt/Gekko, not Gekko/Galt…
[A]nyone who believes in Ryan’s carefully cultivated image as a brave, honest policy wonk has been snookered. Mark Thoma reviews selected pieces I’ve written about Ryan; he is, in fact, a big fraud, who doesn’t care at all about fiscal responsibility, and whose policy proposals are sloppy as well as dishonest. Of course, this means that he’ll fit in to the Romney campaign just fine.As I said, I have no idea how this will play politically. But it does look like a move from weakness, rather than strength; Romney obviously felt he needed a VP who will get people to stop talking about him.
Via Paul Constant, Karl Frisch has a PDF of “All 290 Pages of American Bridges’ Opposition Research File on Paul Ryan.”
Constant also points out that Ryan is a much more professional liar than Romney:
… Something that worries me, though, is Ryan has a disconcerting habit of completely denying the reality of his record, in a very convincing way. If a senior citizen asks Ryan about privatizing Medicare, he will toss a word salad that leaves the senior disoriented and convinced that he’s actually for a stronger Medicare. He will force his interns to read Ayn Rand novels, tell everyone we’re “living in an Ayn Rand novel,” and even credit his entire life of public service to Ayn Rand, and then he will tell a crowded room with a straight face that his love for Ayn Rand is an “urban legend.” Both of these contradictory truths are on the record.
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Speaking of little wads of dust and ice showily flaming out, court astrologers would note that tonight is the annual peak of the Perseids:
The Perseid shower has it all. It offers a consistently high rate of meteors, it produces more bright, visible meteors than any other shower, it happens in August when many people are on vacation, and it happens at a time when nighttime temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere are reasonable and the weather is good. What more could you ask for?
You could ask for the 2012 shower, because we have two added advantages. The moon will be in a waning crescent phase. That means on the night of the peak shower, the moon will be at about 25%, so it won’t block viewing. The second advantage is that the shower peaks on a Saturday night, so most people can afford to stay up late or sleep in on Sunday morning.
This year, the shower peaks on the night of August 11/12. You can expect to see somewhere around eighty “shooting stars” per hour between midnight and dawn. Add in the fact that just before dawn, Jupiter and Venus will join in and this promises to be one of the best Perseid showers in memory…
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What else is on the agenda for a summer Saturday night?
Saturday Evening Open Thread: Spectacular Flame-OutsPost + Comments (109)