Schwarzman, S bsg
==
mofo 420 of fire ER doc covid, evil and oligarch pending
trump pal
===
-=-=
-=-=
VID] AN 26
President Donald Trump's authoritarian rampage over the U.S. in his second term has been enabled by numerous cowards in high places, but as author Jacob Weisberg told The Daily Beast, there are at least eight of the "very worst" cowards who have gone above and beyond in their capitulations.
Weisberg is a reporter and author who appeared as a guest on the latest episode of The Daily Beast Podcast on Sunday, promoting his new book, Profiles in Cowardice. As host Joanna Coles explained, the book explores the "Great Capitulation" across American society in 2025, as numerous powerful individuals and entities caved to Trump's new demands, falling in line and lining his pockets all at once. Weisberg explained that he sought to drill down past "the flacks and flunkies" around the president, finding eight of the worst cowards, including Sen. Mitch McConnell, Chief Justice John Roberts, former Fox host Megyn Kelly, lawyer Brad Karp, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, former President George W. Bush, and Dartmouth president Sian Beilock.
Chief among these names, he explained, has been Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos.
"I think they all deserve shame, and they're all different stories and interesting stories," Weisberg explained. "But Bezos, in a way, is the paradigmatic example because he was so good in [Trump's first term] as owner of the Washington Post. Trump threatened him, bullied him, pressured him to have the Washington Post be less critical and less aggressive. And Bezos didn't yield an inch. Marty Barron, who was editor of The Washington Post in those years, really paid tribute to him and said, we couldn't have had a better owner... [In Trump's second term] it's a different person. He's on bended knee at Mar-a-Lago, paying $40 million for the Melania Trump documentary from Amazon Prime. You know, Amazon Prime is, like, known for being stingy. This is an absolutely ridiculous price. It's effectively a kind of bribe, a personal bribe, to the president and his wife."
Weisberg further suggested that Bezos's desire to gain government contracts for his space company, Blue Origin, and his ultimate goal of helping colonize space have been one of the main factors driving his capitulation to Trump.
In digging in against Roberts, meanwhile, Weisberg highlighted the 2020 ruling that gave Trump and other presidents sweeping immunities for "official acts" while in office, making it "essentially impossible" to prosecute them once they leave office. He also argued that, in many ways, Roberts probably dislikes Trump immensely, but has been willing to give him favorable rulings because of a deep and genuine belief in unrestricted executive power.
On McConnell, Weisberg argued that the former Senate Majority Leader was "afraid of losing his position inside the party" when he refused to back Trump's second impeachment, for which a conviction in the Senate would have barred him from ever hold office again.
"But if he had held firm to what he had said just after January 6th, he could have had Trump convicted," Weisberg said. "Trump was already out of office or would soon be out of office, and it would have been an easy matter to pass this subsequent vote that would have banned Trump from ever holding public office again, and we would have no second term. And that is on Mitch McConnell."
-=-=
-=-=
Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams. Originally published on Common Dreams.
A report published Tuesday by a pair of nonprofits shines a light on the “Wall Street heavyweights” at private equity firms who “burnish their reputations through hundreds of millions of dollars in philanthropy, even as their investments help drive climate catastrophe.”
“The private equity industry largely evades public scrutiny, despite investing billions in fossil fuel investments.”
The new analysis from LittleSis and Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) — entitled Private Equity’s Dirty Dozen: 12 Firms Dripping in Oil and the Wealthy Executives Who Run Them — highlights that as asset managers and big banks face rising scrutiny for their climate-wrecking conduct, “private equity firms and the billionaires and multi-millionaires who lead them have largely escaped scrutiny.”
“This needs to change,” the document declares. “Private equity firms are fueling the climate crisis and environmental injustice with investments in fracked gas, oil pipelines, coal plants, and offshore drilling. These damaging investments mirror private equity’s other destructive impacts in other areas of the economy like in retail, restaurants, healthcare, and incarceration.”
Meanwhile, executives at these firms “are some of the most influential people in the world,” the analysis continues. “They are chummy with powerful elected officials, to whom they donate piles of money. They hold prestigious trusteeships at elite universities and cultural institutions. Buildings are named after them. They own professional sports franchises.”
“Between their yachts, mansions, and private jets, these private equity executives live some of the lushest lives of anyone on the planet,” the report adds. “But in many cases, they sustain their wealth and status by steering their firms’ investments into — among other dubious things — dirty energy.”
LittleSis and PESP targeted:
- Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group;
- David M. Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group;
- Henry Kravis of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR);
- Daniel R. Revers of ArcLight Capital Partners;
- Marc Rowan and Leon Black of Apollo Global Management;
- Antony “Tony” Ressler of Ares Management;
- Adebayo Ogunlesi of Global Infrastructure Partners;
- Richard “Ric” Kayne of Kayne Anderson;
- Bruce Karsh and Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital;
- Chip Kaye and Timothy Geithner of Warburg Pincus;
- David M. Leuschen of Riverstone Holdings; and
- David B. Miller of EnCap Investments.
While some of the firms didn’t respond to requests for comment from the Guardian — which was granted exclusive access to the report — others pushed back, with spokespeople for Blackstone and KKR pointing to each firm’s investments in the global energy transition.
Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm,“has one of the most substantial portfolios of fossil fuel assets across its various funds,” the report says, specifically noting its nearly 7 percent stake in the company that owns the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has provoked years of Indigenous-led protests met with brutal crackdowns by law enforcement and private security. [TWT]
Dubbed “Wall Street’s top political donor,” Schwarzman “is a top ally, donor, and fundraiser” for former President Donald Trump, the analysis says, pointing out that the Blackstone executive reportedly “even defended Trump’s election denialism at a CEO meeting shortly after the 2020 election.”
Schwarzman — the firm’s chairman, CEO, and co-founder — has also “doled out hundreds of millions to get prestigious buildings named after him” and “is a current or past member of some of the most powerful business, policy, and think tank boards,” the report notes.
Report co-author and LittleSis research director Derek Seidman said in a statement that “it’s a serious problem when superrich private equity executives who invest billions in harmful fossil fuels can greenwash their reputations through acquiring coveted board seats at prestigious universities and cultural institutions.”
“This helps these Wall Street billionaires hide the fact that they’re among the world’s biggest oil and gas barons,” Seidman said.
For each executive, the groups put together graphics that illustrate their ties to powerful institutions and people as well as their firm’s investments in the fossil fuel industry. Schwarzman’s chart reveals connections to prestigious universities along with controversial fossil fuel projects.
A screenshot from the report illustrates Blackstone Group CEO, chairman, and co-founder Stephen Schwarzman’s connections to fossil fuels.
The other profiles continue in a similar fashion. The Carlyle Group section states that “no other private equity buyout firm—not Blackstone, not KKR—is currently as bullish on oil and gas as Carlyle,” and “few private equity tycoons have bought as much influence—and are as waist-deep in dirty fossil fuels—as billionaire David Rubenstein,” its co-founder.
In addition to holding positions at various other institutions, KKR co-founder and co-chairman Kravis is a “director of the Palm Beach Civic Association alongside other hedge fund billionaires, and the city’s main performing arts center bears the Kravis family name,” the report says. “He owns a beachside mansion alongside a slew of other Wall Street billionaires like Stephen Schwarzman (Blackstone), Carl Icahn (Icahn Enterprises), Ken Griffin (Citadel), and Nelson Peltz (Trian).”
“Private equity threatens to undermine our hard work to tackle the climate crisis and advance environmental justice.”
“KKR owns dozens of energy companies, with over 80% of its energy holdings in the extraction, transportation, or burning of climate-destroying fossil fuels,” according to the document. “Moreover, from racist and colonial pipelines to toxic oilfield development, KKR is behind some of the dirtiest and most controversial oil and gas projects around.”
Along with pouring money into activities that heat the planet, “Kravis and KKR have no qualms about pillaging companies or investing in unethical products in order to turn a profit,” the analysis adds, noting that “the firm helped oversee the notorious raid of Toys ‘R’ Us that devastated the company’s workers.”
Responding to the report, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs — tied its findings to criticism of the private equity industry’s broader practices.
“By plowing money into dirty coal plants, offshore drilling, and deforestation, private equity threatens to undermine our hard work to tackle the climate crisis and advance environmental justice,” she told The Guardian. “It’s just another page from private equity’s standard playbook: boost short-term profits at the expense of the long-term well-being of communities.”
Reiterating that “the private equity industry largely evades public scrutiny, despite investing billions in fossil fuel investments that have spewed greenhouse gases from pipelines, fracking operations, and power plants across the globe,” report co-author and PESP research director Alyssa Giachino advocated for a swift shift across the industry.
“Private equity should move away from fossil fuels,” she said. “It’s necessary to help mitigate climate change and it’s necessary for environmental justice.”
==
omfg fire whistleblower
https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/heres-what-wall-street-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-its-grip-on-emergency-rooms/
no lnx
Here’s what Wall Street doesn’t want you to know about its grip on emergency rooms
Written by Eileen Appelbaum, Rosemary Batt / Independent Media Institute April 3, 2020
Doctor Ling Min is the first emergency room doctor to be fired for going public with his concerns about poor hospital emergency room safety practices and shortages of medical supplies and protective gear for health workers.
He won’t be the last.
Like many hospitals in the US, PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham Washington, where Ling Min worked for the past 17 years as an emergency room doctor, has outsourced the management and staffing of its emergency room.So, Min works on-site at the hospital’s ER, but he is employed by a physician staffing firm that runs the ER.These staffing firms are often behind the surprise medical bills for ER services that patients receive after their insurance company has paid the hospital and doctors, but not the excessive out-of-network charges billed by these outside staffing firms .[huh?]
About a third of hospital emergency rooms are staffed by doctors on the payrolls of two physician staffing companies—TeamHealth and Envision Health—owned by Wall Street investment firms. Envision Healthcare employs 69,000 healthcare workers nationwide while TeamHealth employs 20,000.Private equity firm Blackstone Group owns TeamHealth, Kravis Kohlberg Roberts (KKR) owns Envision.
Care of the sick is not the mission of these companies; their mission is to make outsized profits for the private equity firms and its investors.Overcharging patients and insurance companies for providing urgent and desperately needed emergency medical care is bad enough. But it is unconscionable to muzzle doctors who speak out to advocate for the health of their patients and co-workers during the global pandemic that is rapidly spreading across the US.
Yet, that is what Blackstone-owned TeamHealth just did. Why would an experienced ER doctor be fired in the middle of a pandemic?One clue may be thatBlackstone’s CEO, Stephen A. Schwarzman, is part of President Trump’s inner circle.He may not want to risk that relationship by allowing TeamHealth’s doctors to inform the public about Washington’s mishandling of the allocation of supplies and protective gear. The president might conclude that TeamHealth doctors didn’t appreciate him enough, and where would that leave Schwartzman?
PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center may have the distinction of being the first hospital to have a doctor outsourced from a physician staffing firm unceremoniously fired for telling the public the truth. But it won’t be the last. Hospitals are now telling doctors treating coronavirus patients they will be fired if they speak to the press.
The American Academy of Emergency Medicine protested Dr. Min’s ouster and questioned how TeamHealth is allowed to provide hospital services when the law requires that physician practices must be owned by a licensed medical practitioner. TeamHealth skirts the law by owning all the assets of the physician practices it acquires—the real estate, offices, equipment, supplies, inventory, and even accounts receivable.
On paper, the physician practices are owned by a doctor-led organization that TeamHealth has set up to comply with the law. But what does it mean to own a physician practice if the practice has no assets and no possibility to exist on its own?
The furor over patients hit by surprise medical bills revealed that TeamHealth controls the billing for the doctors it supplies to hospital emergency rooms. The firing of Doctor Ling Min pulls back the curtain and reveals that TeamHealth controls the doctors as well.
Eileen Appelbaum is the Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and visiting professor, School of Management, University of Leicester, UK.
Rosemary Batt is the Alice Hanson Cook Professor of Women and Work, Cornell University ILR School.
This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
==
https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/09/09/stephen-schwarzman-blackstone-group-trump-fracking
by Rob Galbraith and originally appeared on Eyes on the Ties.
By now, many people have heard of Stephen Schwarzman.
Some may know him as the billionaire founder and CEO of the Blackstone Group,a mammoth private equity firm that has its tentacles spread across numerous subsidiaries and companies.
Others may know Schwarzman as a close ally and advisor of Donald Trump, the chair the president’s recently disbanded Strategic and Policy Forum, who is set to profit handsomely from his relationship with the president.
Some may even know Schwarzman as the thrower of lavish, self-glorifying birthday parties — his last one includedfireworks, acrobats, live camels, celebrity performers, and a slew of high-profile guests, from David Koch to Jared Kushner, as well as several Trump cabinet members.
But fewer people know about Schwarzman the fracking profiteer, with billions invested in the fossil fuel industry that is fueling the climate crisis.
With this in mind, this installment of Eyes on the Ties “Frackateer of the Month” series shines a light on Schwarzman’s investments and influence within the oil and gas sector.
Finance, Fossil Fuels, and Trump
The oil and gas and high finance industries are deeply intertwined and dependent upon one another. Debt fuels the build-out of capital-intensive drilling projects and pipelines worldwide, while fossil fuels power global commerce, which Wall Street financiers make their living from betting on.
Through Blackstone Group, Schwarzman has bet billions of dollars on the oil and gas industry, buying interests in drilling fields, fracking companies, major pipeline projects, power plants and export facilities. Earlier this month the *Wall Street Journal* reported that Blackstone’s investment in the Energy Transfer Partners’ controversial Rover Pipeline brought its oil and gas investments up to $7 billion. The next week, *Bloomberg* reported that Blackstone had acquired Harvest Fund Advisors, an oil and gas investment firm with $10 billion in assets, for an undisclosed sum.
These wagers have occurred amid rhetoric from President Donald Trump promising to “unleash” the energy industry in the United States. As mentioned above, Schwarzman occupied a key Trump advisory role, leading a council of CEOs advising the president on economic issues until blowback from Trump’s sympathetic comments about white supremacists led Trump to dissolve the council.
Blackstone has already benefited from Trump’s energy policy. Trump reversed the Obama administration block of the Dakota Access Pipeline — which Blackstone has invested in — and has filled vacancies on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with appointees who are all but certain to continue the agency’s practice of rubber-stamping pipeline projects.
If Trump continues to make good on his pledge to expand fracking and pipeline infrastructure, Blackstone’s oil and gas bets could prove incredibly lucrative for Schwarzman, whose $425 million 2016 pay packagemainly came in the form of stock dividends.
Blackstone’s Energy Bets
Blackstone’s billions of dollars worth of oil and gas investments span nearly every industry sector and include several extremely controversial pipelines being constructed by Energy Transfer Partners.
It was widely reported when Blackstone recently bought a 32.4 percent stake in ETP’s Rover Pipeline from West Virginia and Pennsylvania through Ohio to Michigan and Canada. Rover has been beset by problems throughout its construction: the pipeline has reportedly racked up more environmental violations than any other major pipeline in the past two years, leading to several government-ordered construction stoppages. Just before Blackstone bought into Rover, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission stopped drilling on certain segments of the pipeline after ETP spilled 2 million gallons of drilling fluid, polluting wetlands in Ohio.
Blackstone also has a considerable stake in the Dakota Access Pipeline through its acquisition of Harvest Fund Advisors,a financial firm focused on investing in oil and gas infrastructure. According to regulatory filings, Harvest Fund owns 16.6 percent of outstanding shares of Energy Transfer Partners, which is a 38.25 percent owner of Dakota Access and 3.9 percent of outstanding shares of Energy Transfer Equity, ETP’s parent organization. Harvest Fund Advisors also owns 4.4 percent of outstanding shares of MPLX LP, a subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum that is a partial Dakota Access owner through a joint venture with Enbridge.
Dakota Access — which was halted by former President Barack Obama after months of public outcry over the threat the pipeline posed to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, only to be resumed once Donald Trump took office — went into service in June 2017.
Blackstone’s stake in ETP through Harvest Fund also means that it owns a stake in the controversial Bayou Bridge Pipelineplanned along the southern coast of Louisiana. Bayou Bridge will bring crude oil from a hub Nederland, Texas (which is connected to Dakota Access by the Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline) to refineries in St. James parish, Louisiana. The pipeline, which is co-owned by ETP and Phillips 66, has inspired protests similar to those against Dakota Access as well as a lawsuit on behalf of the communities that will bear the brunt of the pipeline’s negative impacts.
These pipeline interests, and other Blackstone oil and gas investments can be seen in the map embedded below:
Beyond pipelines, Blackstone is invested in the fracking operations that extract oil and gas from the ground. The firm entered into a joint partnership with Sanchez Resources to buy a $2.3 billion interest in drilling fields in the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas. In 2016, Blackstone invested $250 million in the Appalachian driller Huntley & Huntley. Earlier this spring, Vine Resources, a company formed by Blackstone to drill acreage it had purchased from Royal Dutch Shell, filed paperwork to make an initial public offering.
In the downstream sector, Blackstone is a major backer of Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility, in which it invested $2 billion in 2012 and which was approved to start exporting gas by the Obama administration. The firm also bought three natural gas power plants from American Electric Power for $2.17 billion in late 2016, in a deal that also included a coal plant.
Schwarzman’s 'Trump Edge' Could Bring a Big Payday
Though he did not endorse Trump or donate to his campaign, Stephen Schwarzman quickly insinuated himself into the president’s circle of advisors.
In December 2016, less than a month after the election and more than a month before Trump’s inauguration, Blackstone issued a press release announcing that Schwarzman had agreed to chair the “President’s Strategic and Policy Forum,” a council of business elites advising Trump on “his plan to bring back jobs and Make America Great Again.”
According to the *New York Times*, the forum was Schwarzman’s conception, and Schwarzman told *Bloomberg* that he personally chose all of its members for Trump to listen and learn from. Those members included former GE CEO Jack Welch, a vociferous climate change denier; Adebayo Ogunlesi, director of African offshore drilling company Kosmos energy and chairman and managing partner of Global Infrastructure Partners, a private equity fund set up by Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs with many oil and gas investments; and Daniel Yergin, who operates an oil and gas industry consulting firm.
The council’s assignment — “cutting the government red tape that is holding back our businesses” — was a good fit for Schwarzman’s ethos; he once said that Obama administration taxes on private equity firms were “like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”
The Strategic and Policy Forum only met a handful of times before it disbanded in August 2017 amid public furor over remarks Trump made sympathizing with the organizers of a violent white supremacist rally that left a counter-protester dead.
While the council was meeting, however, Schwarzman appears to have enjoyed wide access to and influence over the president. In April, *Politico*reported that Trump and Schwarzman talked “several times a week” and the *New York Times*reported after the council disbanded that “Schwarzman, of all council members, maintained the most consistent contact with the president.”
Trump’s policies have been a major boon for many of Blackstone’s businesses. In February, Trump canceled implementation of the fiduciary rule, which would have required firms like Blackstone to act in the best financial interest of their clients. That day, Trump boasted to Schwarzman that “we’re getting rid of your regulations.” During Trump’s May visit to Saudi Arabia, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund announced a joint plan with Blackstone to invest $40 billion in infrastructure projects, primarily in the United States.
Trump’s efforts to “unleash” the oil and gas industry in the United States have been especially beneficial for Blackstone, which, as described above, has dramatically ramped up its oil and gas investments.
Four days after taking office, Trump reversed former-President Obama’s December 4, 2016 decision to stop construction of Energy Transfer’s Dakota Access Pipeline, issuing a memorandum ordering the Army Corps of Engineers to “review and approve in an expedited manner” all “requests for approval to construct and operate the DAPL.” Though a judge ruled in June 2017 that Army Corps of Engineers February 2017 approval for the pipeline “failed to adequately consider the impacts of an oil spill on Standing Rock’s fishing and hunting rights and on environmental justice,” Dakota Access remains in operation, generating revenue for Blackstone and its other owners.
Trump has also restored the quorum on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), appointing two industry-friendly commissioners — former Mitch McConnell staffer Neil Chatterjee and former Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner Robert Powelson — to the agency in charge of approving pipeline projects. Under the chairmanship of Chatterjee, who led the Republican campaign to approve TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, and with Powelson, who sat on a business councilpushing for an expansion of oil and gas infrastructure in Philadelphia, FERC appears primed to resume its rate of approving nearly 100 percent of pipeline applications that come before it.
Other Trump actions that will benefit Blackstone’s oil and gas investments include permitting oil drilling in the Arctic Circle, ramping up the sale of oil and gas drilling leases on public lands, and pulling out of the Paris climate accord.
Though Trump’s proposed Muslim ban and his rejection of international action on climate change led several business leaders to quit the Schwarzman-helmed council, the Blackstone CEO stood by the president until the council dissolved in the wake of Trump’s response to the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville. Schwarzman later issued a statementcondemning “bigotry, hatred and extremism,” though he supported the president’s comments blaming “many sides” for the violence at the right-wing rally the day afterwards. “I thought he was talking about the violence on both sides,” Schwarzman told *Bloomberg* at a party in the Hamptons. “I don’t think it was a far-reaching statement.”
While it remains to be seen if Schwarzman’s influence over Trump will outlast the disbandment of the Strategic and Policy Council, there has been no indication that Trump plans to abandon his agenda of deregulation and drilling bonanza. If this remains the case, then Schwarzman’s massive oil and gas bets are sure to bring him some big returns.
==
==
DEC 2, 2016 @ 11:25 AM 11,342 VIEWS The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets
Trump Taps Steve Schwarzman, Jamie Dimon And Mary Barra For Advice On Job Creation, Growth
Antoine Gara , FORBES STAFF
I cover the good, the bad and the ugly of finance.
President-elect Donald J. Trump will be bringing the CEOs of America's biggest corporations, banks and investment firms to the White House to regularly hear out their perspectives on how to create jobs and improve growth for the U.S. economy.
Trump has created what he calls the 'President's Strategic and Policy Forum,' which will consist of 16 business leaders ranging from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, to GM's Mary Barra and Disney's Bob Iger and it will be chaired by Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire co-founder of private equity giant Blackstone Group.
The business forum is intended to give the president-elect regular perspectives from major players in the private sector as he works to set a pro-business agenda focused on lowering taxes, stimulating growth and reducing red tape. It will first meet in early February and then hold gatherings on a "frequent" basis thereafter.
Read More: How Jared Kushner Won Donald Trump The White House
“This forum brings together CEOs and business leaders who know what it takes to create jobs and drive economic growth,” said Trump. “My administration is committed to drawing on private sector expertise and cutting the government red tape that is holding back our businesses from hiring, innovating, and expanding right here in America," he added.
Recommended by Forbes
MOST POPULAR Photos: The Richest Person In Every State
The concept of bringing business leaders into Washington to strategize with the president isn't exactly novel. During President Obama's first term he created an Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which was followed in 2011 by the President's Council On Jobs And Competitiveness, chaired by General Electric GE +0.97% CEO Jeffrey Immelt.
Other big name members of the president-elect's forum include Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock BLK -0.78%, Doug McMillon, the recently appointed CEO of Wal-Mart Stores WMT -0.65%, Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM IBM +0.29%, and Toby Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic . The forum also includes plugged-in business people like Boston Consulting Group's Rich Lesser, EY's Mark Weinberger, IHS IHS +% Markit's Daniel Yergin, Adebayo Ogunlesi, chairman of Global Infrastructure Partners and Paul Atkins of Patomak Global Partners. Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric and Jim McNerney, the former CEO of Boeing BA +0.68% will also be in Trump's forum, as will former Fed governor Kevin Warsh.
"Members of the Forum will be charged with providing their individual views to the President – informed by their unique vantage points in the private sector – on how government policy impacts economic growth, job creation, and productivity," the Trump transition team said.
Notably absent from Trump's initial list of forum members are Silicon Valley billionaires such as Facebook's FB +0.37% Mark Zuckerberg, Salesforce's Marc Benioff, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Wall Street is well represented with chieftains in banking, private equity and asset management, however, there are no hedge fund managers included.
The move by Trump comes at a time when the president-elect is closing out cabinet picks and seeking to kickstart his business focused agenda.
Earlier this week, Trump named former Goldman Sachs partner Steven Mnuchin as his Treasury Secretary and billionaire Wilbur Ross as his Commerce Secretary. The Trump transition team will reportedly meet with Gary Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, this weekend about an administration position.
Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, is reportedly being considered for Secretary of State, in addition to Bain Capital founder Mitt Romney and General David Petraeus, chairman of the KKR Global Institute.
Read More: Forbes' Cover Story On Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman
==
ppl who lost homes in crash now rent, but now same banks are selling rent futures derivatives. blackstone
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/12/blackstones-big-bet-on-rental-homes/
great systems infographic
From Bloomberg:
The Blackstone Group LP, the world’s largest private equity firm, became the largest owner of rental homes in the U.S. , acquiring 41,000 homes in the past two years. In October, Blackstone offered the first-ever “rental-home-backed” security on Wall Street. The bond is backed by just a fraction — 3,207 — of the rental properties owned by Blackstone. Monthly rent checks from the properties will be used to service the $479.1 million security.
There were interesting nuggets. Remember Steve Schwartzman, billionaire co-founder of hedge fund BlackRock, which went public in 2007 at $31 per share? Schwartzman is the guy who compared the effort to get rid of a huge tax break for him and his fellow hedge fund managers to the “Nazi invasion of Poland”? BlackRock entities, about 110 of them, used the Temporary Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility to raise $2.8 billion. They usedthis cheap money to buy asset backed securities, like auto loans and credit card receivables. The Wall Street Journal reports that these purchases resulted in gains as high as 48%, and that returns in the 20-40% range were common. The Sunlight Foundation explains how the subsidy worked:
nance book: Navajo activist Elouise Brown, whose impromptu blockade in subzero weather turned the tide against Blackstone billionaire Steve Schwarzmann’s Desert Rock power plant.
==
wiki
Stephen Allen Schwarzman (born February 14, 1947) is an American financier and philanthropist. He is the chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm he co-founded with former Lehman Brothers CEO and US Secretary of Commerce Peter Peterson.
Contents |
Early life and education
Schwarzman is a son of Arline and Joseph Schwarzman of Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania. His father owned Schwarzman's, a former dry-goods store in Philadelphia.[[4]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-3)
Schwarzman attended the Abington School District in suburban Philadelphia and graduated from Abington Senior High School in 1965.[[5]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-4) He attended Yale University during the same period as George W. Bush, one year behind him (both were in the Skull and Bones society)[[6]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-5)[[7]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-6) and graduated in 1969. He then went on to Harvard Business School and graduated in 1972.
Career
Schwarzman's first job in the financial services was with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, a now defunct investment bank. After business school, Schwarzman started working at the investment bank Lehman Brothers, where he reached the rank of managing director at age 31.[[8]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-7) He eventually became the head of Lehman Brothers' global mergers and acquisitions team. In 1985, Schwarzman and his partner Peter Peterson started Blackstone, which originally focused on mergers and acquisitions.[[9]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-8)[[10]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-9)
With an estimated current net worth of around $4.7 billion, Schwarzman was ranked by Forbes as the 52nd-richest person in America in 2011.[[2]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-Forbes-1) He lives in a large apartment at 740 Park Avenue in New York, previously owned by the Mayflower descendent George Brewster and John D. Rockefeller Jr. Schwarzman bought it from Saul Steinberg in 2000 for just under $30 million.[[11]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-10) However, an article in the New Yorker claims that the apartment was purchased for $37 million.[[12]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-11)
On 13 February 2007, Schwarzman celebrated his 60th birthday at the Armory on Park Avenue. Guests included Colin Powell, Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg, and Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York. The climax of the evening was a half-hour live performance by Rod Stewart, for which he was reportedly paid $1 million.[[13]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-12)[[14]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-13)[[15]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-14)[[16]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-15)
When Blackstone went public in June 2007, it revealed in a securities filing that Schwarzman had earned about $398.3 million in fiscal 2006.[[17]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-16)[[18]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-17) He ultimately received $684 million selling part of his Blackstone stake in the IPO, keeping a stake then worth $9.1 billion.[[19]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-18)
In 2007, Schwarzman was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.[[20]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-19)
Schwarzman has served as an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Management and is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
In June 2007, Schwarzman described his view on financial markets with the statement: "I want war, not a series of skirmishes. (...) I always think about what will kill off the other bidder."[[21]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-20)
On March 11, 2008 Schwarzman announced that he contributed $100 million toward the expansion of the New York Public Library, for which he serves as a trustee. The central reference building on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue was renamed "The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building"[[22]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-21).
In August 2010, Schwarzman compared President Barack Obama's plan to raise carried interest taxes to Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939, a comment for which Schwarzman later apologized.[[23]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-22)[[24]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-23)
Personal life
- Schwarzman met his first wife, Ellen Philips, during his second year at Harvard Business School, where she worked as a researcher and helped grade essays. She was the daughter of Jesse Philips, a wealthy Ohio industrialist. They were married in 1971 and divorced in 1990. They had two children:[[25]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-24)[[26]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-25)
- Elizabeth (b. 1976) - married in November 2005 to Andrew Curtis Right, with Dr. David M. Posner, the senior rabbi at Congregation Emanu-El of New York, officiating at the Central Synagogue.[[27]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-26)
- Edward Frank (b. 1979) - married in November 2007 to Ellen Marie Zajac, co-officiated by the Rev. Arthur Becker, a Roman Catholic priest and uncle of the bride, and Michael Matalon, the president of the Shaare Shalom Synagogue in Kingston, Jamaica.[[28]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-27)
- In 1995, Schwarzman married Christine Hearst, an intellectual-property lawyer who grew up on Long Island. She was the daughter of Peggie and Peter Mularchuk of Hicksville, New York. Her father was a fireman.[[29]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-28) She was recently divorced from Austin Hearst, grandson of the legendary newspaper tycoon Randolph Hearst. Rabbi Bertram Siegel co-officiated along with the Rev. Sam Matarazzo, a Roman Catholic priest.[[30]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-29) She has one child from a previous marriage.[[31]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#cite_note-30)
Additional reading
- King of Capital: The Remarkable Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone.
- Greed and Glory on Wall Street—The Fall of the House of Lehman by Ken Auletta, The Overlook Press, New York, ISBN 1-58567-088-X
External links
References
- ^ Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officerProfile?symbol=BX.N&officerId=940299.
- ^ ***a*** ***b*** "Stephen Schwarzman - Forbes". Forbes.
- ^ Jerusalem Post: "The world's 50 Richest Jews: 31-40 #33 Stephen Schwarzman - Net worth: $4.7 billion September 7, 2010
- ^ New York Times: "WEDDINGS;Christine Hearst, S. A. Schwarzman" November 05, 1995
- ^ http://www.abington.k12.pa.us/shs/?page=hall_past_reward_recipients#2005, December 19, 2009
- ^ Evan Thomas and Daniel Gross, "Taxing the Super Rich," Newsweek, July 23, 2007
- ^ Andrew Clark, "The Guardian profile: Stephen Schwarzman," The Guardian, June 15, 2007
- ^ David Carey & John E. Morris, King of Capital: The Remarkable Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone, New York: Crown Business, 2010, pp. 13-30
- ^ Blackstone.com - Team
- ^ King of Capital, pp. 45-56
- ^ Gross, Michael. 740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building. New York: Broadway Books, 2005.
- ^ Stewart, James B. Profiles: The Birthday Party: How Stephen Schwarzman became private equity's designated villain.
- ^ Landon Thomas, Jr., “More Rumors About His Party Than About His Deals,” New York Times, Jan. 27, 2007
- ^ Michael J. de la Merced, “Dealbook -- Inside Stephen Schwarzman’s Birthday Bash,” New York Times, Feb. 14, 2007
- ^ Richard Johnson with Paula Froelich, Bill Hoffmann, and Corynne Steindler, “Page Six - $3M Birthday Party Fit for Buyout King,” New York Post, Feb. 14, 2007
- ^ Michael Flaherty, “Blackstone CEO gala sign of buyout boom,” Reuters, Feb. 14, 2007
- ^ Blackstone IPO Prospectus, http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1393818/000104746907005160/a2178575z424b4.htm#07NYC1853_1 (pp. 198-199)
- ^ Michael Flaherty, "Blackstone Co-Founders to Get $2.3 Billion Post IPO," Reuters, June 11, 2007
- ^ King of Capital, p. 3
- ^ "Time 100 (2007) - Stephen Schwarzman". Time Magazine. May 3, 2007. Retrieved 2008-11-17.
- ^ The Guardian profile: Stephen Schwarzman, 15 June 2007
- ^ Robin Pogrebin, "A $100 Million Donation to the N.Y. Public Library" *New York Times*, March 11, 2008.
- ^ Jonathan Alter, "A ‘Fat Cat’ Strikes Back," Newsweek, Aug. 15, 2010, http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/15/schwarzman-it-s-a-war-between-obama-wall-st.html#
- ^ http://www.salon.com/2012/04/01/how_billionaires_destroy_democracy/
- ^ New York Sun: "Schwarzman in the Spotlight at Library Gala" By BRADLEY HOPE June 18, 2007
- ^ The New Yorker: "The Birthday Party: How Stephen Schwarzman became private equity’s designated villain" by James B. Stewart February 11, 2008
- ^ New York Times: "Zibby Schwarzman and Andrew Right" June 12, 2005
- ^ New York Times: "Ellen Zajac and Teddy Schwarzman" November 11, 2007
- ^ The New Yorker: "The Birthday Party: How Stephen Schwarzman became private equity’s designated villain" by James B. Stewart February 11, 2008
- ^ New York Times: "WEDDINGS;Christine Hearst, S. A. Schwarzman" November 05, 1995
- ^ The Guardian: "The Guardian profile: Stephen Schwarzman" by Andrew Clarke June 15, 2007
