State of the Same

It seems both political parties like to be seen with their high dollar supporters. Bob Johnson, BET founder, made the headlines recently with his dig on Barack Obama and subsequent apology. Bob attempted to support Hillary Clinton, but got carried away.

The news failed to mention billionaire Bob's joint venture deal with The Carlyle Group. It neglected to call him a "small business owner and community banker", like President George W. Bush did in fall of 2006.

Given his strong defense of Hillary, what is Mrs. Clinton's position on taxing private equity carried interest?

As for The Carlyle Group, co-founder David Rubenstein had to deal with protests during today's speech at Wharton. He defended allegations of layoffs at ManorCare by saying "we've only owned the company two weeks." Let's see what other healthcare companies had Carlyle owned two weeks when something catastrophic happened? That would be LifeCare, the hospital with the largest number of patient deaths from Hurricane Katrina.

David must be good at using that "only two week" excuse. One might expect failures at other Carlyle healthcare affiliates to be pertinent in considering future buyouts, but not in ManorCare's case. Even a reporter from the Toledo Blade said the 24 LifeCare deaths were out of bounds. The feds went 0 for 9 in responding to my concerns.

David's other defense was no one ever talks about the good private equity does, especially in growing jobs. The Private Equity Council is working hard to justify PEU managers keeping their preferred tax status on carried interest. They published a study showing the positive economic impact of private equity underwriters. Be sure to read the comment at the bottom of the Reuter's article on that very topic. So Mrs. Clinton, where do you stand on taxing carried interest as income?

Romney Suggests Old European Leaders are Pussies

In a fit of condescension Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney assailed European leaders for their welfare states and for remembering the lessons of World War II fought on their soil. He even went so far as to say "Hillary Clinton couldn't get elected in Freedom" (formerly known as France). While Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney issued an executive order not only changing "french fries" to "freedom fries", but changing the name of the European country all together.

As for Old Europe which hosted the last world war, their leaders have taken a distinctfully peaceful turn, as opposed to Mitt who wants the make the whole world his Guantanamo. The Global Peace Index had roughly half of its top 30 peaceful nations from across the pond. Treaty busting, modern replacement nuclear warhead choosing, space claiming, preemptive war implementing America ended up 96th.

I'm afraid Mr. Romney the United States has much to learn from countries who've worked to serve their citizens vs. private equity firms, from a continent that hosted much of the last great war. Instead Mitt wants to remove himself even further from the people by dissing his Presidential paycheck. I want someone in office who thinks about the common citizen's needs. Mitt ain't it...