#ElonMusk #Twitter #BNP #MorganStanley #BankofAmerica #Barclays #SocieteGenerale #LBO
Dette d'Elon Musk : les banques prêtes à se libérer de leur plus grosse « colle » de l'histoire

https://www.lesechos.fr/finance-marches/banque-assurances/dette-delon-musk-les-banques-pretes-a-se-liberer-de-leur-plus-grosse-colle-de-lhistoire-2144991

The US state of Utah releases its first list of banned books.

«They want to make it so that if one or two parents or school board members don’t like a book, they can easily take it away from every single resident in the state.»

Well beyond merely ironic to use democracy as the delivery vehicle for a policy of tyrannical rule by minority.

I also have come to think it not coincidental that our plutocratic overlords are devising schemes like this, which I see as the political analogs of leveraged buyouts, which also allow one power beyond what seems like should be their rightfully earned means, distorting the natural checks and balances of a market, democracy here being the marketplace of ideas.

A number of recent political moves have had this shape, not least of which the capture of the Supreme Court and really brazen exploitation of its power to bootstrap other independent power structures, leaving themselves as gatekeepers, but making these less regulated structures more untouchable.

Capture of the voting structures locally in each state feels like another. Privatization of government services is another. Injecting religion into the public sphere is another. The according of protected rights to corporations ("legal people") is another. In my mind, these all share a common tactical structure of exploiting a legislative weakness to create an unchecked power structure.

Further to the death of irony, too, the GOP wrongly complains, and recently offers Project 2025 as alleged antidote, that FDA, CDC, NOAA, and other science-based agencies are on par, doing the same. They want party loyalists installed there to keep science more responsive to the ruling party. As if that science is a thing one can or should vote on. But then they create their own similarly extragovernmental groups and processes but make no effort to make THOSE groups responsive to party.

It leaves me flabbergasted.

https://www.themarysue.com/utah-releases-first-list-of-books-to-be-banned-statewide/

@virtualbri

We used to call this an LBO - leveraged buyout - and the people who did them "corporate raiders". They were looked down on by a lot of the investment "industry".

We don't seem to look down on this behaviour any more - it's considered "normal" now. It shouldn't be.

ObRef: an old HBO movie "Barbarians at the Gates", about the LBO of RJR Nabisco in 1988. Fantastic performance by James Garner, and a whole lot of great supporting performers.

This Rolling Stone article about private equity from 2012 has aged well.

I'll note that Sports Authority has long since gone bankrupt; Another victim of an LBO thanks to private equity siphoning off value.

#PrivateEquity #LBO #Fraud #Grift #Corruption
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/why-private-equity-firms-like-bain-really-are-the-worst-of-capitalism-241519/

@GPJohnston We've been watching this play out since the '80s, right?
- Purchase company
- Extract assets
- Leave shell of company behind
- Xfer all wealth to senior Execs/Board
- Fire employees and let the carcass decay

I'll reference Carl Icahn as a prime example.

This may or may not be quite the exact fit for the mismanagement (or willful management) of Rite Aid but it's in the ballpark.

Unregulated fraud and grift at the end of the day.
"It's all legal!" Yup, cuz the crooks wrote the law.

https://mstdn.social/@raymondpert/111096342888335097

I saw a guy grab #LBo 's tits at Beetlejuice. I saw 45**4×I instigate and, therefore, start an insurrection. Ted Cruz excercizes?

Bite me, GOP.

#LBo

https://appdot.net/@bennomatic/111060082993816217

L-Bo! #LBo

Several people posted earlier that elon’s takeover of Twitter was a data grab for MBS & Saudi Royals. This makes a lot of sense.

I've "not forgotten file":
#GinniThomas
#MarALargoEspionage
#Publix $3m donation to Proud Boys
#MattGaetz child trafficking
#LBo tour guide for Attack
#Ethics investigation #SCOTUS #SCOTUSiscompromised