Lou Gerstner!
Lou Gerstner, Motherfucker of the Week
Congratulations Lou on climbing the Motherfucker Ladder. You've made it to the top, baby.
http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/systems/0,39001153,39099424,00.htm
"IBM Chairman Lou Gerstner has been named chair of private equity company
The Carlyle Group, a role he'll assume shortly after leaving his Big Blue
post at year's end.
"Gerstner will join Carlyle on Jan. 7, the company announced Thursday,
offering strategic advice, lending perspective to the management of
Carlyle's portfolio companies and reviewing Carlyle's global investments.
Gerstner will also serve on the company's various committees."
(Note: The Carlyle Group is a private equity company. A private equity
company is a sort of mutual fund for the very rich, where individuals
investors need to put up at least $5 million in order to own a share of the
equity. There are currently about 450 individual investors backing the
Carlyle Group.)
Who are they, and why should I care?
More on the Carlyle Group:
http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/people.htm
http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn20010306.html (good realaudio
introduction by pacifica here)
"It owns so many companies that it is now in effect one of the nation's
largest defense contractors and a force in global telecommunications. By
knowing where the deals lie, and having access to the people who cut them,
Carlyle has bought up health care companies, real estate, Internet
companies, a bottling company and even Le Figaro, the French newspaper."
http://www.redherring.com/vc/2002/0111/947.html
"In running what its own marketing literature spookily calls "a vast,
interlocking, global network of businesses and investment professionals"
that operates within the so-called iron triangle of industry, government,
and the military, the Carlyle Group leaves itself open to any number of
conflicts of interest and stunning ironies. For example, it is hard to
ignore the fact that Osama bin Laden's family members, who renounced their
son ten years ago, stood to gain financially from the war being waged
against him until late October, when public criticism of the relationship
forced them to liquidate their holdings in the firm. Or consider that U.S.
president George W. Bush is in a position to make budgetary decisions that
could pad his father's bank account. But for the Carlyle Group, walking that
narrow line is the art of doing business at the murky intersection of
Washington politics, national security, and private capital; mastering it
has enabled the group to amass $12 billion in funds under management. But
while successful in the traditional private-equity avenue of corporate
buyouts, Carlyle has recently set its sites on venture capital with less
success. The firm is finding that all the politicians in the world won't
help it identify an emerging technology or a winning business model."
http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2001/RRE.Summary.Carlyle.Grou.html
"In late September The Wall Street Journal touched on salient
aspects of the story last month by highlighting the bin Laden family
investments in the Carlyle Group, then dropped it like a hot 'tater.
"Bin Laden Family Could Profit From a Jump In Defense Spending Due
to Ties to U.S. Bank", by Daniel Golden, James Bandler, and Marcus
Walker, The Wall Street Journal, 9/28/01"
(tons o' links here)
http://www.angelfire.com/indie/pearly/htmls/bush-carlyle.html
"But since the start of the "war on terrorism", the firm - unofficially
valued at $13.5bn - has taken on an added significance. Carlyle has become
the thread which indirectly links American military policy in Afghanistan to
the personal financial fortunes of its celebrity employees, not least the
current president's father. And, until earlier this month, Carlyle provided
another curious link to the Afghan crisis: among the firm's
multi-million-dollar investors were members of the family of Osama bin
Laden."
http://www.judicialwatch.org/1685.shtml
"The former president, the father of President Bush, worked for the bin
Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, meeting
with them at least twice. The terrorist leader Osama bin Laden had
supposedly been “disowned” by his family, which runs a multi-billion dollar
business in Saudi Arabia and was a major investor in the senior Bush’s firm.
Other reports have stated his Saudi family have not truly cut off Osama bin
Laden. "
http://www.judicialwatch.org/cases/97/wtccomp.htm
http://www.rense.com/general17/kdks.htm
""Their defense holdings are quite extensive," said Tom Fitton, president of
Judicial Watch, a Washington public interest law firm. "Because of their
investments, they are a major contractor for the Pentagon."
Among Carlyle's holdings is United Defense Industries, a maker of armed
vehicles and weapons, which filed in October to raise up to $300 million in
an initial public offering of its shares.
Judicial Watch filed suit last week to obtain documents shedding light on
Carlyle business activities undertaken by President Bush's father, who
reportedly met with bin Laden's family in Saudi Arabia at least twice prior
to the Sept. 11 attacks. He also has had dealings with a variety of foreign
governments.
"The appearance is awful," Fitton said. "For the father of our current
president to be doing business with foreign governments, there is a clear
conflict of interest."
http://www.spectrezine.org/global/carlyle.htm
"The Corporate Establishment can readily be portrayed as a complex web of
interlinked companies and executives, and the fact that Carlyle holds
ownership stakes in 164 companies and ranks as the eleventh largest defence
contractor in the US further emphasises its pre-eminence within this web,
and the somewhat disproportionate links to the intelligence services listed
above is reflected in its ownership - via BDM International - of the
CIA-front company, Vinnell Corp., which has been operating under contract in
Saudi Arabia since 1975. It is of pertinence to note here (if only to stress
the close relationship between the Administration and the corporate
establishment) that BDM’s President & CEO is one Philip Odeen who served as
Chairman of Clinton’s National Defense Panel. Another filament of this web:
in 1990 George W. Bush - now President - was on the board of directors of
one of Carlyle Group’s subsidiaries, Caterair, an airline catering company."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/01.11F.Arms.Carlyle.htm
"As its reputation grew, so did the group's star-studded management roster.
It added former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. John M. Shalikashvili;
Arthur Levitt, the long-serving former chairman of the Securities and
Exchange Commission; former British Prime Minister John Major; former
Secretary of State Baker; and former President Bush (Carlyle officers say
the elder Bush's principal role is as "a draw": delivering speeches at
Carlyle-sponsored events).
Last February, the California Public Employees' Retirement System announced
it was investing $425 million in "a strategic partnership" with Carlyle.
Even the company owned by Osama bin Laden's estranged billionaire family in
Saudi Arabia was among Carlyle's clients--a mere $2-million investment that
Carlyle said it bought out after Sept. 11 "for image reasons," Ullman said.
He declined to say whether the Bin Ladens made a profit."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/may2001/carl-m16.shtml
"Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity,
commented, “Carlyle is as deeply wired into the current administration as
they can possibly be. George Bush is getting money from private interests
that have business before the government, while his son is president. And,
in a really peculiar way, George W. Bush could, some day, benefit
financially from his own administration's decisions, through his father's
investments.”"
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/10_09_01_carlyle.html
"In a world now filled with biowarfare agents, backpack nuclear devices, and
chemical weapons like Sarin gas -- where there are people in many countries
with reasons to oppose the United States -- the Bush Administration is
following predictable strategies in a way that redefines the concept of
brinksmanship. Human survival may depend upon the will and the ability of
both the Congress and the press to focus on these relationships and to take
appropriate action. Moreover - and I am not the first to say this - if a
national security priority is to seize the financial assets of those who
support terrorists, then perhaps we should start right here at home."
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/10_26_01_binladensbail.html
"FTW, Oct. 26, 2001, 1700 PDT - The New York Times is today reporting that,
"The Saudi family of Osama bin Laden is severing its financial ties with the
Carlyle Group, a private investment firm known for its connections to
influential Washington political figures, executives who have been briefed
on the decision said today." Some of those influential figures include
George H.W. Bush and his son, our President."
BONUS!!!
http://www.lpdallas.org/features/draheim/dr991216.htm
Our enemy is really our friend, or, thanks grandpa, or, how the Bush family
and their Boys have profited in the past from manufacturing state enemies
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