Davos Man, page 43
42. typical French worker was retiring at sixty: “France Economy: Risking the Rage of the Aged,” Economist Intelligence Unit, September 14, 2019.
43. “the Wizard of Oz”: Suzanna Andrews, “Larry Fink’s $12 Trillion Shadow,” Vanity Fair, March 2, 2010.
44. BlackRock had worked: Katrina Brooker, “Can This Man Save Wall Street?” Fortune, October 29, 2008.
45. He told Paulson and Geithner: Henry M. Paulson, Jr., On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System (New York: Hachette, 2013), Chapter Five.
46. the solidity of Lehman Brothers: Andrew Ross Sorkin, Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), Chapter Seven.
47. a gaping conflict of interest: Liz Rappaport and Susanne Craig, “BlackRock Wears Multiple Hats,” Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2009, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124269131342732625.
48. “Our clients trust us”: Ibid.
49. regular at San Pietros: Sorkin, op. cit.
50. Macron hosted Fink: Luc Peillon and Jacques Pezet, “Est-il vrai que Macron a rencontré le groupe BlackRock, spécialisé dans les fonds de pension?” Liberation, September 12, 2019, https://www.msn.com/fr-fr/actualite/france/est-il-vrai-que-macron-a-rencontr%C3%A9-le-groupe-blackrock-sp%C3%A9cialis%C3%A9-dans-les-fonds-de-pension/ar-BBXZWcc?ocid=sf&fbclid=IwAR0MPKkgRDwGIYdP_jLlvuvRtmenK3vm0yRzpSuA5mQyeu7NoZKq9SdKw.
51. His schedule included a dinner with Fink: Sophie Fay, “Larry Fink, the $5.4 Trillion Man,” L’Obs, June 28, 2017.
52. BlackRock helped organize a summit: Odile Benyahia-Kouider, “Comment L’Elysée a déroulé le tapis rouge au roi de Wall Street,” Le Canard Enchaîné, October 26, 2017.
53. he collected more than £600,000: Jill Treanor and Rowena Mason, “Buy, George? World’s Largest Fund Manager Hires Osborne as Adviser,” Guardian, January 20, 2017.
54. moving perhaps one thousand jobs: Stephen Morris and Richard Partington, “Brexit: HSBC May Move 20% of Its London Banking Operations to Paris, Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver Says,” Independent, January 18, 2017, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-latest-news-hsbc-bank-move-20-cent-fifth-london-banking-operations-paris-chief-executive-stuart-gulliver-a7532711.html.
55. “At the center of our mission”: Chad Bray, “Former Top British Official to Join BlackRock as an Adviser,” New York Times, January 20, 2017.
56. 5 percent of French savings: Liz Alderman, “A Wall Street Giant Is Fueling Anticapitalist Fervor in France,” New York Times, February 15, 2020, p. A1.
57. protestors stormed BlackRock’s office: Ibid.
58. “We deplore the fact”: Ibid.
Chapter 6: “Every Stone I Looked Under Was a Blackstone”
1. “The financialization of housing”: Letter to Schwarzman from Surya Deva, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on the issue of human rights, and Leilani Farha, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, United Nations, March 22, 2019, https://www.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/WopiFrame.aspx?sourcedoc=/Documents/Issues/Housing/Financialization/OL_OTH_17_2019.pdf&action=default&DefaultItemOpen=1.
2. Swedish women to work: Marten Blix, Digitalization, Immigration and the Welfare State (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017), 19.
3. “Frugality drives innovation”: Brian Smale, “Bezos on Innovation,” Bloomberg Businessweek, April 17, 2008.
4. miners put stock in the Nordic Model: Peter S. Goodman, “The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine,” New York Times, December 28, 2017, p. A1, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/business/the-robots-are-coming-and-sweden-is-fine.html.
5. flying economy class: Robert D. McFadden, “Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA Founder Who Built a Global Empire Through Thrift, Dies at 91,” New York Times, January 29, 2018, p. A1.
6. secondhand clothes: Giulia Crouch, “Father of Flat-Pack ‘Stingy’ IKEA Founder Ingvar Kamprad, Worth £54billion, Was as Cheap as His Furniture, Bought Clothes in Flea Markets and Drove a 20-Year-Old Volvo,” Scottish Sun, January 28, 2018, p. 20.
7. showing up unannounced: McFadden, op. cit.
8. participation in a fascist group: Ibid.
9. “His philosophy throughout the years”: Johan Stenebo, The Truth About IKEA: The Secret Behind the World’s Fifth Richest Man and the Success of the Flatpack Giant (United Kingdom: Gibson Square, 2010), Chapter Nine.
10. “symbolic sums”: Ibid.
11. Kamprad returned home: Jens Hansegard, “IKEA Founder to Return Home,” Wall Street Journal Europe, June 28, 2013, p. 20.
12. reduction in government revenue: Blix, op. cit., 25.
13. slashing public spending: Claes Belfrage and Markus Kallifatides, “Financialisation and the New Swedish Model,” Cambridge Journal of Economics 2018, 882.
14. average rate of unemployment: Gregg M. Olsen, “Half Empty or Half Full? The Swedish Welfare State in Transition,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, May 1, 1999.
15. inflation spread: Andreas Bergh, “The Swedish Economy,” Milken Institute Review, January 1, 2017.
16. Sweden’s central bank lifted interest rates: Blix, op. cit., 24.
17. unemployment rate was above 8 percent: Olsen, op. cit.
18. the government slashed public sector jobs: Ibid.
19. Sweden reduced job training: Ibid.
20. they would pay for themselves: Blix, op. cit., 26.
21. 8,700-acre country estate: Dan Alexander, “Meet the 10 Billionaire Tycoons Who Rule Their Countries’ Economies,” Forbes, March 14, 2014.
22. an entire English village: Tristan Cork, “Swedish Clothes Tycoon Adds Historic Estate to Portfolio,” Western Daily Press, March 19, 2013, p. 8.
23. 8,500-acre manor: Murray Wardrop, “Swedish H&M Boss Stefan Persson ‘to Buy Entire Hampshire Village,’” Telegraph, May 24, 2009.
24. Incomes in Sweden were widening: Jon Pareliussen, Christophe Andre, Hugo Bourrousse, and Vincent Koen, “Income, Wealth and Equal Opportunities in Sweden,” OECD Economics Department Working Papers, No. 1394, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/income-wealth-and-equal-opportunities-in-sweden_e900be20-en.
25. poverty doubled: Ibid., 11.
26. one in four young adults: Anneli Lucia Tostar, “Young Adults and the Stockholm Housing Crisis: Falling Through the Cracks in the Foundation of the Welfare State,” Master’s Thesis, Royal Institute of Technology, 7.
27. “I grew up in the middle-class suburbs”: Stephen A. Schwarzman, What It Takes (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019), Prologue (Made, Not Born).
28. “I’m a very happy man”: Ibid., Chapter One.
29. “that will make a great difference”: Ibid., Chapter Two.
30. started at the lowest rungs: David Carey and John E. Morris, King of Capital: The Remarkable Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone (New York: Crown Publishing, 2010), Chapter Seven.
31. her family’s Park Avenue apartment: Schwarzman, op. cit., Chapter Two.
32. cultivated a bond: Ibid.
33. poster child, Michael Milken: Laurie P. Cohen, “About Face: How Michael Milken Was Forced to Accept the Prospect of Guilt,” Wall Street Journal, April 23, 1990, p. A1.
34. he paid $37 million: James B. Stewart, “The Birthday Party,” The New Yorker, February 4, 2008.
35. neighbors in the building: Aaron Glantz, Homewreckers, op. cit., Chapter Five.
36. “I love houses”: Stewart, op. cit.
37. $78 billion in assets: Ibid.
38. shield $3.7 billion in income: David Cay Johnston, “Blackstone Devises Way to Avoid Taxes on $3.7 Billion,” New York Times, July 13, 2007.
39. spending $3,000 on groceries: Henny Sender and Monica Langley, “Buyout Mogul: How Blackstone’s Chief Became $7 Billion Man—Schwarzman Says He’s Worth Every Penny; $400 for Stone Crabs,” Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2007, p. A1.
40. full-length portrait of the birthday boy: Stewart, op. cit.
41. guests included: Michael Flaherty, “Blackstone CEO Gala Sign of Buyout Boom,” Reuters, February 14, 2007.
42. “a celebration with six hundred people”: Schwarzman, op. cit., Chapter Nineteen.
43. dressed up as Marie Antoinette: Glantz, op. cit., Chapter Eleven.
44. “We are the rich”: Ibid.
45. “I don’t feel like a wealthy person”: Stewart, op. cit.
46. “the Blackstone bill”: Alec MacGillis, “The Billionaire’s Loophole,” The New Yorker, March 7, 2016.
47. Another bill in the House: Stewart, op. cit.
48. nearly $5 million on lobbying: MacGillis, “The Billionaire’s Loophole,” op. cit.
49. Schumer deployed a novel means: Ibid.
50. auctions held on courthouse steps: Glantz, op. cit., Chapter Twelve.
51. “Once we fixed up the houses”: Schwarzman, op. cit., Chapter 22.
52. Invitation invited them to pay: Michelle Conlin, “Uneasy Living: Spiders, Sewage and a Flurry of Fees—The Other Side of Renting a House from Wall Street,” Reuters, July 27, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-housing-invitation.
53. celebrated the bond issue: Glantz, op. cit., Chapter Seventeen.
54. more than doubling its initial stake: Patrick Clark, “Blackstone Exits Single-Family Rental Bet Slammed by Warren,” Bloomberg, November 21, 2019.
55. a leading Swedish investment bank: “Enskilda Securities and the Blackstone Group to Cooperate on North American/Scandinavian M&A,” Business Wire, October 11, 1995.
56. Jacob Wallenberg: Richard Milne, “Meet the Wallenbergs,” Financial Times, June 5, 2015.
57. Blackstone plunked down $287 million: “Blackstone Obtains All Approvals for Purchase of 32% Interest in Sweden’s D Carnegie & Co,” SeeNews Nordic, August 25, 2016.
58. upped its stake: Stephanie Linhardt, “The Direct Approach,” The Banker, May 1, 2018.
59. Blackstone sold its stake: “Real Estate Firm Vonovia Buys Majority Stake in Sweden’s Hembla for $1.26 Billion,” Reuters, September 23, 2019.
60. “unwavering focus on its tenants”: Anthon Näsström, “Blackstone Sells Its 61 Percent Stake in Hembla to Vonovia,” Nordic Property News, September 23, 2019.
Chapter 7: “They Are Now Licking Their Lips”
1. Three-fourths of the benefits: “Corporate Tax Cut Benefits Wealthiest, Loses Needed Revenue, and Encourages Tax Avoidance,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/corporate-tax-cut-benefits-wealthiest-loses-needed-revenue-and-encourages-tax.
2. Americans earning between: Reconciliation Recommendations of the Senate Committee on Finance, Congressional Budget Office, November 26, 2017, https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/costestimate/reconciliationrecommendationssfc.pdf.
3. “When you put all these pieces together”: Peter S. Goodman and Patricia Cohen, “It Started as a Tax Cut. Now It Could Change American Life,” New York Times, November 30, 2017, p. A1.
4. as steel prices climbed: Don Lee, “Trump’s Steel Tariffs Were Supposed to Save the Industry. They Made Things Worse,” Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2019, https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-10-29/steel-industry-faces-a-bleaker-future-than-when-trump-moved-to-rescue-it.
5. his access to Trump and President Xi: Michael Kranish, “Trump’s China Whisperer: How Billionaire Stephen Schwarzman Has Sought to Keep the President Close to Beijing,” Washington Post, March 13, 2018.
6. Fink also served as a go-between: Lingling Wei, Bob Davis, and Dawn Lim, “China Has One Powerful Friend Left in the U.S.: Wall Street,” Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2020.
7. “There may be retaliation”: Victor Reklaitis, “Jamie Dimon Says Trump’s Tariff Plan Is ‘the Wrong Way’ to Tackle Trade Problems,” MarketWatch, March 8, 2018.
8. a $250,000 gift to his inauguration: Michela Tindera, “The Majority of Donald Trump’s Billionaire Donors Didn’t Give to His 2016 Campaign,” Forbes, May 15, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/05/15/the-majority-of-donald-trumps-billionaire-donors-didnt-give-to-his-2016-campaign/#33c57b404340.
9. This was what $9 million could buy: Laura M. Holson, “Camels, Acrobats and Team Trump at a Billionaire’s Gala,” New York Times, February 14, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/fashion/stephen-schwarzman-billionaires-birthday-draws-team-trum p.html.
10. “That was then”: Robert Schmidt and Ben Brody, “Dimon’s Challenge: Making Staid CEO Club a Lobbying Power,” Bloomberg, March 14, 2017.
11. “America’s outdated tax system”: Business Roundtable television advertisement, “Slowest Recovery,” August 4, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwjiuZihT4U.
12. “Not only will this tax plan pay for itself”: Kate Davidson, “Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin: GOP Tax Plan Would More Than Offset Its Cost,” Wall Street Journal, September 28, 2017.
13. University of Chicago surveyed: IGM Economic Experts Panel, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, November 21, 2017, http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/tax-reform-2.
14. Two years after the tax cuts: Peter Cary, “Republicans Passed Tax Cuts—Then Profited,” Center for Public Integrity, January 24, 2020, https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/taxes/trumps-tax-cuts/republicans-profit-congress.
15. companies used their windfall: Matt Egan, “Corporate America Gives Out a Record $1 Trillion in Stock Buybacks,” CNN Business, December 17, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/17/investing/stock-buybacks-trillion-dollars/index.html.
16. a record $1.3 trillion in dividends: Cary, op. cit.
17. more than triple the total earnings: Sarah Anderson, “How Wall Street Drives Gender and Race Pay Gaps,” Inequality.org, March 26, 2019, https://inequality.org/great-divide/wall-street-bonus-pool-2019.
18. “The economy is ripping”: Jordan Novet, “Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: The Economy Is ‘Ripping,’” CNBC, September 25, 2018.
19. “The survival of our entire civilization”: Peter Baker and Peter S. Goodman, “Trump and Davos: Not Exactly Best Friends, but Not Enemies Either,” New York Times, January 25, 2018, p. A1.
Chapter 8: “They Are Not Interested in Our Concerns”
1. Americans spent $3.8 trillion: Rabah Kamal, Daniel McDermott, Giorlando Ramirez, and Cynthia Cox, “How Has U.S. Spending on Healthcare Changed over Time?” Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spending-healthcare-changed-time/#item-start.
2. emergency rooms were uniquely attractive: Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt, “Private Equity and Surprise Medical Billing,” Institute for New Economic Thinking, September 4, 2019, https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/private-equity-and-surprise-medical-billing#_edn12.
3. “an immense opportunity”: Schwarzman, op. cit., Chapter 10.
4. more than $833 billion: Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt, “Private Equity Buyouts in Healthcare: Who Wins, Who Loses?” Institute for New Economic Thinking, March 25, 2020, https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/private-equity-buyouts-in-healthcare-who-wins-who-loses.
5. “the same value-extraction strategy”: Eileen Appelbaum, “How Private Equity Makes You Sicker,” The American Prospect, October 7, 2019.
6. roughly one of every three: Appelbaum and Batt, op. cit.
7. This resulted in charges: Zack Cooper, Fiona Scott Morton, and Nathan Shekita, “Surprise! Out-of-Network Billing for Emergency Care in the United States,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 23623, July 2017, p. 4, https://www.nber.org/papers/w23623.
8. hassled by collection agents: Wendi C. Thomas, Maya Miller, Beena Raghavendran, and Doris Burke, “This Doctors Group Is Owned by a Private Equity Firm and Repeatedly Sued the Poor Until We Called Them,” ProPublica, November 27, 2019, https://www.propublica.org/article/this-doctors-group-is-owned-by-a-private-equity-firm-and-repeatedly-su ed-the-poor-until-we-called-them.
9. “These higher payment rates”: Cooper, Morton, and Shekita, op. cit. 3.
10. billed at out-of-network rates: Ibid., 54.
11. one-third increase: Ibid., 23.
12. more than $28 million: Margot Sanger-Katz, Julie Creswell, and Reed Abelson, “Mystery Solved: Private-Equity-Backed Firm Are Behind Ad Blitz on ‘Surprise Billing,’” New York Times, September 14, 2019, p. B3.
13. 170 hospitals shuttered: Andrew W. Maxwell, H. Ann Howard, and George H. Pink, “Geographic Variation in the 2018 Profitability of Urban and Rural Hospitals,” NC Rural Health Research Program, April 2020.
