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☆ The ‘Gilded Age’ Myth, Then and Now
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Phil Gramm | Amity Shlaes | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Today the roles have reversed, with Democrats refusing to negotiate, preferring to smear the 'MAGA Republican' opposition as 'extreme.' Images: Zuma Press/AFP via Getty Images Composite: Mark KellyEverything old is new again, and blaming the rich for America’s woes is no exception. That era has been damned with a pejorative label: the Gilded Age. That thinking has re-emerged in the Democratic Party today, though this time it has its sights set on our economy’s tech giants. The wealth created by industrialization, modern finance and communication has reduced poverty, elevated material well-being and promoted general prosperity.

☆ Elon Musk once praised a rocket CEO who didn't go to college for beating Jeff Bezos to orbit, new book reveals: 'Bezos has spent a shitload of money, and he hasn't made it'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Britney Nguyen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A new book reveals Elon Musk once praised a rival New Zealand rocket CEO in a 2018 phone call. Musk said it was "impressive" that Rocket Lab launched a rocket into orbit before Blue Origin, per the book. Like SpaceX, Rocket Lab has been able to launch rockets into orbit — something Bezos' Blue Origin company has not yet achieved. In March, Rocket Lab launched its 35th Electron rocket just a week after launching its 34th Electron rocket. Neither Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, nor Musk responded to Insider's requests for comment.

☆ Edward H. Meyer, Who Built an Advertising Empire, Dies at 96
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Alex Williams | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Edward H. Meyer, an empire-building chief executive who, using an iron-willed management style and a laser focus on even the smallest details, transformed a midsize New York advertising agency into the global power known as Grey Group, died on Tuesday at his apartment in Manhattan. Mr. Meyer joined Grey Advertising, as it was then known, as an account-services executive in 1956, when the agency was billing about $34 million a year. He was named president in 1968 and assumed the reins as chairman and chief executive in 1970. As a manager, Mr. Meyer was anything but passive. Demanding performance at all levels, he had an uncompromising drive that inspired comparisons to corporate barons like Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone.

The seafront used to be lined with Atafona’s grandest houses, the summer residences of wealthy sugar cane barons. They were the first to go, said Joca Delbons, one of the few real-estate agents who has stuck it out in Atafona. He said there is still demand farther inland, either from those who were evicted by the sea or by investors hoping to buy cheap and sell for a big profit if there is ever a solution to halt the waters.

☆ Why Blackouts, Power Outages Are Becoming More Common
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Taylor Dorrell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Power outages have increased 64% from the early 2000s, and weather-related outages — many driven by the worsening climate crisis — have increased 78%. A record-breaking blizzard in Buffalo, New York, this winter caused power outages throughout the city, resulting in the deaths of 47 residents. In 2021, a heat wave led to power outages and the deaths of hundreds in the Pacific Northwest. While regional organizations might use fees to penalize companies for power outages, it's now much harder to pinpoint and hold a person or entity responsible. In the meantime, the climate crisis will continue to wreak havoc on an aging grid system that puts profits over reliability.

☆ SAP ends pointless M&A roundtrip with Qualtrics
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Karen Kwok | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

For SAP Chief Executive Christian Klein, an exit would cap a relatively pointless M&A roundtrip. In theory, SAP could have supercharged the groups’ combined revenue by offering its software to Qualtrics’ customers and vice versa. Silver Lake, a specialist in tech buyouts, is well-placed to keep that growing. One potential hiccup is that Qualtrics’ fairly paltry EBITDA limits how much debt Silver Lake can use. SAP paid $8 billion in cash for Qualtrics in 2018, and subsequently offloaded a minority stake through an initial public offering in 2021.

☆ Berlinale film marks Chinese star Fan Bingbing's return to cinema
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( James Imam | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/4] Cast member Fan Bingbing attends a news conference during the promotion of 'Green Night' at the 73rd Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, February 23, 2023. Her reappearance also spotlighted the return of Chinese-language film to the international stage, as mainland China and Hong Kong have eased zero-COVID policies, allowing for international travel. Featuring both Mandarin and Korean dialogue, the film is one of several from China and Hong Kong receiving world premieres at the Berlinale. In "Green Night", Fan plays the role of Jin Xia, a Chinese immigrant working as a security guard at Seoul airport. Chinese cinema is showing signs of thriving in Berlin, Fan said.

☆ Buyout barons reach deep into their bags of tricks
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Jonathan Guilford | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

NEW YORK, Feb 15 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Debt necessity is proving to be the mother of private equity invention. With the cheap borrowing that fueled record-breaking years of leveraged buyouts gone, firms are digging deeper into their bags of tricks. Private equity firm Silver Lake, which bought a stake alongside the IPO, said it might take control. Besides putting private equity firms into weaker negotiating positions, the competing incentives also threaten conflicts of interest with limited partners. ...THERE’S A WAYIf the U.S. Federal Reserve avoids engineering a recession, private equity should be able to revert to its tried-and-true formula soon enough.

LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - This Valentine's Day is set to look different after a year of record food inflation that has sent up prices of everything from flowers to chocolates and dining in restaurants. Last year, British restaurant chain PizzaExpress offered a three-course set menu complete with "a prosecco and raspberry mimosa, heart-shaped dough balls and a main, such as our Padana, with creamy goat’s cheese and sweet caramelised onion". This year, PizzaExpress is advertising a slightly less impressive "love bundle" of a starter and a "classic" pizza for 15 pounds. Reuters GraphicsThe nation's supermarkets are seeking to cash in, keepingprices for their Valentine's Day meal-deals stable in the hope of luring customers from restaurants. Tesco (TSCO.L), whose CEO recently noted that consumers are shifting away from eating out, has reduced the price of its Valentine's Day dinner-for-two to 12 pounds - down from 15 pounds last year - for a main, side dish, dessert and drink.

☆ Inside Ken Griffin's rise to one of Wall Street's most powerful people, and why politics could be next
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Dakin Campbell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +30 min

JB and I are not on speaking terms these days," said Ken Griffin, the billionaire hedge-fund manager, referring to JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois. As Florida rolled back pandemic restrictions more quickly than Chicago, even more Citadel employees migrated south. Ken Griffin's hedge fund has had a run of eye-popping returns since 2020. Others worry that it gives Griffin's hedge fund an unfair advantage. Hundreds of Citadel employees, partners, and families gathered at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando Florida.

☆ Dealmakers will be lucky to eke out a 2022 repeat
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Jeffrey Goldfarb | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

NEW YORK, Dec 29 (Reuters Breakingviews) - As with often value-destructive mergers and acquisitions, the numbers aren’t adding up for dealmakers. Meanwhile, deal volume tumbled to about $3.5 trillion, 36% down from the same time a year earlier, though it stayed ahead of 2020’s pace. Private equity firms already accounted for an all-time high of 22% of deal volume in 2022. As potentially bleak economic circumstances loom, bankers will be lucky to eke out a repeat of 2022. CONTEXT NEWSWorldwide mergers and acquisitions volume for 2022 stood at $3.5 trillion as of Dec. 12, according to Refinitiv data.

☆ Buyout barons will court the panicking masses
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Jonathan Guilford | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Since they’ve already scoured traditional funding sources like pension funds and insurers, they’ll make a priority of tapping wealthy individuals in 2023. Even those slower to embrace the trend, like Carlyle (CG.O), are getting about 10% of inflows from individuals. Pension plans and other stalwarts have seen their stocks and bonds slump in value, potentially leaving them overexposed to buyout funds, private credit, real estate and infrastructure. These investors don’t always have the resources or stomach to lock up their money for half a decade or longer. Third-party platforms like Moonfare are proliferating, pooling retail capital into vehicles that buy stakes in buyout funds.

☆ Cryptocurrencies at crossroads after annus horribilis
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Vidya Ranganathan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

SINGAPORE, Dec 20 (Reuters) - To borrow from Britain's Queen Elizabeth, 2022 is not a year on which the cryptocurrency world shall look back with undiluted pleasure. Crashes, contagion, collapses came in such quick succession that investors were, towards the end of the year, asking serious existential questions. After all, the largest cryptocurrency, bitcoin , has not kept its head above water for more than a week at a time, and is down about three-quarters from last November's $69,000 peak. What some saw as the final nail in the crypto coffin was the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange last month. Rather, 2022 has become the "I-told-you-so" case for regulators, who've largely maintained an arm's length from the crypto world or even banned trading in cryptocurrencies.

☆ Meet 30 rising stars of real estate who are transforming the way homes are sold and offices get built at firms like Blackstone, Redfin, and CBRE
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Robert Davis | Dan Latu | Jordan Pandy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Meet Insider's third-annual slate of emerging talent in commercial and residential real estate. We selected 30 young professionals 35 and under whose leadership spans a vast industry. Insider has tried to capture the brightest of the bunch in our third-annual Rising Stars of Real Estate list. But real estate isn't all about making money. Presented in alphabetical order by last name, here are the rising stars of real estate for 2022.

For years, the LGBTQ+ community has had to focus more on survival than wealth-building. Why we need to build wealth in the LGBTQ+ communityIf you hear words like "wealth" and "investing" and cringe, you're not alone. Here's one: Wealth in our culture means security and power, and the LGBTQ+ community can wield those to make a difference. Here are some tips for building wealth within the LGBTQ+ community. Search for fee-only, fiduciary advisors in your ZIP code, and filter for terms like "LGBTQ family."

☆ Petrodollar rush may disappoint Western financiers
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Liam Proud | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Yet Western financiers hoping to share in the spoils of a 1970s-style petrodollar boom will be disappointed. In previous petrodollar booms, energy producers have recycled their windfalls into the Western financial system. These financial flows, known as petrodollar recycling, mean that the money Westerners spend on fuel eventually makes its way back into their economies through energy producers’ financial investments. Either way, it would mean that Westerners miss out on some of the spoils of the new petrodollar boom. A more muted petrodollar boom might not be such a bad thing after all.

☆ How Rupert Murdoch’s Empire of Influence Remade the World
▼ + stars: | 2019-04-03 | by ( Jonathan Mahler | Jim Rutenberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +61 min

Murdoch family, 1987: Lachlan, James, Anna and Rupert. The second season of HBO’s “Succession,” whose fictional media family, the Roys, bears a striking resemblance to the Murdochs, airs this summer. ‘A press dictatorship’To understand how the Murdoch empire works, it is essential to return to its origins. The bigger Murdoch’s empire became, the more power he had to clear away obstacles to further its expansion. Like his father, Lachlan considered the idea of meddling with such an important profit driver a form of madness.

Persons: ‘, Rupert Murdoch, Murdoch, Jerry Hall, Lachlan’s, Lachlan, —, Hall, President Trump, Theresa May, Robert A, consummating, Rupert, Elisabeth, Anna, James, David Graves, Rex, Prudence, Murdoch’s, Patricia Booker, Anna Mann, jockeying, Murdoch didn’t, ” Murdoch, Ron Galella, ‘ I’ve, Graham, Jeff Bezos, William R, Hearst, George Hearst, Ochs, Sulzberger, Arnold Newman, HBO’s, Australia —, “, don’t, Trump, Rutger Bregman, Tucker Carlson, Carlson, — Murdoch, Dow Jones, Bancroft, ’, Keith Murdoch, Keith, Joseph Lyons, Tom Roberts’s, ” Lyons, ”, I’ll, ” Rupert Murdoch, Aubrey Hart, Roberts, ” Keith, Margaret Thatcher’s, Thatcher, revel, John Major, Neil Kinnock, Joseph Stalin, Britain’s, Roy Cohn —, Joseph McCarthy, Ronald Reagan’s, Roger Stone Jr, Murdoch weaponize, Reagan’s, Stone, Reagan, George H.W, Bush, L.A, Ted Turner, Roger Ailes, Nixon, George H.W . Bush, Time Warner, Rudolph W, Giuliani, Post —, Fox, Monica Lewinsky, ” David Frum, George W, Sumner, Peter Mathew, Fairfax, Chase Carey, Talib Kweli, Rawkus, Kathryn Hufschmid, Kathryn, ” Lachlan, Sarah O’Hare, Lachlan doesn’t, Chris Mitchell, — he’d, Wendi Murdoch, Wendi, Jules Stein, Leonardo DiCaprio, James warily, Ivanka Trump, Ivanka’s, Jared Kushner, Kushner, Ivanka, Wendi’s, Donald Trump, Ailes, Rudolph Giuliani’s, Corey Lewandowski, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Bret Baier’s, Baier, Stephen F, Hayes, ” Trump, Tell Hayes, Sean Hannity, Sinclair —, Doug Mills, Megyn Kelly, — “ You’ve, — Trump, Kelly, Charles Krauthammer, John Kasich, James’s, Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, Hillary, Clinton, United States —, Paul Gigot, Obama, Al Drago, Anthony Hilton, Hilton, Rodrigo Duterte, Viktor Orban, europhiles, Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, David Cameron, feckless, Leveson, Robinson, Mick Jagger, Margaret Thatcher, Nigel Farage, Evgeny Lebedev, Carlo Allegri, Murdoch lounging, What’s, lodestar, David Rhodes, Rhodes, Ben Rhodes, Kevin Hagen, he’d, Trump’s, Jeff Rovin, Satan, James Murdoch, Clint Spaulding, Patrick McMullan, James Stavridis Organizations: Northern, Fox News Channel, Sun, European Union —, Downing, Walt Disney Company, Century Fox, Disney, Getty, News Corp, Trust, Washington Post, Hearst Corporation, United, The New York Times, Arnold Newman Properties, Fox, White, Broadway, Fox News, Trump White, Street, Melbourne Herald, Weekly Times, ”, Eugenics Society of Victoria, Oxford, Murdoch, Fleet, The, British government’s, Sky Television, Britain’s “, Labor, Trump, Gov, Reagan’s, New, New York Post, The Boston Herald, CNN, Time, Republican, Post, Pew, Republicans, CBS, Viacom, British Sky Broadcasting, Australia spearfishing, Harvard, The Harvard, Rawkus Records, Princeton, Kawasaki, Hollywood, New York Observer, York mayoral, Fox & Friends, Trump International Golf Club, Gateway, America, New York Times, Clinton Climate Initiative, Labor Party centrist, Pacific Partnership, Tea Party, European Union, Freedom Party, Nazi, London, Press Association, Associated Press, Brexit Times, United Nations, Reuters, Photographers, CBS News, Democrat Locations: Macedonia, Southern, San Francisco, Los Angeles, California, United States, Britain, London, Australia, Australian, Sydney, Lachlan, Davos, New York, Dutch, Iraq, British, Gallipoli, Adelaide, White Australia, Luxembourg, York, George H.W ., Midtown Manhattan, Manhattan, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Indonesia, Oregon, Fiji, Murdoch, Cavan, Beverly Hills, L.A, Caribbean, earshot, West Palm, Des Moines, Iowa, Ohio, Clinton, Trump, Downing, Brussels, Europe, Philippines, Manila, Bangkok, Cannes, “, Trump’s, Scotland, Aberdeen, Ailes’s, Russian

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