Economic analyst Steven Rattner on Monday shared a pie chart showing that all but 1% of the $3 billion in investments in former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s private equity firm Affinity Partners came from foreign sources after he “spent much of his White House tenure cozying up” to Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman. The Saudis invested $2 billion in Kushner’s fund while the United Arab Emirates and Qatar each added another $200 million. About $625 million came from other non-U.S. sources while only $31 million came from sources inside the U.S. Rattner told MSNBC that he’s “never seen this” in 40 years in the business.

“I’ve never seen somebody get two-thirds of their money from a single investor. Usually a single investor might be a few percent of the fund, might be 5 percent, occasionally 10 percent,” he said. While Kushner has hired some people for his fund, “I’ve seen nothing else about what he’s actually done with the money,” Rattner continued.

“It is normal to invest this money over a period of several years, so I don’t think we can draw a firm conclusion yet. But, again, we’re going back to a guy who’s a real estate guy, and frankly, not a particularly good one at that, who’s suddenly got $3 billion trying to do private equity deals competing against people who’ve been in this business for a long time. And I wouldn’t, if I were the Saudis, count on making a lot of money from this any time soon,” he said, adding: “U.S. private equity firms still raise the vast bulk of their money from U.S. investors. This is extraordinary — unprecedented — I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  • @bauhaus@lemmy.ml
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    210 months ago

    I’m not so big on the “cleansing flames” part, but I agree with the rest.

    • @Sanctus@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It meant we’re so entangled with this shit that undoing it would unravel the world. And every elite is drinking from their own glass, they truly believe they do no harm.

      • @bauhaus@lemmy.ml
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        110 months ago

        they truly believe they do no harm.

        eh… I don’t believe that. maybe some of them might, but I refuse o believe they’re all so oblivious to the harm they cause and that at least some of them aren’t enjoying it.

        • @Sanctus@lemmy.world
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          310 months ago

          They aren’t oblivious. They justify it in their own minds. Maybe I’m saying that because I don’t want to believe we built a society that turns psychopaths into gods.

          • @bauhaus@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            I don’t want to believe we built a society that turns psychopaths into gods.

            you mean capitalism?

            edit: sorry, I don’t mean to sound glib

            • @Sanctus@lemmy.world
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              410 months ago

              Don’t mind the libertarians booing you. Its obvious a society built on individualism and man-eat-man would turn to this. I still don’t want to believe this is the best we could come up with.

              • @bauhaus@lemmy.ml
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                310 months ago

                libertarians, you say? is that what the nazis are calling themselves this week?

                I’m well past caring what strangers on the internet think of me, trying to hurt my feelings with imaginary internet points.