Small world:
WASHINGTON -- President Obama has chosen William Daley to serve as his new chief of staff, press secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday morning. (LA Times, Parsons & Nicholas)
This William Daley, Sr. is an executive with JPMorgan Chase, the banking firm which would have partnered with LAZ Parking in leasing Pittsburgh's public parking infrastructure for 40-50 years under Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's thwarted proposal. Mr. Daley chairs JPMorgans executive committee on "corporate responsibility".
Daley's son, Bill Daley Jr., also personally worked on the Pittsburgh deal, but with another investment firm: Morgan Stanley, the city Parking Authority's sales-side consultant:
Morgan Stanley managing director Perry Offutt -- joined by Bill Daley Jr., the nephew of Chicago's mayor -- warned council against approving the study, saying it would possibly scare off investors and cost the city money. (P-G, Timothy McNulty)
And, of course, Daley Sr.'s brother is Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago and its Cautionary Parking Lease experience. And Obama's former chief-of-staff, Rahm Emmanuel, is now running for Mayor of Chicago, so now we have a revolving door.
So who are we running against JPObamastahl in the primaries?
DESIGN NOTE:
How about that! Cropping done separately by Comet.
Dennis Kucinich, in support of Greater Gaseous Pitts.
ReplyDeleteBram,
ReplyDeleteGive it up already.
That Council meeting lasted three hours. Bill Daley Jr didn't say a single word.
ReplyDeleteBram, like any progressive that actually uses his brain I am happy to see you are waking up to the silly hypocrisy that is the Peduto show.
ReplyDeleteP.S. - when will Peduto lead a rally for peace in the middle east?
I wrote a proclamation for peace in the middle east
ReplyDeleteWhat more do you want?
Bram,
ReplyDeleteI am not quite sure how to get into this. But you are conflating some important things. I'll make this personal. I have lots of friends who have worked at JP Morgan in the past. All good folks. Folks I trust.
But what their personal bona fides are has little to do with what the city should expect when they are acting in their capacity as agents for their firm. They will as they must do and act in best interest of their firm.
You're right in a sense.. JPM has likely done nothing wrong (at least in a technical legal sense)in creating the deals for the city that have gone so haywire (such as the PWSA swaps deal to begin with.. and then walking away from the critical credit backing that deal needed to not bankrupt the PWSA). That the city was unable to negotiate a fair deal may be it's own problem, but one JPM took advantage of at the very least. As it stands over at the PWSA now, they are lucky other firms were willing to provide the credit JPM wasn't.. something that probably made economic less sense for them to do than for JP Morgan to have done so.
Personally I think the city would be much better off if any JP Morgan folks came to work for it. They would probably do their job diligently on the city's behalf and I promise you then the city would not get caught up in some of the embarrassing financial predicaments it gets in.. at the very least it would negotiate much better deals than it does now, or has in any recent memory.
Lots of entities and municipalities did very well on swaps.
ReplyDeleteGoldman Sachs is the evil one from what I've read.
ReplyDeleteThere are winners down at the casino as well for all that is worth.
ReplyDeleteBut it is also all the more reason to question why the PWSA was left hanging in such a precarious situation. Still is I think... letters of credit expire this year. Just to anticipate the next tempest everyone will shake their head at and wonder what to do.
Lots of entities and municipalities did very well on swaps.
ReplyDeleteSure they did. Keep telling yourself that.
http://www.wtae.com/news/17859520/detail.html
Chris, I'm not 10000% serious in what I am conflating herein. I just think it's amusing, after the heated rhetoric and the at-times personal attacks made on all things JPMorgan, that our POTUS would be so nonplused. What I'm really looking forward to is the day somebody on Council's progressivish wing proposes doing business with a JPMorgan or a Morgan Stanley for some reason. Maybe I should start another countdown clock...
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm really looking forward to is the day somebody on Council's progressivish wing proposes doing business with a JPMorgan or a Morgan Stanley for some reason.
ReplyDeleteAlready happened. The Council-Controller plan would have involved a big debt restructuring and issuance of new debt. Who do you think does deals like that?