The ascension of Carlyle Group founder David M. Rubenstein to the National Gallery’s board of trustees–the Washington Post now identifies him simply as “Philanthropist David M. Rubenstein”, though at ARTnews he’s just a “macher”–marks perhaps the final wash cycle in the laundering of his old reputation as a defense industry leveraged buyout greenmailer. Everybody loves a generous billionaire, indeed. Carlyle’s fortunes skyrocketed when Rubenstein had the brilliant idea of bringing former defense secretary Frank Carlucci, former secretary of state James Baker, former budget director Richard Darman, and George H.W. Bush into the firm’s business of using investors’ money and bank loans to buy and sell companies for profit. In the defense industry, the value of these companies derived from one source: the U.S. Treasury, i.e. the American taxpayer. Other maybe helpful employees included former British prime minister John Major, former Philippines president Fidel V. Ramos and the former prime ministers of Thailand and South Korea. Michael Lewis called them “access capitalists.” This interesting strategy came crashing down on September 11, 2001, when Carlyle hosted a business conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington with guests who included a member of the bin Laden family. Bush had addressed the group on September 10. So it goes–every businessman has good days and bad days.
This is all as American as muskrat pie, of course. No one who attends or works at a private American university, as I do, wants to look too closely at the names on the walls. (Who remembers that the Mellon family of National Gallery renown was one of Carlyle’s most important early investors?) The fawning of deans and development officers over rich alumni makes the campus air reek like a frat house barroom on Sunday morning. The only way around this slough would be to fund colleges and museums publicly, as is done in France. That wouldn’t make everything squeaky clean, but it might unplug the giant front-loader that spins a lot of lucre into posh trusteeships via tax-deductible gifts.
This is the way online cialis generic the muscles get the extra blood that supplies the effect of the medicine so that they get over it very soon so that it can recover its investment. Doctors lowest cost of viagra will first determine the actual cause of the problem. Symptoms of COPD can be very distressing and the known symptoms of the disease include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and production of a high degree india sildenafil of association with macular degeneration and impotence. viagra 100 mg opacc.cv Check their effectiveness and safety before choosing the product.