WINTER IS COMING I. The votes are in. We’ve elected Rauner to office. And amidst the myriad of grumblings on both my commute and loitering outside the law school, something has pushed its way to the fore: an utter lack of intelligence. Who is this rookie politician? Is he a sinew for good things to come, or a portent omen for how far we’ve fallen? Before beginning with this polemic, I’d like to start with a preface: neither candidate exemplified what one should expect from representative of the people in that neither candidate could ever consider themselves to be an average citizen. So although this may be seen as a liberal admonishment of the newly elected, it is meant more to be a clarion defense on behalf of the middle-class electorate. Read: I am not going to give a position on whether I believe Rauner is a better fit than Quinn; instead, I’m electing to do what neither candidate felt the electorate deserved: I’m going to attempt to inform. In the months preceding the election, I would be surprised if the average laymen could tell you one measure of policy that either candidate stood for, other than they were against the ‘other guy’. Buzzwords and sound bites and ten-word answers have become the standard practice, and labels like “Crook”, “Liar”, and “Failure” are hardly surprising in election years. Attack ads have become a sort of de riguere practice in politics, turning our attention away from the truest issues affecting our electorate. II. Lets begin with the facts, unsettling though they may be. The American Dream is nothing more than a house of cards. It is a hollow platitude, baselessly reinforcing the rags to riches narrative that deceptively led to the idea of America as the land of opportunity. However, America’s wealth is not a testament to picking oneself up by his/her bootstraps. Hard work does not equate to the results the powers-that-be contend it does. No, the self-made man is nothing more than a myth, or else an enigmatic anomaly in an otherwise heralded tale of the importance being born to the right family, gender and race. Consider the following: (1) 17 percent of the Forbes 400 members have other family members on the list. Over 20 percent of those listed on the Forbes 400 inherited a sufficient amount of wealth at birth (all of whom are white).These members hold $346.3 billion in combined wealth. (2) The Forbes 400 members account for nearly two-thirds of our countries wealth, while nearly half the American population retains a negative debt-asset ratio. (3) Blacks and Latinos account for nearly a third of our national electorate, and yet the Forbes 400 is comprised of an overwhelming 96 percent white majority. The current racially unjust economic atmosphere has insuppressibly militated politics, its consequence being felt most heavily by the middle-class and minorities. The Global Wealth Report studies contend the world’s wealth has doubled in ten years, from $113 trillion to $223 trillion, and is expected to reach $330 trillion by 2017. And yet, the income gap between the top and bottom is growing more divisive by the day. The wealth accumulation is being had by white, privileged men, while minority families, who once held a substantial equity of wealth in their housegolds, saw their median wealth fall 66% for Hispanic households and 53% for black households. As noted in the 2011 State of the Dream report, the racial wealth divide remains, both among average Americans—the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households- and the super-rich, evinced by the Forbes 400 demographics. We are one of the most wealth-unequal countries in the world (behind Russia and Ukraine, two countries we really want to be on a list with). In a moving exposé entitled, “Lifting as We Climb”, the Insight Center for Community Economic Development raises a multitude of disconcerting issues. Focused primarily on the wealth disparity of minority women, the article nonetheless posits a bevy of startling statistics. Many people in today’s society are abreast to the earning gap between men and women. We’ve all heard the statistic: a woman today earns a median salary that is 77 percent to that of her male counterpart. Equally startling is the comparisons to Black and Latino median wages. These two are nearly equal to the women-men income gap, so it isn’t only women feeling the effects of subjugation to white men. And that’s only income. Nearly half of America has zero wealth. Note the difference between wealth and income. Income refers to the amount of money received by an individual or household. It usually comes in the form of earnings or wages, but can take other forms as well such as interest on savings or investment accounts, pension benefits, transitional assistance, Social Security, and child support. Wealth, or net worth, refers to the total value of one’s assets minus debts. Typical types of assets include money in checking accounts, stocks or bonds, real estate, and businesses owned. Typical types of debts include home mortgages, credit card debt, and student loans. What am I getting at? The majority of us are growing poorer. And we need this addressed. The majority of us, for whom our liberal democratic republic was erected for, are not being properly represented. Our hard work is not equating to any parcel of the American Dream, by any stretch of the imagination. Tax policy rewards wealth, not work. ‘Investments’, not technology, comprise the largest bloc of wealth source. Financial speculation and predatory lending exceedingly benefit the rich and disparage the poor, and tax codes protect the wealthy and have not helped the middle-class in quite sometime. III. What does this all have to do with Rauner? Although Rauner is not a member of the Forbes 400, he has all the necessary prerequisites. He is a calculated, capitalistic Machiavellian with a cold indifference to the plight of the middle-class man. While Forbes has listed Rauner’s friends and some of his top donors on its annual accounting of billionaire’s worldwide, including Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, Rauner hasn’t appeared on it himself. That’s because he only makes in the mid-nine-figure range (but still a member of the .01 percent range). I’ll let that sink in a moment. Liberals were lambasted when they labeled Bruce Rauner a billionaire. How dare they? Rauner is only estimated to be worth some 500-odd million. And, as the Republicans like to tout, he started as a gas station attendant. This menial beginning is supposed to bolster hope in the minds of the working-class, because Bruce is one of us. He just capitalized on the opportunities given to him when the opportunities presented themselves. What were these opportunities, exactly? How did Bruce make his millions? According to his Bloomberg profile, Bruce Rauner served as the Managing Director, Senior Principal, and Chairman of GTCR LLC/GTCR Capital Partners, L.P. He focused on outsourced business services and worked at GTCR for 30 years. Mr. Rauner was responsible for originating and making new investments, monitoring portfolio companies, and recruiting and training associates. When he left, GTCR was reported to be worth over ten billion dollars. What were some of these companies, and what was his involvement? Rauner contends that he was a hands-on manager, spending weeks with companies before investing and advising aggressive growth strategies. If we are to hold him to his word, discussions of a few of his ‘investments’ are worth noting: (1) In 1998, GTCR co-founded Trans Healthcare Inc., a consolidator of skilled nursing facilities and other post-acute health care In the past few years, however, Trans Healthcare has been the subject of a multitude of negligence lawsuits. Evidence gathered from these lawsuits cite severe corporate greed that led to cutting staff, shuffling money between corporations to buffer from lawsuits, and ultimately insolvency, with the intention to build their empire through a series of mergers and acquisitions with the ultimate goal of taking the company public, cashing out and making a lot of money. And that they did: the victims have never get the money they were awarded because Trans Healthcare went bankrupt. Before doing so, however, they engaged in illegal political contributions, writing 17 ‘donation’ checks to pay for lobbyists who favored tort reform legislation and charging Medicare for the cost of these donations. Mr. Rauner has said he was unaware of such problems. (2) GTCR Bought 54% Of Lason In 1995 For $10 Million. Rauner resigned from the Board of Directors of Lason, Inc. just before the company “imploded amid allegations” that top executives cooked the books to boost the company value. A few months after praising its performance in August of 1999, Rauner resigned from its board of directors six months before his term was set to expire, just as the companys high-flying stock began to crater. In the month following Rauner’s departure, the stock fell 51 percent in a single day when Lason finally disclosed its fudged-earnings. GTCR sold most of its stock before the scandal broke, netting nearly 32 million on top of his initial investment, while other investors lost 285 million due to the fraud. Three top executives plead guilty to fraud and received prison time, and ordered to pay restitution to the other investors in the amount of the 285 million lost; Bruce managed to keep his hands clean. If not for similar scandals at bigger companies like Enron and WorldCom, Lason would be considered one of the worst accounting frauds in American history. Mr. Rauner declines any involvement in impropriety. (3) In 1999, GTCR acquired 40% ownership in CompBenefits in a leverage buyout. To Chicago natives, that name might ring a bell. If it doesn’t, the name Stuart Levine certainly does. Considered one of the most corrupt political insiders Chicago has ever seen, he was commissioned at 25,000 dollars a month viz a viz a contract with a GTCR portfolio subsidiary to obtain work for the company “through whatever means were needed.” The interminable list of scams included bribing city officials, laundering money, embezzling millions of dollars from charities, admitting to stealing 2 million from the children of a friend of his who died and entrusted him with his estate, and hosting a plethora of 24-hour narcotic parties in hotels around Chicago on company dollar. While on the board for the Illinois Teacher’s Retirement System, Levine’s salary from GTRC was never disclosed, by either Levine of Rauner. His compensation was more than what the CEO and President took in for CompBenefits. Levine helped GTCR take 71.5 million dollars in investments. In 2003, Levine was a pivotal component in voting to give GTCR the 50 million dollar investment bid from the TRS Pension Plan, after previously (before Rauner’s involvement in the bid) opposing the bid. Rauner claims to have never met Levine. Bruce Rauners 2013 income was $60.1 million. He poured $26 million of his fortune into this election. And although these case-studies are not indicative of Rauner’s approach to politics, it certainly says something. And who was most affected by these oversights? The elderly, the middle-class, and minorities. I’m not saying Quinn was the better choice. Illinois is one of the worst run states in the Union, and on a macrocosmic level, Pat Quinn has earned his titled as a ‘failure’. But we have failed ourselves just as much as he did us. We’ve elected Bruce Rauner, a man devoid of any quality I’d like to see in someone representing me. But again, that’s why I’m in the minority. At any rate, although we as a state succeeded in not electing the wrong, ‘failed’ man for the job, we didn’t dodge the bullet: Rauner is not the right man for the job, in any encapsulation of the term, and I don’t think anyone realized we simply changed the face and name of the same apathetic machination called capitalism driving our beleaguered lives. The cheers and moans of our electorate are nothing other than the drowned whimpering of hollow men, embodying the woeful lament of T.S. Eliot: “this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.”
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 20:23:03 +0000
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