Thursday, February 18, 2010

Erskine Bowles Day at the White House and the Treasury

In my daily tracking of Treasury Secretary Geithner, I noted that Geithner, in his first public event this morning, will join the President and the Vice President to meet with the co-chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, in the Oval Office.

In the afternoon, Geithner will be in North Carolina where he will join local business and university leaders and elected officials for a discussion of the work being done in the Research Triangle Park.

Alan Prest of PEU Report, in a comment below, provides some of the back story:
Erskine Bowles, the co-chair of Obama's deficit reduction effort, is President of UNC and member of the Research Triangle Institute. He's also a PEU [Private Equity operator] with Carousel Capital, a firm he founded.

Bowles got $102,473 in pay for his board work at Cousins Properties in 2008.

Morgan Stanley gave him $335,000 in board compensation, which included service on the Compensation Committee.Bowles owns 33,000 shares of Cousins and 24,500 of Morgan Stanley. The Obama team loves PEU's. Bowles fits the BlueCorporacrat mold.
Bowles also served as former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton between 1997 and 1998. He currently is a member of the board of directors of, ahem, General Motors.

Bottom line, Bowles is a major inside player that Obama clearly feels very comfortable with. Rather than reducing spending, his real role on the Commission will be to figure out even more ways to rape the taxpayer and shovel money to the financial elite.

1 comment:

  1. Bowles holds $900,000 in Cousins Properties and Morgan Stanley stock. As Carousel Capital is private, his holdings aren't clear. I expect them to be significant as Bowles founded the firm.

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