Word: moneyitis
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Over the past decade, some 3,000 U.S. companies have been bought by private-equity firms. Their M.O.? Suck up companies with borrowed money, make them more efficient and then resell, turning a profit in the process. These days, nearly 1 in 10 nongovernmental employees works for a private equity-owned company, and that, says longtime industry reporter Josh Kosman, is a big problem. In his new book, The Buyout of America: How Private Equity Will Cause the Next Great Credit Crisis, Kosman argues that private-equity firms not only pillage the companies they buy, but also put the broader...
...Most of the federal stimulus money is disbursed via states and counties, and the outlook for minorities does seem better once the dollars reach more local levels. Miami-Dade County's Public Works Department has kept its so far $25 million worth of stimulus projects relatively small, and therefore more accessible to minority contractors, to ensure its own 10% DBE participation goal. On some projects Miami-Dade has even 100% DBE involvement. For now, the county is using what stimulus money it can earmark for transit purposes to purchase a fleet of BRT (bus rapid transit) buses that will...
...track records, minority-business advocates like John Powell, director of the Kirwan Institute, which studies race and ethnicity issues, feel that additional stimulus billions should be pushed more directly to the local level, where it stands a better chance of boosting poor minority areas. "These communities see tons of money moving around, but they fear it's passing them by," says Powell, noting that many, if not most, U.S. municipalities don't yet know how to access stimulus funds for basic green projects like home weatherization and biofuel stations. (See pictures of the effects of global warming...
...Powell thinks it's only fair that more stimulus money finds its way to minority communities, since much of today's economic disaster can be traced to those areas being lavished with subprime mortgages. Despite recovery.gov, the federal website designed for tracing stimulus outlays, Powell argues, "We need to put how this is playing out under a larger magnifying glass, make it more transparent." If not, he warns, "we'll have the irony of the first black President presiding over the greatest economic restructuring in decades, but it could actually end up worsening the racial disparity." Whether or not that...
...acquaintance Rs. 50,000 (about $1,000) to buy admission to a college in Bangalore, and used his student ID to allay police suspicions while he was crossing from Kashmir to Bangalore - even as he was bringing a cache of weapons in by train. When he ran out of money, his handlers arranged to have funds sent to him through India's unregulated network of cash-transfer, or hawala, traders. For the equivalent of $2, an Indian, who had bought the right to smuggle jackfruit across the Bangladesh border, arranged for him to cross without documents to that country...