With the blessing of the CIA, the NSA, the FTC and SEC, private equity firms Carlyle, Apollo and KKR have formed a consortium—a consortium of collusion, if you will—to purchase the distressed country of Russia at a fire sale price.
Putin has let it be known that he has grown weary of his Ukraine-invading-Prigozhin-betraying-schtick and wants out, preferably with a trainload of rubles.
Detecting the scent of Putin’s fear and weakness and recognizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the troika negotiated the purchase for a discounted price of 50 kopecks on the ruble.
David Rubinstein, Founder of the Carlyle group, worth over $11 billion, pulled the deal together with his other robber baron cronies—Marc Rowan of Apollo Management Group and Henry Kravis of KKR, a global investment company. Over the past 30 years, they’ve reaped an obscene harvest by investing in and strip mining companies—loading them up with debt, extracting usurious management fees, cutting benefits, laying off workers, selling their real estate and renting it back to them, selling their pension obligations—and then in five years’ time expressing sadness when the companies have to file for bankruptcy: Toys R Us, Sears, Nieman Marcus, Manor Care nursing homes and Executive Life Insurance of California, to name a few.
“Seeing as how there’s not much left to plunder in the US,” said Rubenstein on a Zoom call to his two comrades, “we’ve fallen into the sweetheart deal of a lifetime: Russia.”
“After we plunder that poor country,” said Mark Rowan, “we can circle back to our goals of privatizing the United States Post Office, which has the largest union in the country, ripe for busting along with salary and benefits cutting. Then there’s the tranche of dollars in Social Security. I drool whenever I think of that.”
“Got that right,” said Henry Kravis. “We need to donate big to Mike Pence because he’s grooming the electorate for changes in Social Security. Initially he spoke in favor privatizing it, which means all the money would flow to us to manage. But lately he’s downshifted a bit by suggesting people could invest a portion of their Social Security in mutual funds, which we also own. Gotta love that guy.”
“If that doesn’t happen we will have to get real jobs because there will be nothing left for us to steal,” laughed Rubinstein.
“What about the Russian People?” said Kravis.
“People? What about them?” said Rubinstein.
“Aren’t they going to lose out in this transaction?”
“They’re Russian,” said Rubinstein. “They’ve been living under Putin and his Oligarchs—they’re used to being abused. They’ll just have to write more angst-riven novels, contrive some extravagant symphonies and add them to the Russian oeuvre. Then maybe they can earn back their rubles by cobbling together a musical and taking it to Broadway: “War and Pieces.”
Financed by Carlyle, Apollo and KKR, of course.
Rosie Sorenson is a humor writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her column is satire and, like Fox “News,” cannot be believed as fact. You can contact her at: RosieSorenson29@ yahoo.com
From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2023
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