Thursday, December 22, 2016

The Billionaires Club

This appointment is not an official government position and [Carl] Icahn will therefore not have to divest of his vast business holdings in order to comply with government-mandated conflict of interest rules.

[...]

Trump had considered him for the post of Treasury secretary but Icahn rejected the suggestions saying: “I’m not ever going to be secretary of anything in Washington.”

  Guardian
Hell no. Not if he had to divest.
“Carl was with me from the beginning and with his being one of the world’s great businessmen, that was something I truly appreciated,” said Trump. Trump said Ichan’s “help on the strangling regulations that our country is faced with will be invaluable”.
The populist government.
Icahn has been a persistent critic of government regulation, most recently “crazy regulations” at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He is a major investor in CVR Energy, an oil refiner, whose business he claims has been harmed by EPA regulations.

[...]

The billionaire, who has a home near Trump’s Palm Beach base, Mar-A-Lago, started his career on Wall Street and has built a reputation as a fierce corporate raider.

[...]

Trump consulted with Icahn before appointing Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general and another EPA critic, to head the agency.

[...]

In the 1990s Icahn was a bondholder in Trump’s failing Taj Mahal casino in New Jersey. Trump was able to keep control [of] the casino despite failing to make payments to Icahn and other bondholders thanks in large part to advice given by another Trump appointee, Wilbur Ross, a billionaire bankruptcy expert and now Trump’s appointed commerce secretary.
It keeps looking like "lock her up" wasn't the only thing that "played well" during the campaign, but doesn't matter now since "I won".

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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