Inside the Deals Running the World The System Behind the Scenes

➡ The text discusses a weight loss peptide called retatrutide, which not only reduces appetite but also burns fat. It also mentions a lawsuit filed against the federal government and Google by the speaker, Sarah Westall, who claims she was unfairly censored and attacked online. Additionally, the text introduces a financial journalist, Max Frumas, who will discuss his book about private equity and bankruptcy, which are important to understand given the current financial climate. Lastly, the speaker emphasizes the importance of independent thinking and rejects the idea of being confined to societal ‘boxes’.
➡ The speaker, Sarah Westall, discusses her legal battle against Google and the federal government for allegedly manipulating search results related to her name and podcast. She claims that her name was associated with inappropriate content, which she believes was an attempt to damage her reputation and business. Sarah is now raising funds to support her case, which she believes will help others facing similar issues. She also discusses the power of tech companies in controlling who can build a business and make money, and criticizes Section 230, a law that provides immunity to these companies.
➡ Private equity firms can be beneficial by helping businesses grow and innovate. However, they can also cause harm when they use excessive debt to maximize their profits, which can lead to businesses struggling to pay off their debts. This can negatively impact employees and the community. Unfortunately, the people who often suffer the most are the average investors, such as those with retirement funds, who invest in these private equity firms.
➡ There are concerns about the growing power of private credit investors like Blue Owl, BlackRock, and Blackstone, who have significant influence over many Fortune 500 companies. This power can potentially lead to damaging effects across the country if not managed responsibly. There’s fear of another crisis similar to the mortgage crisis due to questionable credit quality and potential defaults. The situation is further complicated by the fact that these large fund managers don’t always exercise their power, leading to a lack of control over decisions made by publicly traded companies.
➡ The speaker discusses the changes in Chicago, where the control has shifted from the mob to MBAs and lawyers. They argue that while this shift has brought more resources and better education systems, it has also led to a loss of culture and character. They also express concern about the misuse of power, where those in control exploit the system at the expense of those who can’t. The speaker also mentions the importance of understanding the world of distressed debt investing and bankruptcy restructuring, as it is a significant part of how businesses operate today.
➡ Companies like Purdue Pharma use Chapter 11 bankruptcy to settle with victims of crises like the opioid epidemic. This method, originally intended to control fraud and corruption, has been taken to extremes. Bankruptcy allows businesses to transform, renew, and even take over without liquidating. The book “Caesar’s Palace Coup” discusses this in detail and is available at major bookstores and online.

Foreign. How can you be doing so good if you are like making that much money? It’s coming from somewhere, right? It’s like oh yeah, it’s very hard to say. Like oh, you know what, Like I, you know, I leveraged this company to the hilt. I extracted all these dividends. I, you know, I paid myself, you know, so many millions or billions from, you know, from doing that. And that’s all just because I have contributed to the industry and also I’m taxed at capital gains which is less than, you know, your average dishwasher. Just a short break from the program to share with you an amazing peptide to help you lose weight.

It’s stronger than Ozempic and why it’s because it not only reduces your appetite but it also burns fat. These other GLP1s on the market, they do not burn fat, they just reduce your appetite. This one retatrutide is stronger. It’s considered a next generation peptide because of that. And man, does this work. I’ve been using it for two and a half weeks and I’ve already lost 11 pounds and I cut my dose in half because I was losing weight too quickly and that kind of freaked me out to be honest. And so I also am taking this 5amino 1 mq in capsule form.

This helps by making sure that you lose fat, not muscle. And so in conjunction I’m using both of these. This will work whether you have this or not and I am telling you it’s amazing. If you are interested in getting this I have the link below or you can go to sarah wessel.com on the shop. You can use a coupon code Sarah to save 10%. If you have questions about your own use you should either consult your doctor or you can join Dr. Diane’s tribe and and I have a link below to that. It is only a dollar for the first week.

You can ask her any question you want and get all your answers to this. How to take an injectable and there shouldn’t be any fear in doing that. It is easy and straightforward. Go to sarahwestall.com under shop or use the link below and remember to use coupon code Sarah. Welcome to business Game changers. I’m Sarah Westall. I have Max Frumas coming to the program. He’s a financial journalist and he’s going to talk about his his book called the Caesar’s Palace Coup and it’s going to be talking about private equity and the bankruptcy process and I know it sounds really boring to some people but I got to tell you, 90% of the world, the financial world is, runs on this world, on this area.

And so if you really want to understand what’s going on in finance and what’s happening in this country, you need to understand this area. And that’s why I was interested when this came across. I’m like, you know what, I want to talk to him because this is the area that nobody talks about and that people need to understand if they want to have the ability to see through what’s happening in this country. And especially now as the country goes more to bankruptcy or companies all over the place are looking at bankruptcy, you know, insolvency and struggling.

And we’re going to see a lot of that. And it’s important that people understand this area so that when you see things happen, you can, you can have something, a point of reference. And that’s why I wanted to have this conversation with Max today. But before I get into this, I want to. I haven’t talked about this yet. I filed, I finally filed. I haven’t talked about it yet. As far as, after I filed the lawsuit against the federal government and Google, I’ve been talking about that. I’m going to, now I have, I’ve put out a press release and you can see that@sirwestell.com or on my substack or on X.

And I also have a GiveSendGo. It’s called GiveSend. It’s GiveSendGo.com/GOV coercion. So, and I’ll have the link below and I’ll have it on the screen. I’ve already. Because it was my case, I funded all of it to this point. And people are like, Sarah, you are fighting the federal government and Google yourself and you need help getting this funded. I, you know, I, I didn’t have a choice. I was under attack. I mean, why is Google attacking me to this degree? And I don’t think it’ Google. I think it’s the federal government doing it through Google.

And why are people like me attacked so much? Right, because we’re not toeing the, the line. We’re thinking independently and we’re trying to help people think. And they do not want that you have to say on a super, a stupid government narrative, you can’t talk about how the world really works. You can’t point out things that are going on. If you do, you’re a nut job conspiracy theorist. Even though everything I’ve said has come out true. I mean, pretty much every, of course there’s some things we’ve been wrong on almost everything. Everything that I have covered I cover because I have sources.

I, I’m just really meticulous about making sure that I’m at least honest. You know, I make sure that I have it. Not all my guests. I can’t control everything that a guest says. But I make, you know, so much of what we’ve been covering over the years have come true. You know the saying what’s the difference between a conspiracy theory and something that’s true Six months. I mean honestly, that really has become what’s happening. And they do not want you even think thinking about something. They want you in this dumbed down state. And so if you’re an independent thinker doing things especially I actually think that because I’m a female and I know I hate the whole woman thing.

I never go. I don’t like to be a victim. So I don’t like to talk about this stuff. But I think they’re attacking both men and women and I think they’re doing it to create division and they do not want a strong female voice to, to reach the other side at all or anybody who is used to being, you know, a female. They do not want women having a voice out here because they might think differently and they have them captured in their own camp. And that’s all bs. And then I also think the extreme on the other end don’t like to hear strong female voices because they want you in your box too.

And I’m like everybody wants women in their fricking box and I’m not in the box. And so it’s like stop. And they want men in their box too. But it’s different, it’s a different box. So you know, I’m done with it. I’m done. We’re not going there. And I think people are people. I don’t give crap if what you are. Male, female. We’re talking about these issues and I hope you’re on that journey with me. And I’m getting censored a lot. So I had to sue the federal government and Google and I didn’t have a choice because they were putting up and I did a whole show on this and you can hear that show as well.

But I didn’t have a choice because they were. I wasn’t allowed back on YouTube. I was suppressed to on shadow band on by Google. So it was so bad. They had four impersonation channels. They had more than four because I found a couple, couple more. But four of the bigger ones, they weren’t super Big but they had four of them and two of them were monetized putting all, One of them was putting all of my work up there and monetizing it. Meanwhile, I wasn’t able to put my own stuff up there. They banned me, but monetized somebody else.

And on top of that, and I was trying to get that down, I had to send lenders. They went through their formal process. They ignore me. They customer service ignore me. They ignored two of my legal letters and finally my third letter, we threatened to. We’re going to sue you. We don’t have a choice. They didn’t give me a choice. And so then we sued. I had to clean my, clean up my, my online presence. But what made it even worse is they were putting porn star references. I was so shadow banned on everywhere. But yet when you put up Sarah Wessel podcast first page front page results on Google search was me and porn star references.

And there was some things I’m not even going to repeat that was put up that was so crude that their Google Safe search would have, would have stripped it out. But when it came to me, it didn’t. And that means that their product failed or they manually, as Google Gemini said, they manually took down their safe search so that it could be weaponized against me. Because there’s no way that porn star references would come up on the first page of Google search if their basic tool, which is very simple, would have stripped it out. And then Rumble’s in a lawsuit against Google because they, they don’t serve up any of their videos in their search results.

But when it came to me and porn star references, it was all Rumble videos. So what is that? Rumble doesn’t put up hardcore porn. But they, it was conversations with porn star porn stars and they had my name by a whole bunch of them. And so that was. It’s okay for Rumble to do it, but they wouldn’t put it on the first page of Google search and they wouldn’t, certainly wouldn’t put Rumble videos up because Rumble’s been banned or they strip out all the Rumble videos. So that’s what they were doing to me. And it was lasting when we found it.

It was at least two weeks that it was up there and not until my lawyer said what the hell? And then they eventually took it down. It could have been up. We don’t know how long it was up before we noticed it. So we knew it was up for at least two or two weeks. Imagine two weeks up, it was probably a month. I don’t know it was up where my name and probably people would have told me too, but it was up for months or it was up for two weeks or months. And it said it was first page results.

Sarah Westall podcast first page results. Me and a bunch of porn star stuff and all the fake channels. What am I going to do? I had to sue them. And now that’s what we’re doing. And it. We have. We have a really strong case. But thing is, I paid for everything up front. I paid for all of this personally because I had to. And so we filed the whole case. But going forward is my friend’s like, Sarah, you’re swinging the federal government and Google and this is going to get expensive. And this is a case for all everybody.

You, whatever you do, is going to help people learn how to get to the next stage. And so I’m raising money and I hope you will help me. It’s end go. It’s at Gibsongo and government coercion. So it’s end gov coercion. I’ll have the link on the screen and below. I’m asking that you help me. Whatever you can help. Anything that does not go directly to the legal fees will for my case will be rolled over and go to other people. You know, I started United for Free Speech and I, It’s. I think this is more important than just free.

Free speech is super important, but this is beyond free speech. This is. This is deciding who can make money and can’t. Who. They have the ability to decide whose voice is up there, what businesses can be seen, who can build a media business in the first place, who can build any business in the first place. They have that kind of power with what’s happening right now. So this is kind of the basis of freedom itself is under attack. And it’s extremely important that we get these things under control. And section 230 gave them the immunity to be able to be a marketplace of ideas.

And so that they, you know, because people are people, they’re going to go after them for just posting things they don’t like. Well, it’s supposed to be an open, fresh marketplace of ideas. And instead they use it as an immunity clause to be criminals to do whatever they wanted. And the other thing that we did in this case is because the 9th Circuit has been so biased for so long, we have. It’s a landmark case because it’s the first in US History that we’re saying that a court system in the 9th Circuit is so structurally biased that it’s.

You’re incapable of getting fair justice in that entire system. And we have decades of proof now to show of all you, you can’t get anywhere to proof. To proof that shows that they aren’t able to get a fair hearing. We just want a fair hearing. They shut people down right away. So Google and big tech and all these guys could do whatever they wanted. Hiding behind section 230. The immunity clause wasn’t there so they could be criminals. So they can decide who gets to make money and who doesn’t. They can’t do economic displacement. They can’t say, okay, only legacy media can have a business make money.

You aren’t able to make money because we don’t like your politics. That wasn’t what Section 230 was about. And we’re saying that the court system has been so flawed that you don’t even allow us to do, even get, look at, to get discovery and get basic justice. And so we’re the first in U. S. Legal history to make that argument. So it’s kind of a big deal. And I hope, I hope you can help support this case. Anything will help, even sharing to others. So again, end gov coercion givesengo.com and gov coercion. I’ll have the link below and thank you so much for listening.

For sharing, go to my sub stack. Support my affiliates. That’s how I support the show. I just was on Moms for Liberty and she’s like she could only find my show because you know she couldn’t. It never came up on her search. She couldn’t find it. It was through word of mouth and she had to deliberately and go look at for it. My show is only grown through word of mouth because I, I don’t have the luxury. I didn’t for years of the algorithms actually helping me grow. Rumble does they show my stuff and it’s starting to thaw out now.

But you know, I’ve gotten to this point purely from word of mouth. So thank you so much for everybody that has helped do that. Okay, let’s get into this really, this really educational conversation. This is good. Is about how 90% of the world really works and it’s under the belly of what’s happening. Okay, I got Max Frumas and he’s going to be talking about the Caesar palace coup. But we’re going to talk about way more than that. And we’re going to talk about blackrock. We’re going to talk about how this equity, private equity really works. And I hope that you will be much more Informed after listening to this show.

Okay, here’s Max. Hi, Max. Welcome to the program. Thanks for having me on. Sarah, you have this remarkable story about total financial corruption and how it happened with Caesar’s palace in Las Vegas and this financial coup that went on and how all these investors were hurt and then these legal battles and things. Before we dive into this incredible story, give people your background. Yeah, I’m a financial journalist by background. Got into reporting on specialized business cases back when I was, you know, early 20s, focusing on trailer park finance of all things. You know, you find that if you need to make a living and you can’t get hired by the New York Times, then you specialize.

And I’ve stuck with that ever since. Ultimately made my way to New York, focused on reporting on private equity for the deal. And a businessman approached me to start a business focusing specifically on distressed debt for sophisticated audience of hedge funds and debt investors. And after that eye opening experience covering big restructurings and distressed debt investments in these big companies that either went through a chapter 11 or had to restructure their debt in some other ways, I thought it was the most fascinating industry that I had ever reported on. And so many characters and so much narrative value that I thought the best story out there was the Caesars bankruptcy because of the players involved and how valuable the company was in the post great financial crisis drama that ensued.

And that’s how I came about writing the book. Well, okay, so what year was it that it took place? So the book spans from the initial leverage buyout of Caesars Entertainment, which was a publicly traded investment grade company prior to the buyout that closed in 2008, and even some of the history before that, tracking Gary Loveman, who became the CEO, this genius with numbers that, that found a way to make these casinos more profitable by the total reward system. And so really it kind of, it spans from the, the, the buyout up through 2017. And when did the buyout start again? I forgot you said.

Yeah, the buyout closed. It closed inauspiciously in 2008, right at the onset of the great financial crisis. Okay, okay. So it was about a 10 year process. And this is kind of typical when it comes to big finance. How much money are we talking was involved in this? So it was a $25 billion deal, one of the, you know, it’s like one of the larger buyouts of the, you know, 2006-8 era, where there was a lot of debt put on to healthy companies. My group of private equity firms, to take them private okay, so the, the why is this now? This is a pattern and this is more interesting for just, it’s not just some random bankruptcy.

This is showing in a pattern and how this is done that affects the country at large. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. So what do they do? They take on these healthy companies and then what do they do to them? Yeah, I, you know, this, the story of private equity is always, it’s, you know, it’s always worth scrutinizing because a lot of it, you know, it used, it used to be very, and there’s a lot of it that is, is very constructive and helpful and it allows for, you know, businesses that maybe they, you know, they felt they were undervalued or they’d reached their peak to, to, to cash out, to change hands and to, you know, investors who are going to do something with it, who have more connections, who want to roll it up and combine it with other companies.

So there’s a lot of innovation that goes on that can be, you know, healthy. That still goes on. Right. And I think that, you know, but when you take this type of activity to its extreme, it’s very profitable because private equity firms, their model is to invest very little amount of their own money in the deal and then to use as much debt as possible so that the return, the total return on their money is massive. Exponential. Exactly. It’s absolutely massive. Yeah. So if you, yeah. And if, you know, because like if you put in $100 million to buy a billion dollar company and you’d use $900 million in debt and that billion dollar company becomes a $2 billion company, over the course of your ownership, then you’ve made ten times your money and not just double.

Right? That’s the power of leverage. And so you take that to its extreme and you’ll get a lot of these cases where a company becomes over levered and that means that it’s just got too much debt to continue to pay its, its interest and, and principal at maturity and grow and operate the business. And especially. Yeah, I’m sorry say your, and especially, and especially post great financial crisis, there were a lot of very large leverage buyouts that happened that were not sustainable. Well, and what they do, right, they come in and they do their, their, their mathematics, but this company is healthy and they strap it with a whole bunch of debt so they can make a fortune and the company really is getting screwed and the people, the shareholders of that company is getting screwed so they can maximize their own money.

Right. Because they’re not stewards of it when they’re taking it to the extreme like that. And you know, and they also should. The money that’s being made should really go to a lot of these shareholders as well. More of it should be because they’re the ones that own the company in the first place. I’m sorry, go on. Well, I was going to say that. No, no. Well, it’s important to point out the distinction of the vulnerable stakeholders. And I think that’s the right, that’s the right analysis. Right. You have what you have to do in these cases.

You have to look at all stakeholders, not just the most powerful stakeholders. And at this point, the private equity firms are ones that are the most powerful and influential stakeholders in these deals and in the economy in a lot of different ways. The shareholders themselves have actually exited because the private equity firm bought them out. So they’ve locked away with their cash. They were the owners of the company and anybody who held the public shares got rewarded at the top. Right. Twitter shareholders, they walked away fairly happy because they got a maximum amount of money from Elon Musk, you know, even though it subsequently, you know, might have been damaged, but now it’s actually worth more because it’s got AI attached to it.

So that’s it. It’s like the, the, the, the like vulnerable, compromised and damaged stakeholder in these scenarios are usually twofold, right. They’re usually the employees and then all of the citizens and the community at large that are impacted by the decisions of the owners of these businesses that interact with the world. And so I think, you know, my, my journalism, like, looking for like service journalism opportunities or pointing out inequities or imbalances of power is, you know, it’s really important. That’s the function we try to have as, as financial journalists explaining complicated things. Yeah, we, we look for like, okay, in the case of a casino, right.

A casino operator, if you are looking at what’s the externalities there? Well, like if you’re juicing that, then there’s the spread of gambling addiction, right. There’s the spread of like the, the unchecked spread of a lot of the documented, you know, crime that, that goes along with that type of institution. And then there’s all the employees too, that are, you know, not getting raises or stock and that, that suffer because of the choices that that management makes. In this case, there’s like 10, 10 of employees. Well, and people don’t, the problem is people don’t really care about it.

The system doesn’t care about the employees. They don’t have a voice in. In at large. But let’s talk about the Caesar thing. I’m not saying that’s okay. I’m just saying that’s the reality of it so people don’t get mad at me. I’m not saying that’s. I’m just being cold. And Caesar’s employees, actually, it was like. It was interesting because they were unionized. And so like they. There was like. Like there was push and pull here. And there are a lot of. There’s. There’s like. It’s. You know, in some ways they did. Right. I. It’s like it’s always fraught.

But it was, you know, it was interesting to. To observe that in some ways, like the unionized. There was unionized employees and unionized employees. And so unionized employees wound up in a better position post financial crisis. Fewer of them were cut. There were a lot of cuts. There was a lot of jobs that were cuts. Outside of that, you. That suffered because of it. Okay, so the shareholders were all bought out at the beginning, so they weren’t hosed over. Who were the people that ended up doing a lawsuit against the private equity firm? In the long run, whatever actually unfolded here, if the shareholders are all bought out and made whole, then who’s the.

And we have a union here fighting for the employees who are the ones that were hurt in this case. So this is the. This is a really interesting thing. Right? It’s in a lot of ways retail. Like retail. Your every everyday average retail investor, your 401ks, your pensions. Right. Your retirement funds actually all invest in the private equity firms themselves. That. Or the. The. And so they have a stake in the debt. Right. And so like more. More of these are. There’s a lot of institutional investors that used to be compartmentalized into like the fidelities, the Franklin Templeton, like the.

Like our insurance companies allies. They would have money that they would put to work on behalf of, you know, more average people. Okay, so let me summarize. They own debt in this company that winds up becoming distressed. And they. There’s losses. A quick break to share with you this wonderful product called Masterpiece. It is proven to taking out graphene oxide, aluminums, heavy metals, microplastics. They also are looking at these Mac addresses and there’s more and more research and there’s studies coming out. There’s four documentaries that are being made on their studies about how they’re able to disable Mac addresses that are somehow put into people.

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Okay, so what happens is the investment company, the, the private investor, could they use other people’s money to do the deal? The other people’s money are the investors who got screwed because they over leveraged in this case and so that’s who we’re talking about as the partners. I’m just trying to simplify it. Yeah, I, I, I think you know that’s, that’s ultimately always right and there’s people that have no money to invest whatsoever in these, you know, in these, in, in like retirement funds who really are the most vulnerable. But yes, you know they take, they take pension funds and they take all these things.

It’s not any different. That was during 2008 too. So that was, is, they were just probably, it was loosey goosey on what they invested. All these supposed to be really high quality investments that were not dangerous and they would just throw it into everything. Now has that changed much? Have they been a little more conservative or are we back to the same games right now? It’s a good, it’s a very interesting question. It’s something I focus on a lot at you know, at 9 fin where I currently work. It’s a, you know it’s a fintech and news company that focuses on corporate credit.

It and we’re hearing a lot of echoes of the, the mortgage crisis in private credit. Right. And the proliferation of like questionable credit quality like loans that have been made around the world and around the country in a mostly unobserved private credit market. So that’s the, there’s some echoes there where, and it seems like there will be a lot of defaults. There’s a lot of public news out there on these private credit investors like Blue Owl or BlackRock, Blackstone, KKR that have publicly traded companies that are, are you know slashing the value of or selling some of their loans of software companies in, you know, in the secondary at a discount.

And so it’s like kind of augering this oh my God, is this, is there going to be another crisis caused by this opaque debt like the cmbs? But see, that’s why people get worried is because companies like BlackRock own a percentage of, of almost every Fortune 500 company out there. And so if they’re not doing things, stewards of people’s money and they just play some of these games, it can have really damaging effects across the entire country. And they have too much power in one corporation. I like it. You know, and it’s, it’s, I mean it’s a vulnerability that they always, they’re so huge.

Yeah, they are so huge. I, you know, it’s like, it’s like it feels like you’re, you’re, you’re powerless and that’s for sure. Right. And I think that there’s, there’s differences. BlackRock became the chairman of the World Economic Forum for a reason. I mean, I think that’s a conflict of interest and I don’t think there should be any reason they should do that, but there should be rules against that. But that’s the reality. State street Vanguard and BlackRock own enough to control the voting of every large corporation in this country and maybe the world. I haven’t looked at past this United States.

I, yeah, I like, it’s, it’s a right, it’s, it’s a difficult, it’s a difficult pill to swallow that you’re, you’re at the, you’re at the whim of the market. It’s for sure. I, I, you know, I, I think like, you know, you just gotta, I mean, I’m just calling a spade a spade. You got to pray that your, your retirement fund is in the right, you know, in the right portfolio. And let’s hope Larry Fink isn’t an, let’s hope he has, he cares about people more than he cares about himself because he’s in a position of extreme power.

I, yeah, I like, I think these, these types of large, like fund managers, like, like the blackrocks and Vanguards, like they have a lot of closed, closed end funds, ETFs and that don’t necessarily exercise or you know, board power. So they don’t have the, they don’t, they don’t control the board which makes the decisions for the publicly traded companies. In a lot of ways it would be, it would be behind the scenes. If you own 20% of a corporation, you have a lot of sway. You have a lot of sway. Yeah, yeah. I’m just letting that you might not be sitting at the board seat because Larry Fink can’t sit on 500 boards, but if he wanted to make a phone call, he could.

You know, I, they, and they’re, they’re a big debt investor too. And I think that something to like what I observe in the, in the Caesar story, right. In the distressed, in the distressed debt world in general, is that you, like you look at what, who has these levers of power and who’s going to use it and how. And so that’s why, you know, my co author and I sajit in dap, he’s now he’s the Wall street editor of the Financial Times. We Caesars was like one of the most fascinating stories because it showed how the private equity sponsors, especially Apollo, but Apollo and TPG were the two big private equity sponsors that bought out Caesars.

They were, you know, they were, they’re so smart and they were so willing to use every lever of power that they could see, whether it’s the credit documents, you know, the, like the, the vulnerability of the creditors lobbying Congress to get laws changed in order. Yeah, exactly. In order for a certain type of transaction to be allowed. There was a couple of different, you know, trust and like a trust indenture act, but also that, that ultimately didn’t get allow what they were trying to do. And then there was the tax treatment of spinoff REITs that they were successful in.

Right. So they didn’t have to get charged as much for, you know, doing CMBS financing for the, you know, the propco that they spun out. But like that, that is what I think was so fascinating about this case is the willingness to use all the levers of power at your, at your, you know, at, at your fingertips to, to be. Identify it all and to then have the motivation to use it. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. And so I, but, and like what I’ve observed is like the, the institutional investors we’ve generally differentiated from private equity sponsors they’re merging because that like they’ve grown so big.

Blackrock and, and you know, and Vanguard and they have, they’ve generally not. They’re usually the creditors that were selling out. Like Franklin Templeton, they had a nickname called like Frank the Tank because they would lend to a company at par and then when it started to drop into distressed area, they would sell. Right. You know, they would just let. And so they weren’t like very few of these places that were equipped or, you know, or really willing to exercise their power as a creditor to take over the company or to, to get their way. It was, it’s really, you know, you have, you like you look at the, the specific people and the institutions like you know, like Apollo that are very willing to do that.

Wow, that does make sense. Well, they have too many companies and they just don’t have the bandwidth to get involved in all this stuff. If they wanted to get involved, they could and they could do whatever they wanted, but they typically don’t because they just don’t have the bandwidth with. That’s right. And they like they’re that now they’ve been learning. Right. So like who knows that could, it could all. Now we have seen, I’ve seen like pimco, right, is a big, you know, big asset manager that traditionally, you know, didn’t, didn’t throw its weight around as much in restructuring, but they hired a restructuring like a restructuring expert and team that is now willing to and, and you know, same with, same with Franklin Templeton, same with Prudential and a number of these traditionally more kind of like hands off institutional investors are now willing to throw their weight around.

And it’s interesting because it’s created this market that they call creditor on creditor violence where there’s a big powerful private equity sponsor that owns all these companies and they get distressed and instead of just handing over the keys and making sure that everything’s okay, they turn creditors against each other. Father. Right. So it’s very interesting. Well, they figured every way they, they can leverage stuff and create the dynamics that they need. But let me ask you about what did that do to, to or that those kind of dynamics do to Las Vegas? Because when I went there 20 years ago, like, you know, it still had some organic feel to.

It still had, it was kind of a decent place. And you could, people can argue with me all they want because I don’t know if Vegas can be called a decent place. But it just, it wasn’t. Now it feels so structured so like people mover things so geared at making money off of everything they do and so touristy trap that it was icky. I felt like I’m in this algorithm of money making. Before it felt kind of organic and flowing and more things people, you know, things going on. Now it feels like, like such a bland box of non.

The creativity is gone. It’s all corporate. It’s all to make as much money as they possibly can. It was, it just doesn’t have the same vibe as it used to. Yeah, look, I, I, you know, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of give and take between the, like the institutionalization of, of, of an area. Right. Where you actually, you’ll see there’s, you know, maybe that there’s, there’s less crime and less corruption, but it’s too sanitized and there’s no character and there’s no personality. There’s no culture sanitized. There’s, there’s no vibe. There’s nothing. And you see that, right? And it’s, it’s funny like the mafia used to, you know, they used to control Vegas.

And we looked into that a little bit and they, they’ve kind of been, they’ve been out of there and were replaced with MBAs and PhDs. So it’s like, yeah, they, yeah, it was ever. Well, everything that used to be illegal, right. Like sports gambling is like, oh no, that’s fine now. Right? It’s like it is, it’s these things that are, are now perfectly legal and being done by the MBAs. Captains of industry. Yeah. My dad used to say it was almost better when the mob, he’s talking about Chicago. When the mob control Chicago. It was almost better because you could go in, at least bribe somebody company.

Now the MBAs and the lawyers all got in the same activities, but it’s baked into the system and you can’t do anything. I, it’s, it’s, it’s an interesting trade. Right. Like a lot of people, they feel, I, you feel better, it’s safer. There’s like, there’s more resources, there’s money, there’s better educational systems. But it’s at the, it’s at the expense of culture. Right. Character. I’m gonna push back and say, I don’t know if it’s better. I look at the Minnesota here where almost all the money was stolen. You know, the 18, all the, the NGO, all the non profit, all this stuff, it’s because it was all, it all shifted into that the control of the government and the lawyers and the organizations and all they did is steal it under the guise of government and MBAs.

So I, I don’t know if it’s better. It’s just more sanitized and it’s more hidden. Yeah, I think, you know, I, I, I, and there’s there, I, I, I, there’s a push back a little bit I don’t know about. Like, So I, I’m gonna say, I’ll say that like I feel the way that we cover this and like the way that I cover things in general as a, as like a business journalist. There’s a, there’s a philosophy of the, the The Caesar’s books. The Caesar’s palace coup is not a Manichean story. Right. It’s not a story of good versus evil.

It, you know, it captures human beings that are, you know, that are, that are very fallible. And for the most part, in finance and in business, the, like, you know, I think the biggest sin is greed, right. And like, there’s consequences to that and there’s externalities caused by people giving in too much to these very, very human emotions. And I see, you know, and we, we kind of see that all over the place. And ultimately the people that suffer the most are the most vulnerable stakeholders who don’t have a voice. Right. And I think that’s, that’s what you highlight in your interviews and what you’re pointing out right now.

Yeah. And I think that was the whole point of this country, right. Is to set it up so that everybody has a balance that out, so everybody has a voice. And when you get it so that it’s skewed to this point where those with the power are those with the ones who can exercise those levers of power at the expense of the people who can’t exercise the level, level levers of power. That’s when you see these kind of damages being done. And if people didn’t take something to the extreme and they’re just really smart to make money, it could be a benefit all people or there’s always going to be people who aren’t going to benefit.

Let’s. It’s never going to be perfect. And if we strive for perfection, it will, will remove all culture. Right. And that’s the problem. Problem. But at the same point, if you, if you take things to the extreme, people are just going to be hurt. Yeah. I, I think it, it snuffs out opportunity, social mobility, you know, in a lot of ways, just education, like the freedom of, of, you know, like, expression and living the way that people want to. For sure. Right. It’s like no one, no one wants a homogenous kind of like culture or only a very few ways to live your life and make a living.

And, you know, maybe that’s what, you know, what’s, what’s been lost in Las Vegas. Yeah. It’s just a vanilla place. Right. It’s like it always reminds me when I was a kid. Yeah. Oh, I was gonna say, like, it’s, it’s, in some ways it’s more family friendly. Maybe it’s not as fun as it used to be for adults, but like, you know, there’s, there’s Less of a focus on profits of gambling and, and more of a focus now on experiences. There’s Cirque du Soleil and like the book, we capture how the, you know, Britney Spears residency was what, like the most profitable residency in, you know, in the history of Las Vegas.

And they were building this giant Ferris wheel and so they brought experiences and you know, things to open it up. Yeah, well, the gambling you is kind of. They’re just trying to figure out how to make the most money on possible out of these stupid computer machines. But. Okay, so you know what it reminds me of when I was a kid, I read the book. Maybe you have to. The miracle in time, right? And the evil, the evil dark energy comes and takes things over. And as it’s taking things over, everything becomes uniform form. And the, the, the dark energy makes things uniform, takes word of character, takes away free will, takes way of your own free agency.

And everyone is the same. And when you’re, when you get rid of the, the dark energy, you’re. That’s where the creativity is unleashed. People are different and unique. I love that book for that reason. And that’s what it feels like to me. That’s, you know, it’s a, It’s a wonderful story and way to, way to bring it up, right. That it’s, it’s, you know, I, it’s always this push and pull, right? And same thing like, you know, east to east of Eden. This, this like, hey, you know what? The good is always out there. Evil is part of us and it is, you know, it’s eternal.

And there’s this, there’s this constant struggle for, for between the two that creates the world that we live, live in. And it’s this balance. Well, so. And, and the fact that evil is hidden behind uniformity and control and perfection. And that’s the message of that, is that if, of understanding that you think that you’re doing good and you’re actually doing the opposite. Right? Yeah. Right. You know, it’s like, and how can you be doing so good if you are like making that much money? Money. It’s coming from somewhere, right? It’s like, oh yeah, it’s very hard to say, like, oh, you know what, Like I, you know, I leveraged this company to the hilt.

I extracted all these dividends. I, you know, I paid myself, you know, so many millions or billions from, you know, from doing that. And that’s all just because I have contributed to the industry. And also I’m taxed at capital gains, which is less than, you know, your average dishwasher pressure and in that, and that is, you know, and that’s somehow contributing to society. It’s, it’s a good point. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, that’s a little short sighted. Okay so if someone was going to read your book, tell us, give us a pitch on your book and what would you say is what they will get out of it the most? What, what makes it interesting? I, I, the, the book is the, I, I, I think the best story that captures distressed debt investing.

And it’s a very, it’s just a very important, interesting world where it, it picks up where the barbarians at, at the gate left off right. If you, you know. And it’s, it’s, it’s good for any layman as well. Who wants to know, okay, well, well, you know, who controls you know like 90% of businesses in the country and how does that work and how do they continue to make money even when things fail? And then you know, and who are their adversaries when there’s a big restructuring? So you know, barbarians other gate went through this giant LBO and the competition to buy out RJR Nabisco Caesar’s palace coup talks about okay, well this is the battle for this company post LBO when it goes into bankruptcy and how that’s divvied up with today’s bankruptcy laws.

And there’s so, it’s like bankruptcy is so important. It’s a very like hidden, you know, world where the assets of businesses large and small are, you know, are divvied up to the different stakeholders and creditors depending on their legal agreements and their priorities. So it’s, it’s, you know, I think it’s eye opening to people who want to know how you know, the bankruptcy restructuring process works and get a little bit of insight into the distressed world or distressed investing world. Well and I think with so much, so much of our corporations becoming distressed and using bankruptcy as a vehicle to you know, revenue reinvigorate their companies or to take over a company.

It’s, and if you want to understand how this world works and frankly how the administration now is going after a lot of things, I mean that’s, they understand this world deeply. You know, Trump had a lot of casinos go through chapter 11 on purpose. He strategically did this. So if you want to understand the, the, I can tell the way the, the country is, is leveraging certain things, things that they’re using the knowledge that they’ve learned throughout these, all these products, how the World works, you’re saying 90 of the world works on this. Where the power lovers are.

If you really want to know how the world works, you need to understand this area 100. And it’s also to avoid accountability, too, right? Like Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers, they. They put the company through a chapter 11 to try to, you know, get a settlement with all of the victims of opioid crisis. And, you know, like, in some ways it’s worked. There’s these mass tort cases for, you know, for talc that have been tried, you know, attempted to go through chapter 11. So it’s a really. It’s interesting thing. And, you know, look, mass litigation for, you know, for tort law, you know, where people have been, you know, you know, get like, gotten cancer from a corporation spilling into the supply or what have you, right? Like, these are like, huge areas that are, you know, there’s.

There’s a lot of fraud and corruption outside of bankruptcy. So it could be overwhelming, you know, and it’s like. So people looked at bankruptcy as maybe a method to. To try to. To limit that or control it, but then obviously that was taken to the extreme. So bankruptcy is. It’s a fascinating world world. And, you know, it. And it. And it figures into a lot of, you know, how the businesses get transformed, renewed, taken over, and then also emerge without going out of business and liquidating. And that’s the. That’s the key point of chapter 11. Okay, so where do they get your book? Anywhere you can get it on Amazon.

You get it at Barnes and Nobles, especially if you’re in New York. It, like, it’s prominently displayed alongside all the. The major business books in the New York Barnes and Nobles. But any. Anywhere. Anywhere books are sold online. And it’s called Caesar’s Coup. Right, The Caesar’s palace coup. You know what, we wanted to just call it the palace coup to have real strong impact and, you know, have it be iconic. But our publisher wanted the Caesar’s name in it, which might probably make sense. So it’s the Caesar’s palace coup. It’s the coup to take over for Caesar’s palace led by.

Led by creditors. Thank you so much for joining the program. It was really educational.
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