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lennart
18-08-03, 22:47
Buffett pumps up Arnold's election bid

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has signed on as the financial and economic adviser to Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign for governor of California, a move political observers say gives the action-movie hero an Arnold-sized shot of credibility.

"I have known Arnold for years and know he'll be a great governor," Buffett said in a statement. "It is critical to the rest of the nation that California's economic crisis be solved, and I think Arnold will get that job done."

It isn't as if Schwarzenegger needed any more star power in his bid to unseat California Gov. Gray Davis in the state's high-profile recall election.

But given that California's gloomy economy has been at the root of Davis' political troubles, the addition of Buffett adds muscle to Schwarzenegger's claim that he is the man who can bring the gold back to the Golden State.

"We can use all the wisdom we can get in the state of California," said Nancy Spillman, president of an economic consulting company in Canoga Park, Calif. "Anyone would want to be associated, any political candidate - left wing, right wing, chicken wing - with Warren Buffett."

Schwarzenegger needs prominent people in the business community to come out for him, said Bruce Cain, a political scientist at the University of California-Berkeley.

The hulking star is not without business credentials of his own, his successful body-building and movie career having transformed the Austrian immigrant into a one-man conglomerate.

But he couldn't have landed a bigger name in business than Buffett, whom Fortune Magazine recently ranked No. 1 on its list of the 25 most powerful people in business.

"The pattern in California is that when times are tough, the electorate tends to like business figures," Cain said. "The idea that a business figure can bring efficiency and restore the economy is a very appealing thing."

Schwarzenegger's campaign said Buffett would be part of a team of prominent business leaders and economists set up to address California's economic problems.

Buffett's decision to team with Schwarzenegger could be indicative of the investment whiz's concern that as the California economy goes, so goes the rest of the country. While he hasn't commented specifically about the California economy recently, he had voiced significant concerns during the California energy crunch in 2001.

Phil Holland of Rowland Heights, Calif., who operates a nonprofit Web site that helps people start their own businesses, said Wednesday that he thinks Buffett is sincerely worried about California's economic problems.

"Speaking as a Republican, I've seen the management of this state really, really go down the tubes," Holland said. "I think the people out here regard him and respect (Buffett) as having very good common sense on what is best for the country overall."

On the surface, they might not seem like the most likely political pair.

Schwarzenegger is a Republican. Buffett, the son of a former Republican congressman from Omaha, switched to the Democratic Party in the 1960s out of concern about GOP indifference to civil rights.

But Schwarzenegger also has described himself as "very liberal" on social issues, including supporting abortion rights, which would make him a pretty good fit for Buffett politically.

Though Buffett has been known to insert himself into national political debates, including speaking out against the recent tax cuts pushed by President Bush, he does not often get directly involved in political races. But there are exceptions. He served as an honorary chairman for then-U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey's re-election bid in 1994.

Buffett was busy on Berkshire Hathaway business and not fielding the storm of media calls his endorsement created Wednesday, a spokeswoman said.

Buffett lives part of the year in California, with a home in Laguna Beach, and his wife makes her home in California year-round. Charlie Munger, his right-hand man at Berkshire, also lives there.

Campaign officials told the Washington Post that Buffett and Schwarzenegger met seven years ago at a lecture the investor was giving in Los Angeles. They connected again when Berkshire Hathaway purchased NetJets Inc., a corporate jet firm in which Schwarzenegger owns a stake. Last year the two attended an economic conference sponsored by NetJets at the British estate of Lord Rothschild.

It is clear that the two have developed a friendship.

When Schwarzenegger filed for the office last week, he was required to disclose all gifts worth more than $50 received during the past year.

Amid the expensive clothing, fine cigars and leather luggage that Schwarzenegger disclosed, the typically frugal Buffett gave one of the cheapest gifts on the list: a $75 coffee-table book.
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=54&u_sid=825265

lennart
18-08-03, 22:51
Ahnuld, Ken Lay, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Gray Davis
by Jason Leopold

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t talking. The Hollywood action film star and California’s GOP gubernatorial candidate in the state’s recall election has been unusually silent about his plans for running the Golden State. He hasn’t yet offered up a solution for the state’s $38 billion budget deficit, an issue that largely got more than one million people to sign a petition to recall Gov. Gray Davis.

More important, however, Schwarzenegger still won’t respond to questions about why he was at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills two years ago where he, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and junk bond king Michael Milken, met secretly with former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay who was touting a plan for solving the state’s energy crisis. Other luminaries who were invited but didn’t attend the May 24, 2001 meeting included former Los Angeles Laker Earvin “Magic” Johnson and supermarket magnate Ron Burkle.

While Schwarzenegger, Riordan and Milken listened to Lay’s pitch, Gov. Davis pleaded with President George Bush to enact much needed price controls on electricity sold in the state, which skyrocketed to more than $200 per megawatt-hour. Davis said that Texas-based energy companies were manipulating California’s power market, charging obscene prices for power and holding consumers hostage. Bush agreed to meet with Davis at the Century Plaza Hotel in West Los Angeles on May 29, 2001, five days after Lay met with Schwarzenegger, to discuss the California power crisis.

At the meeting, Davis asked Bush for federal assistance, such as imposing federally mandated price caps, to rein in soaring energy prices. But Bush refused saying California legislators designed an electricity market that left too many regulatory restrictions in place and that’s what caused electricity prices in the state to skyrocket. It was up to the governor to fix the problem, Bush said. However, Bush’s response appears to be part of a coordinated effort launched by Lay to have Davis shoulder the blame for the crisis. It worked. According to recent polls, a majority of voters grew increasingly frustrated with the way Davis handled the power crisis. Schwarzenegger has used the energy crisis and missteps by Davis to bolster his standing with potential voters. While Davis took a beating in the press (some energy companies ran attack ads against the governor), Lay used his political clout to gather support for deregulation.

A couple of weeks before Lay met with Schwarzenegger in May 2001, the PBS news program “Frontline” interviewed Vice President Dick Cheney, whom Lay met with privately a month earlier. Cheney was asked by a correspondent from Frontline whether energy companies were acting like a cartel and using manipulative tactics to cause electricity prices to spike in California.

“No,” Cheney said during the Frontline interview. “The problem you had in California was caused by a combination of things--an unwise regulatory scheme, because they didn't really deregulate. Now they’re trapped from unwise regulatory schemes, plus not having addressed the supply side of the issue. They've obviously created major problems for themselves and bankrupted PG&E in the process.”

A month before the Frontline interview and Bush’s meeting with Davis, Cheney, who chairs Bush’s energy task force, met with Lay to discuss Bush’s National Energy Policy. Lay, whose company was the largest contributor to Bush’s presidential campaign, made some recommendations that would financially benefit his company. Lay gave Cheney a memo that included eight recommendations for the energy policy. Of the eight, seven were included in the final draft. The energy policy was released in late May 2001, after Schwarzenegger, Riordan and Milken met with Lay and after the meeting between Bush and Davis and Cheney’s Frontline interview.

The policy made only scant references to California's energy crisis, which Enron was accused of igniting, and did not indicate what should be done to provide the state some relief. Cheney said the policy focused on long-term solutions to the country's energy needs, such as opening up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and freeing up transmission lines. That's why California was ignored in the report, Cheney said.

What’s unknown to many of the voters who will decide Davis’s fate on Oct. 7, the day of the recall election, is that while Cheney dismissed Davis’s accusations that power companies were withholding electricity supplies from the state, one company engaged in exactly the type of behavior that Davis described. But Davis would never be told about the manipulative tactics the energy company engaged.

In a confidential settlement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, whose chairman was appointed by Bush a year earlier, Tulsa, Okla., based-Williams Companies agreed to refund California $8 million in profits it reaped by deliberately shutting down one of its power plants in the state in the spring of 2000 to drive up the wholesale price of electricity in California.

The evidence, a transcript of a tape-recorded telephone conversation between an employee at Williams and an employee at a Southern California power plant operated by Williams, shows how the two conspired to jack up power prices and create an artificial electricity shortage by keeping the power plant out of service for two weeks.

Details of the settlement had been under seal by FERC for more than a year and were released in November after the Wall Street Journal sued the commission to obtain the full copy of its report. Similarly, FERC also found that Reliant Energy engaged in identical behavior around the same time as Williams and in February the commission ordered Reliant to pay California a $13.8 million settlement.

Had the evidence been released in 2001 when Davis accused energy companies of fraud it would have helped California’s case and voters may have viewed the governor more positively. But if FERC were to publicly release the details of the Williams settlement it wouldn't have jibed with Bush's energy policy, which was made public instead in May 2001. It's highly unlikely that Bush, Cheney and members of the energy task force were kept in the dark about the Williams scam, especially since the findings of the investigation by FERC took place around the same time the policy was being drafted.

But Davis was still causing problems for Lay. California’s power woes had a ripple effect, forcing other states to cancel plans to open up their electricity markets to competition fearing deregulation would lead to widespread blackouts and price gouging. For Enron, a company that generated most of its revenue from buying and selling power and natural gas on the open market, such a move would paralyze the company.

Fearing that Davis would take steps to re-regulate California’s power market that Lay spent years lobbying California lawmakers to open up to competition, Lay recruited Schwarzenegger, Riordan, Milken, and other powerful business leaders like Bruce Karatz, chief executive of home builder Kaufman & Broad; Ray Irani, chief executive of Occidental Petroleum; and Kevin Sharer, chief executive of biotech giant Amgen.

The 90-minute secret meeting Lay convened took place inside a conference room at the Peninsula Hotel. Lay, and other Enron representatives at the meeting, handed out a four-page document to Schwarzenegger, Riordan and Milken titled “Comprehensive Solution for California,” which called for an end to federal and state investigations into Enron’s role in the California energy crisis and said consumers should pay for the state’s disastrous experiment with deregulation through multibillion rate increases. Another bullet point in the four-page document said “Get deregulation right this time -- California needs a real electricity market, not government takeovers.”

The irony of that statement is that California’s flawed power market design helped Enron earn more than $500 million in one year, a tenfold increase in profits from a previous year and it’s coordinated effort in manipulating the price of electricity in California, which other power companies mimicked, cost the state close to $70 billion and led to the beginning of what is now the state’s $38 billion budget deficit. The power crisis forced dozens of businesses to close down or move to other states, where cheaper electricity was in abundant supply, and greatly reduced the revenue California relied heavily upon.

Lay asked the participants to support his plan and lobby the state Legislature to make it a law. It’s unclear whether Schwarzenegger held a stake in Enron at the time or if he followed through on Lay’s request. His spokesman, Rob Stutzman, hasn’t returned numerous calls for comment about the meeting. For Schwarzenegger and the others who attended the meeting, associating with Enron, particularly Ken Lay, the disgraced chairman of the high-flying energy company, during the peak of California’s power crisis in May 2001 could be compared to meeting with Osama bin Laden after 9-11 to understand why terrorism isn’t necessarily such a heinous act.

A person who attended the meeting at the Peninsula, which this reporter wrote about two years ago, said Lay invited Schwarzenegger and Riordan because the two were being courted in 2001 as GOP gubernatorial candidates. A week before the meeting, Davis signed legislation to create a state power authority that would buy, operate and build power plants in lieu of out-of-state energy companies, such as Enron, that the governor alleged was ripping off the state.

For Enron’s Lay, the timing of the meeting was crucial. His company was just five months away from disintegrating and he was doing everything in his power to keep his company afloat and the profits rolling in.

It wasn’t until Enron collapsed in October 2001 and evidence of the company’s manipulative trading tactics emerged that FERC began to take a look at the company’s role in California’s electricity crisis. Since then, memos written by former Enron traders were uncovered, with colorful names like “Fat Boy” and “Death Star,” that contained the blueprint for ripping off California.

Enron’s top trader on the West Coast, Timothy Belden, the mastermind behind the scheme, pleaded guilty in December to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and has agreed to cooperate with federal investigators who are still trying to get to the bottom of the crisis.

California is still demanding that FERC order the energy companies to refund the state $8.9 billion for overcharging the state for electricity during its yearlong energy crisis. But FERC says California is due no more than $1.2 billion in refunds because the state still owes the energy companies $1.8 billion in unpaid power bills.

Davis, who refused to cave in to the demands of companies like Enron even while Democrats, Republicans and the public criticized him, was right all along. Maybe Californians ought to cut Davis some slack.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0817-07.htm

En al direct hierna begonnen de plannen om de staat overnemen.

lennart
19-08-03, 14:50
Meer over de Arnold, Rothschild link.

ARNOLD & BUFFETT's LOADED ELEPHANT GUN?
Buffett's Back, with the Terminator!
Reported By: Reuters
Tuesday, September 24, 2002

WADDESDON MANOR, England (Reuters) - The world's second-richest man dropped into the English countryside with the Terminator at his side on Monday, a day after warning the UK's corporate big game his elephant gun was loaded.

Billionaire Warren Buffett and mean machine Arnold Schwarzenegger touched down by helicopter on the immaculate lawns of Waddesdon manor, a Renaissance-style chateau in the undulating hills of Buckinghamshire.

Buffett, 72, is guest of honor at a closed two-day meeting of some of the world's most powerful businessmen and financiers -- the ultimate networking opportunity.

The get-together in the ancestral home of the Rothschild banking family will discuss economic and political issues, the organizers said. But Buffett's remark, made in a weekend newspaper interview, that he is looking for a "big deal" in Britain has stolen the agenda.

"We are hunting the elephant... We have got an elephant gun and it's loaded," Buffett told the Sunday Telegraph.

Among those invited to Waddesdon Manor were the likes of James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, Jorma Ollila, chief executive of Nokia and De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer.

Schwarzenegger was on the guestlist as a celebrity customer of the conference sponsor NetJets Inc, a private jets business owned by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc..

This year's stock market carnage is made for Buffett, the billionaire Oracle of Omaha, Nebraska. A godsend for firms who need cash quickly, he has more than $7 billion in cash on hand, and can set-up iron-clad deals in a day. His philosophy is simple: "Work out how much it will pay out from now until Judgement Day, then discount it back and buy it cheaper," he told shareholders at his annual meeting in May, when asked for the secret of his success.

A procession of black cars with darkened windows swept up the drive of the 120-year-old English country house amid tight but discreet security.

A group of photographers captured the moment when Buffett and Schwarzenegger, resplendent in steel-tipped cowboy boots, stepped onto Waddesdon's freshly cut lawn to be greeted by Lord Jacob Rothschild.

"It's very nice of you to host this," Schwarzenegger said

Hamza-T
19-08-03, 17:43
http://www.autografos.com.mx/arnold-auto-2.jpg

Me is Ahnuld Zwarzanegga, me is joining the illuminato, a feeh mahsun.
Me run tie ghuldan state!

lennart
30-09-03, 17:43
Many Heads Could Roll if Schwarzenegger Wins
Tue September 30, 2003 10:02 AM ET
By Michael Kahn
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Arnold Schwarzenegger's promise to clean house if he wins California's recall election for governor next week has many nervous state appointees worried their jobs could soon be terminated.

While uncertainty is a trademark of any job in politics, California's Oct. 7 recall election could lead to the unusually quick removal of Gov. Gray Davis and many of his estimated 3,000 appointees less than one year after the Democrat won a second term last November.

It is a daunting prospect in an uneven economy -- a core reason for the electoral drive to remove Davis -- for employees who recently bought homes or moved to the state capital, Sacramento, with a job promise of at least another four years.

"When Schwarzenegger says he wants to clean house, it makes people think," said one appointee who declined to give her name. "Some people are very nervous."

Employees with jobs on the line include more than 100 employees in the governor's office, Cabinet members, department heads and staff at places like the Department of Finance and the Office of Emergency Services. There are about 200,000 workers in state government.

Davis is facing a Republican-led recall vote over his handling of the state's budget crisis and is unpopular partly because of his cool personal style.

Recent polls show a majority of Californians want to oust Davis and replace him with Republican "Terminator" star Schwarzenegger who has vowed to shake up Sacramento.

"If it is a change of administration from Republican to Democrat or Democrat to Republican, the appointees are generally replaced," said appointee Cliff Allenby, the director of the state's Department of Developmental Services. "If you planned to be here and you moved here and it is over in a year, it could be very difficult."

Allenby, who has survived six administrations dating back to Democratic Gov. Pat Brown in 1963, added every governor had a different take on who should stay or go. Republican Gov. George Deukmejian, for example, installed mostly his own people when he took over, no matter the political affiliation, Allenby said.

'ODD SITUATION'

Another appointee who has outlasted a number of administrations said a key to success was staying above the political fray and doing a good job. This time even that may not be enough.

"This is an odd situation," said the appointee, who declined to be identified for fear of jeopardizing potential employment in a new administration. "At the end of the term, you plan for it, but this is different because it is very, very uncertain."

One person sure to lose out in a new administration is Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio, who noted appointees such as officials negotiating gaming compacts with American Indian tribes, and the state's Homeland Security director could also soon be out of work.

The former three-term state lawmaker from New Hampshire predicts that a changeover that could occur within days would be "chaotic," but he realizes the fickle nature of life in the political arena.

"In politics you never have job security," he said.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=3532395

Ik zie een Sale en Leaseback constructie er aan komen. Schwazenegger gaat Californische overheid verkopen aan de hoogste bieder!