Americans for Financial Reform

News Category: Blog

Blog: Can BlackRock Benefit from Inside Information from Fed Facilities?

Cross-posted from AFR’s Medium page. Can BlackRock Benefit from Inside Information from Fed Facilities? The Fed’s Agreement with BlackRock Raises Questions about Inside Information In order to respond to the ongoing pandemic, the Federal Reserve has created several facilities to purchase financial securities in order to attempt to stabilize the markets. Rather than run all

Private Equity Vultures Eye Real Estate During Coronavirus Crisis

Now, with 26 million workers unemployed and countless businesses closing indefinitely, private equity firms are salivating at the potential business opportunities that might arise from the expected economic fallout. Unless we take immediate action to prevent it, private equity firms will take advantage of this unprecedented crisis to make even greater asset grabs.

“Coronavirus distress is the ‘opportunity of the century’ for real estate investors,” according to a recent headline in The Real Deal, a New York real estate news publication. The article quotes Meridian Capital Group’s David Schechtman saying “But I will tell you, real-estate investors — when you take the emotion out of it — many of them have been waiting for this for a decade.”

Blog Post: Wall Street’s Secret Pet Profiteering

More and more as we go about our lives, the money we spend is siphoned off to enrich Wall Street firms. Private equity’s pet profiteering is just one way these investors have taken over so much of the economy and our daily lives.