Does Private Equity Hate Stephen Schwarzman?
And later, a circular maze of logic re: raise the tax to 35%

Let’s see what two guys (Kurt Andersen and a friend, who asked requested his name be withheld) had to say about the matter:

* Guy New York contributor Kurt Andersen knows who works around private equity “snarls” when he says the name “Steve,” and “blames the current anti-private-equity spasm not on whiny anti-business liberals, but on Steve Schwarzman”

* “The fucking birthday party” (attribution to same “guy”)

* “Where no one gave a toast, by the way, not one” (same party, same guy)

* “We’re where we are right now because of the unbelievable egos of guys running the private-equity firms like Blackstone. They put big targets on their backs by what I consider stupid actions like throwing these big parties.” (same party, different guy—head of the National Venture Capital Association)

* “Ostentatious, churlish, megalomaniacal, tone-deaf—and a hypocritical dissembler to boot.” (Andersen, in cahoots with “guy”)

* “Steve Schwarzman is squealing like a pig” (Andersen, in cahoots with “guy”)

* “Duplicity” (Andersen, in cahoots with “guy”)

* “They’re not risking anything,” (“guy”). “In fact, don’t we owe it to these postmodern heroes of global business to threaten to tax them fairly—off with their … pinkies!—in order to inject some real, invigorating risk into their world?” (Andersen, in cahoots with “guy”)

A. Kurt Andersen and this one guy who works with private equity do. In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that this guy is (sounds like, whatever) Chuck Grassley and that bit about raising the tax on carried interest being in the best interest of private equity titans (“We’re doing this for YOU”) is the greatest argument of its kind that we’ve heard since a friend of ours (not Grassley, we wish) was recently told her boyfriend would be sleeping with a few ladies that weren’t her, independent of her, “for the good of the threesome” they were planning on having (had to work out the kinks beforehand, etc). “Raising the tax from 15 to 35 is our gift to you. You’ll thank us later.” “Me sleeping with someone else is my contribution to this relationship. You’ll thank me later.” “35 will add risk-- no-- beauty of bravado to your world.” “That wasn’t cheating, she’s just a threesome candidate.” Brilliance.

Greed is Good and Ugly [NYM]