Wasserstein dead (the guy that made Rahm Emanuel a multi-millionaire)

Wall Street bids adieu to famed Lazard dealmaker: Bruce Wasserstein died at age 61 after being hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat....the exact cause could not be determined. A Brooklyn native, Wasserstein amassed a fortune of about $2.3B doling out merger advice to players Carl Icahn and Ron Perelman. According to former Lazard banker, William Cohan, author of "The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres," Wasserstein made more money from investment banking than anyone else on Wall Street. "While everyone else was fighting the Vietnam War, he was studying English takeover law at Cambridge." Lazard Deputy Chairman Jeffrey Rosen saw him slightly differently: ".....one who will be remembered as having the greatest impact on the investment banking business over the last 30 years." Just nine months ago, Wasserstein took his fourth wife, shipping heiress Angela Chao, 29 (sister Elaine was Labor Secy for George W. Bush). One of five children of wealthy textile executive Morris Wasserstein, his grandfather was acclaimed Polish playwright Simon Schleifer; his sister was Pulitzer Prize playwright Wendy Wasserstein, who died in 2006. A graduate of U of Michigan, Wasserstein earned a law degree and MBA at Harvard. He started as a lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, but switched to investment banking.

(Sob) damn shame Wasserstein, Rhambo and Ohaha won't be able to cash in, what with having the US Treasury at their disposal (/sarc). Rhambo and Ohaha must be c-r-u-s-h-e-d---they will have to look elsewhere to squirrel away billions from the TARP slush fund and trillions from healthcare reform (sniffle).

RAHM TIMELINE: BALLETOMANE, CHICAGO OPERATOR, FOUNDED Rahm Emanuel and Amy Rule Charitable Trust TAX DODGE, CLINTON ADVISOR, WALL STREET MULTI-MILLIONAIRE, CONGRESSMAN, WHITE HOUSE COS (was not even voted most likely to succeed).

1992 Emanuel's knowledge of the top Dem donors, and his affinity rapport with potential donors within the Jewish community, who were making zillions with Bernie Madoff, helped Clinton amass a then-unheard-of sum of $72 million which nailed the Billary victory.

1993 Emanuel became a senior advisor to Clinton 1993-1998. Emanuel was initially Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and then Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy. He was a leading strategist in the unsuccessful White House efforts to institute universal healthcare and many other Clinton initiatives.

1993 One of Rahm's proudest moments was an event that touched his political sensibilities and his personal ties to Israel as a dual citizen and a volunteer in the Israeli military: the 1993 Rose Garden signing ceremony after the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO which cost US taxpayers several hundred billion dollars. Emanuel directed the details of the ceremony, down to the choreography of the famous handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat (as terrorism resumed shortly thereafter).

1998 While official Washington was in the throes of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Rahm Emanuel, a senior political aide to Pres Bill Clinton, ventured out to an elegant restaurant in Dupont Circle for something of a job interview, The New York Times’s Michael Luo writes.

John Simpson, who ran the Chicago office of the investment banking boutique Wasserstein Perella & Company, had flown to Washington to meet with Mr. Emanuel at the behest of Mr. Simpson’s boss, Bruce Wasserstein, a major Democratic donor and renowned Wall Street dealmaker who had gotten to know Mr. Emanuel.

“I had this idea that this could work and that it had upside,” Mr. Wasserstein, now chairman and chief executive of Lazard, the investment bank, told The Times. “It worked out better than I could have hoped.” And better than Mr. Emanuel could have imagined as well.

Over the course of a three-hour-plus dinner, Mr. Simpson and Mr. Emanuel discussed how they might work together. Shortly afterward, Mr. Emanuel accepted an offer, nudging him down what has by now become a well-trodden gilded path out of politics and into the lucrative world of business.

1998 Wonder Boy Rahm resigned his position as an advisor to Bill Clinton, to become a Wall Street investment banker with Wasserstein Perella, (now Dresdner Kleinwort), where he worked until 2002.

1999 Just like that (snaps fingers)----in 1999, Rahm became managing director at their Chicago office. According to Congressional disclosures, Emanuel made $16.2 million in his 2 1/2 year stint as a Wasserstein Perella banker (AND probably paid all his taxes).

Amazingly, with those contacts, Rahm became a multi-millioniare overnight----and he wasn't even voted "Most Likely To Succeed."

At Wasserstein Perella, Rahm worked on eight deals, including the acquisition by Commonwealth Edison of Peco Energy and the purchase by GTCR Golder Rauner of the SecurityLink home security unit from SBC.

2002 Rahm then ran for Congress (successfully, OF COURSE). Luckily (/snic) members of the securities and investment industry became Rahm's biggest backers, donating more than $1.5M up to 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

2006 Rahm also leaned heavily upon the financial industry as 2006 Dem Congressional Campaign Committee Chair. Financial industry donors contributed more than $5.8M to the Dem committee (behind only retirees).

Remember, the point of Obama bringing Rahm in was so that "tolerant and compassionate bi-partisan Rahm" could work constructively w/ Congress to pass an ambitious agenda.......

Here's tolerant Rahm expressing his feelings for America on inauguration day.

Here’s a start:

The Obama Death List

The following is a partial list of deaths of persons connected to Barack HUSSEIN Obama during his time inside the United States. Read the list and judge for yourself…

SARAH BERKLEY – Author of “The Jihad at the Ballot Box” – a book examining Obama’s relationship with radical Islam. Died in a mysterious car crash in 2003.

RUSSELL MCDOUGAL – Former FBI operative, January 23rd, 2007. McDougal was known to hold sensitive information about meetings Barack Obama had with arms smugglers. His wife was murdered March 2006 after he went public with his initial reports. His father died July 8, 2006 four hours after McDougal presented his findings on the Savage Nation. Suffered administrative retaliation after reporting discussions by jihadist groups concerning Obama to his superiors.

RODRIGO VILLALOPEZ, a television news camera man who shot the footage of Obama describing small town voters as “bitter” and “clinging to their guns during the primary season.

BRIAN GORING – A defense attorney for Obama patron Antoin Rezko during his trial for extortion and bribery. Died of apparent “natural causes.”

MERCEDES HUGLEY, one of Obama’s many white, female conquests while at Harvard. Filed sexual assault charges against Obama for date rape in 1990. Because “date rape” was not considered a crime like it is today, she ended up dropping the charges. Two years later, she was found dead of an apparent cocaine overdose.

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=33644

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