Spotlight on Gore ‘s Dual Role As an Advocate and Investor
New York Times, Nov 3, 2009, By JOHN M. BRODER
Abstract: Al Gore finds himself in position of having to defend decision to invest, through his venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, in Silver Spring Networks, which produces hardware and software to make electricity grid more efficient.
Gore and his partners invested $75 million in Silver Spring, which wanted to expand its partnerships with utilities seeking to install millions of smart meters in home and businesses; deal appears to have paid off now that Energy Dept has announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, with $560 million going to Silver Spring.
Gore and his partners could reap great returns from investment and he is defending that investment against critics who say he stood to benefit personally from energy and climate policies he urged Congress to adopt. Gore contends his investmenet activities are consistent with his public advocacy. (snip)
Gore is a founder of Generation Investment Management, based in London and run by David Blood, a former head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (the firm was quickly dubbed Blood and Gore).
Mr. Gore earns a partner’s salary at Kleiner Perkins. He has substantial personal finances invested at both firms, officials of the companies said. He also serves as an adviser to high-profile technology companies including Apple and Google, relationships that have paid him handsome dividends over the last eight years.
Mr. Gore‘s spokeswoman would not give a figure for his current net worth, but the scale of his wealth is evident in a single investment of $35 million in Capricorn Investment Group, a private equity fund started by his friend Jeffrey Skoll, the first president of eBay. Ion Yadigaroglu, a co-founder of Capricorn, said that Mr. Gore does not sit on the fund’s investment committee, but obviously agrees with the partners’ strategy of putting long-term money into promising ventures in energy, technology and health care around the globe.
“Aspirationally,” said Mr. Yadigaroglu, who holds a doctorate from Stanford in astrophysics, “we’re trying to make more money than others doing the same thing and do it in a way that is superior in ethics and impacts.”
Mr. Gore has said he invested in partnerships and funds that try to identify and support companies that are advancing cutting-edge green technologies and are paving the way toward a low-carbon economy.
He has a stake in the world’s pre-eminent carbon credit trading market and in an array of companies in bio-fuels, sustainable fish farming, electric vehicles and solar power.
Capricorn holds a major stake in Falcon Waterfree Technologies, the world’s leading maker of waterless urinals. Generation has holdings in Ausra, a solar energy company based in California, and Camco, a British firm that develops carbon dioxide emissions reduction projects.
Kleiner Perkins has a green ventures fund with nearly $1 billion invested in renewable energy and efficiency concerns.
Mr. Gore also has substantial interests in technology, media and biotechnology ventures that have no direct tie to his environmental advocacy, an aide said. (snip).
SOURCE http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html
Oh, wait.......what about COS Rahm Emanuel? What role does he play?
Goldman Sachs Will Be Sitting Pretty With Emanuel in the Obama White House
By Timothy P. Carney, Examiner Columnist, Nov 21, 2008
EXCERPT Today, in these tumultuous times of bailouts and meltdowns when the investment banking leviathan needs Washington more than ever before, Goldman Sachs can leverage its most valuable asset yet White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
Traditionally a Democratic booster, and one of Barack Obama’s top sources of funds in this past election, Goldman has always had particularly strong allies in government.
Rahm Emanuel is one such ally. An interesting early chapter in the Goldman-Emanuel relationship took place in the setting of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign for the White House. Clinton hired Emanuel as his chief fundraiser.At the same time, however, Emanuel was on the payroll of Goldman Sachs, receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to “introduce us to people,” in the words of one Goldman partner at the time. This is certainly a noteworthy relationship, but it’s one that has almost entirely escaped scrutiny. (snip)
In his four terms in Congress, Emanuel raised $74,750 from Goldman, making the firm his number four source of funds. Goldman has helped Emanuel. How has Emanuel helped Goldman? The most obvious answer, as mentioned in this column two weeks ago, is in Emanuel’s lead role in shepherding the “$700 billion” bailout—first proposed by former a Goldman CEO, Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—through the skeptical House.
Of course, back in the Clinton days, Goldman benefited from NAFTA and the bailout of the Mexican currency, with Emanuel pushing NAFTA through Congress, and Rubin hammering out the peso bailout.
Did Goldman improperly funnel money to the Clinton campaign by subsidizing Emanuel’s salary in 1992? Did Goldman’s help to Clinton spur the Democratic president to push NAFTA and the Mexican bailout?
The answers to these questions are opaque, and with Emanuel burrowed deep within the Obama White House, the continued relationship between Goldman Sachs and Obama’s right hand man won’t be easy to follow.
Watch which regulations of Wall Street Obama fights for. Watch where the bailout money goes.
SOURCE http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/TimothyCarney/ Goldman_Sach_Will_Be_Sitting_Pretty_With_Emanuel_in_the_Obama_White_House_112108.html
Thanks Ernest_at_the_Beach, BOBTHENAILER, and Liz.
Thank you for ping! With thread/your post, updating Monster Ping and Thug-0-crat hit list [links in profile].
” Now the story gets more slippery: In 2000 the Chicago Climate Exchange was helped to get started by the Joyce Foundation. It’s a charity set up years ago, that now manages around a billion in funds. Here’s how Beck tells it:
The Joyce Foundation is like the George Soros’ TIDES Foundation. In fact, it’s actually bigger than TIDES and even funds TIDES. Think of it as a place where uber-rich and powerful liberals like to dump their money into, so the cash can be spread around to their pet projects without a direct link “
“Mr. Gore earns a partner’s salary at Kleiner Perkins. He has substantial personal finances invested at both firms, officials of the companies said. He also serves as an adviser to high-profile technology companies including Apple and Google, relationships that have paid him handsome dividends over the last eight years.”
Gore has been paid an INSANE amount of money for absolutely nothing.
Not a secret any more.
Thanks Ernest_at_the_Beach, BOBTHENAILER, and Liz.