Wesley LePatner, a Blackstone executive who served as CEO of the firm’s real estate income trust, was among four people killed Monday when a gunman opened fire in a Midtown Manhattan office building that houses Blackstone’s global headquarters.
Locking post, as instance rules constantly being violated.
I’ll go ahead and be the bad taste in everyone’s mouth:
Good fucking riddance. Blackstone is an explicitly evil company, and everyone working for them should be ashamed. It is not possible to be an executive at Blackstone and also be a good person, they are diametrically opposed ideals.
If I believed the US justice system gave a single fuck about the evils that the rich committed, I would be more aghast by this… but I don’t, and I’m not.
Lots thinking the same. It takes courage to say it.
There’s the unwritten rule you don’t speak ill of the dead. It’s weird, you can call them an a$$whole all you like when the are alive, as soon as they die then it’s bad taste. Death does not absolve them. They were horrid and peddled misery to others. We need to be voicing this more.
The threads about Hulk Hogan dying were interesting. Lots of love for Ozzy in there.
Ya I have zero sympathy for elite members of society whose only way to the top is by taking from the countries poorest. Fuck em.
In surprised it’s taken this long for someone to take action against Blackstone.
Oh it was accidental. Somebody just let loose in a manhattan office and managed to hit a few parasites, go figure. They really meant to attack the nfl for suppressing research into the effects of head trauma on football players
In a Manhattan corporate office building in the middle of the workday, unless you’re exclusively shooting at security forces or catering workers your odds are pretty good of shooting an asshole.
Oh wow! Didn’t know that!
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In the mid-aughts, I had an opportunity to do IT in Iraq for one of these mercenary outfits. It was good, tax-free money, but I declined because I didn’t want to work for evil. Every person who works there had to make the same choice and chose to work for evil. Have no sympathy for anyone who works for these fucks.
This right here is exactly why I have no issue with the Luke and Lando destroying either death star.
Were there independent contractors present? Tons. Heaps, even.
I can tell you a contractors personal politics comes into play heavily when choosing jobs.
Anyone who knows the score and chooses to actively participate in evil and morally dubious business gets no sympathy if shit hits the fan.
Also as 3rd party labor, most recently I refused to do any jobs that took me into a Target. Lost out on about $3000 of work, but they will never get anything from me, even if they’re paying me for it (directly or not)
Goddamn… this is actually a really well framed and boiled down to the guts of it kinda statement. Every now and then, but all too rarely, bad things happen to bad people. Thanks Chief. Tell Keiko I said hi
This is why i manually masturbate caged animals for artificial insemination.
Bunch of savages
I would probably take the work at target, overcharge them and donate the overcharged portion to black community non-profits. Assuming you’re the one to be able to make such calls, but they probably would go with someone else anyways if you quoted the overcharged rate.
Do you think the death star would have officers families on it or something. Maybe not. What about conscripts? And how do we classify clones, they didn’t really make a choice. Though at the end of the day, it was a planet killer. Anyone decent there was really just a human shield. I would call it a sad but decent trade.
I first learned of this shooting via chat, and was lacking some context. I also didn’t know Blackstone INC was a thing.
I got so confused about why someone would target the CEO of a griddle company.
So she was CEO of a company that owns 61,000 single family homes as rental properties that has been investigated multiple times for how they treat their tenants. They also own over 22,000 apartments.
She made her money running a company that removes 61,000 homes from the market as available for normal people to buy as their primary home.
EDIT: want to be clear that she didn’t deserve to die for the work she did, just that she wasn’t just some strong woman who made it in business by working hard.
Wikipedia’s controversies section summarizes a few: owns Motel 6 and gave info to ICE, bought Ancestry.com stake including generic data, owns a slaughterhouse using child labor.
I had the displeasure of renting from them once. They screwed my young family coming and going, actively lied to us and misled us into making decisions that benefited them and squeezed us for every penny we had when we were just trying to get a footing in this world, and when we had enough and tried to fight back they responded by destroying my credit and making it impossible to rent elsewhere.
So you may say she didn’t deserve to die for her evil deeds, but I’m not so sure.
About Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, the deceased executive’s boss:
In fact, Reuters recently found that Schwarzman is Wall Street’s largest political contributor in the United States, shelling out more than $27 million to campaign committees, Donald Trump, and other politicians. The billionaire is clearly attempting to shape American politics and policymaking to his favor. Schwarzman has already contributed $4.4 million to Trump’s campaign or political committees connected to Trump, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
People don’t deserve to be murdered, but if you fuck with too many people for too long, they will murder you.
Hitler deserved to be murdered before he offed himself.
If you agree with the above, all that’s being discussed is degree of horribleness.
I disagree. Murdering Hitler would have been a necessity to prevent greater evil. An acceptable trade-off. But he didn’t deserve to be murdered. He - as well as the CEO in this post - deserved to be tried & put in jail forever. When chances of that happening are slim, well… Trade-off time…
Arguably, taking off on this tangent, murdering Hitler might have very well pumped the brakes on the Holocaust. Late-war letters and memos from German High Command mention that part of the issues they were having with manpower and materiel was due to Hitler’s insistence on running the camps, which was a serious drain on manpower and logistics.
Hitler was a puppet. They would have replaced him.
There is considerable historical evidence, both written and anecdotal, from Nazi Party and OKW staff that with Hitler out of the way, the German leadership would have sued for peace immediately with the Western Allies and frame their necessity for continued existence to serve as a bulwark against Russian Bolshevism.
the German leadership would have sued for peace immediately with the Western Allies (*) in 1944, when most casualties and atrocities had already happened, and the war was lost anyways. Like Operation Valkyrie wasn’t put into place until July 1944… They were perfectly fine with the atrocities until the war tide turned.
People don’t deserve to be murdered
I don’t think I agree with such a blanket statement. I don’t know exactly how to define where the line should be but I have no problem saying that there are definitely people alive who don’t deserve to be.
Perhaps the caveat should be:
People don’t deserve to be murdered without a trial and a jury of their peers.
When you’re interfering with millions of people’s lives and livelihoods you get exactly what you deserve. Stay in your lane rich fucks. Enjoy your wealth and just leave us alone, fuck off to an island or whatever.
they dont deserved to be murdered, but people arnt going to lose sleep for pos like the blackstone ceo. i wonder if they donate to dems to, im betting some of them to, if they are solely gop donors, good riddance.
I’m going to respectfully disagree with your edit.
Just to be clear, respectfully to you, not the dead corpo slumlord CEO lady.
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She made her money running a company that removes 61,000 homes from the market as available for normal people to buy as their primary home.
vs
EDIT: want to be clear that she didn’t deserve to die for the work she did,
…
What would Spok say?
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
…
61,000 homes x bare minimum 2.6 avg household size = 158,600.
Homelessness rate in the US is now at least 3% of the total population.
158,600 x 0.03 = 4,758.
Homelessness is an extremely dangerous, life-threatening, often fatal condition.
In summary, nah, she absolutely deserved to die for the work she did, regardless of whatever the actual specifics of this incident are.
1 life vs almost 5k likely deaths?
This math ain’t as hard as people seem to think.
If she ran a company that knowingly, intentionally, poisoned that many people’s food or water, distributed that many HIV contaminated needles, sold that many defective airbags or brakepads…
…if the process wasn’t so abstracted with so many steps, the moral judgement would be a lot easier for a lot more people to make.
Keep in mind: Her job was to literally operate and maintain the abstraction.
I have negative pity for this exploitative cancer formely emobodied in the form of a living human being.
If this guy’s name is Mario I’m going to lose it.
God I hope his name is Mario! Then I’ll know we are being fucked with, and we’re in a simulation…
Nah, his name was Shane. Sadly, there will be no teaming up because he shot himself at the end.
Would have been great if he rode off on a horse.
I just want it for the memes.
Mario was just the fall guy. Clearly the real killer is still out there, continuing his works.
Didn’t the CEO’s hold “lone gunman” drills? Did they practice hiding under their desks? Were they children? No? Because that’s what children have to go through every single day. This is just one day that the gunman went to a business, not a school.
I’d rather have gunmen shooting up slumlord CEOs than schools any day. Maybe if they kill enough CEOs, we can get some gun control laws that might save children. At schools. Because the CEOs that control the government sure don’t give a single fuck about children being shot at school - and they never, ever will.
I’m glad our “mental health problem” is finally at least putting the crosshairs in the direction of people that actually hurt others.
I really hope this is the new Meta. Anything to protect our schools.
We have to implement “Children4CEOs” before “Children2CEOs” has a chance.
The whole “wait 20 years and shoot up the NFL because of highschool football” never fucking smelt right…
Even if this story is true, everyone needs to read up on Blackstone. If you’re an American and have any sort of pension or retirement fund, Blackstone likely has a piece of it.
Like, you think a random guy with a billion or two is a problem?
Blackstone is trillion dollar fund, a billion dollars isn’t enough to be a rounding error in their total investment.
Edit:
Edit was wrong
Not here to defend Blackstone, but it sounds like you are talking about Blackrock. Blackstone owns commercial real estate portfolio companies. Blackrock is the 11 trillion owns the world alongside vanguard one. Easy to mix them up.
Thanks, I was wondering why the portfolio went up 10x, but didn’t notice the name was why
I love it when some shooting or tragedy happens, if it’s workers then all they get is one line at best and their lives get abbreviated to a statistic, but when some capitalist dies every news site writes about how great and authentic they were for a couple days.
Though given how this shooting was an example of lone wolf adventurism, it’s quite dumb to support it - the CEO will be replaced by an identical cog in the machine like always, a decent part of the public will get alienated thanks to anti-violence culture and media narratives (as seen in articles like there) and the shooter just threw away their life.
Though I won’t lie that it doesn’t make the day a bit better to see capitalist get gunned down
I don’t think that decent part of the public you talk about, I don’t think they actually exist. I think it’s like the mythical centrist voters who are waiting for the perfect centrist candidate, that don’t quite exist.
Many people have made the argument that you made, that violence doesn’t solve problems, and that’s true as long as we ignore all of human history.
There are a ton of people like that, but they’re mostly found on real life, facebook and other similar social medias and not lemmy or reddit or twitter - those are terminally online echochambers, but I’ve seen one or two people going “thoughts and prayers” or “all violence bad”.
Also, my position is more complex than “violence can’t solve problems” - it can, but it must be organized, with clear goals in mind and people already behind and actively part of the cause.
If you just go in lone wolf style like Luigi or something and gun down a CEO, you expect for the public to see this, get inspired to take up arms of their own and start Years of Lead where rich people are fearing for their lives and suddenly we have a revolution like in some sort of Hollywood movie, but that’s not what happens in reality.
Instead, media tries to demonize the shooter by saying how good the victim was and how their family is grieving (happening right now) to tug on heart strings which will at least turn some people against them, the shooter being made example of in court which essentially throws their life in the bin, the CEO being replaced by someone else in a week’s time and people forgetting about all of this after news cycle moves on. I genuinely only see Luigi mentioned on lemmy here given how he’s the liberal larp darling here, and nowhere else I visit or IRL.
Also, if we’re talking history here, then here’s a fun factoid - some Anarchist burnt down Reichstag in opposition to Hitler and his Nazi party, but this fire was later used by Hitler to expand his powers, suppress civil liberties and was pivotal in establishment of Nazi Germany. Of course, this is only something to think about with more brutal regimes, but nothing like that will probably come out of this shooting.
A good example of organized violence is probably that of the Bolsheviks pre-Russian revolutions - they had bank robberies, political assassinations that were used to fund the revolutionary underground and destabilize the regime, and not merely some bouts of individualized violence.
BlackrockBlackstone is a fucking MASSIVE corporate residential landlord.They are not a good company. They are an evil company, for that fact alone.
send more blue shells
Is that a Mario Kart joke?
Amongst other things
“They are not a good company”… are there any good corporations?
There are some that are a heck of a lot better. Oxfam, Ben & Jerries, maybe Valve; but it does seem that on a large enough timeline all of them turn to the dark side.
Regular reminder that Ben and Jerry’s are wholly owned by Unilever who definitely do some shady shit.
Ben and Jerry’s pulled put of the west bank. Uniliver make them come back there.
Presumably that’s a question of the founders, the rules and laws of the system, the state of the market and technology. For example if profit can be improved mostly by marketing, this will lead to marketing people be promoted and run the corporation. If it’s a publicly traded company it’s likely to become more like an artificial intelligence hellbent on profit (or a demonic entity incorporated into a swarm of drones).
What are the factors that make corporations like good or bad for society should be long studied and taught in high school and everybody should know them - if you’d wanted capitalism to work as advertised. It should be a major focus of our society.
Blackstone
Too bad NATO troops are the mall cops of the modern military complex, or the blue shell rebellion thing could really have some wings. 🤌🏼
What…?
Also, how is that in any way related?
Blue. Helmets.
Also, blue shell + wings… 😶
FFS.
You’re thinking of the UN. They’re the ones that use blue helmets on peacekeeping missions. NATO detachment generally use whatever uniforms their home countries do.
Too true. Super stoned. I kinda fixated on the Apollo lookin’ regalia when I was typing. My bad. 🤪
All good, fellow meatbag. I have been known to indulge the devil’s lettuce myself.
Best news I’ve heard all day.
Here I was afraid that a child got killed, but a Blackstone CEO? Happy day.
Phew! I was worried it might have been an innocent victim.
Well, at least someone terrible was among those lost. I’ll take the silver-lining where I can get it. Rot in hell, corporate robber baron.
Yeah but the CEO was a women and therefore “woke”. /s
glass ceiling effect.
That should make the rw happy then, too.
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If that exec fought harder for Work From Home maybe his work-life balance would still be in decent order
Don’t worry, they’ll just do that. For executives position only. You plebs can still rot in traffic
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BlackRock and BlackStone are two separate companies people.
Both are evil, but very differently
Weyland yutani, omni consumer products, and viridian dynamics: also different companies. Explain the difference.
Invest in BlackRock, your money is used to buy up stocks and bonds. In fact, buy shares in an iShares ETF and you’re part of the famous BlackRock cabal.
BlackRock has been controversial for many legitimate reasons as well, but in recent years the biggest one has been ESG efforts (“environmental, social and corporate governance”), due to which they’re now referred to as… woke??? Several states stopped doing business with them because of their advocacy against fossil fuels. Florida pulled 2 billion invested with them because of ESG. Also, apparently they’re all Jews and caused COVID.
The legitimate reasons for which they’re controversial include the fact that their funds own large shares in literally everything. See healthy competition among publicly traded companies in the US by some miracle? BlackRock still owns a large percent of all of them. Or rather, BlackRock funds do. Again, these are mainly ETFs (exchange-traded funds), anyone can buy into them and own a piece of those pies. BlackRock owns things fairly passively.
Blackstone is different. They also have diverse investments from insurance to entertainment where they usually invest directly in companies, but they’re controversial for their real estate investments. They own tens of thousands of single family homes and apartments in the US and during COVID made news for buying SFHs above market value so they could buy up entire neighborhoods to ensure people couldn’t buy homes in those neighborhoods and would have to rent from them. They have a bunch of commercial real estate too, but that’s not as controversial, since it’s not actively removing homes from the market. If you travel at all, you’re essentially guaranteed to have stayed at some Blackstone owned hotel at one point or another.
Ah and extra fun fact: While BlackRock is the bigger company these days, it’s actually a former subsidiary of Blackstone.
TL;DR: BlackRock owns a bit of everything, or rather profits from everything from holdings that their customers own through their funds. Blackstone actively buys up shit you need to live.
To be fair, your fun fact undermines the point you’re trying to make. “Former subsidiary” of a conglomerate so vast and pervasive in its reach, it’s above every law across the globe, and think some paper declaring their separation is legit, much less binding? C’mon, man. Ferreal? 🤷🏽♂️
To be fair, this was all over 30 years ago. Blackstone doesn’t make it into the top 10 of the owners list of BlackRock these days. Started with 50% stake owned by Blackstone, then reduced a bit later, and in 1994, they had a falling out, and Blackstone sold its remaining stake, which the CEO obviously regretted later on, given that BlackRock is now bigger than Blackstone.
Fun fact, what they fell out over, was the fact that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink wanted to give new hires some equity in order to poach top talent and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman didn’t want to give up any more equity.
Blackstone CEO Schwarzman is now a big Trump supporter and even an advisor, at least during his first presidency. BlackRock CEO Fink is criticized for wokeness by right-wing politicians, because he wants his company’s investments to be sustainable.
Both are ridiculously large corporations that shouldn’t be allowed to exist, both have investments in shady companies. But you tell me which is worse.
BlackRock gets more media attention purely because it’s bigger. Blackstone’s business strategies are more sinister.
Fair points all. They’re still the same parasite, it just budded.
If by “the same parasite” you mean capitalism, then yes, absolutely. Otherwise, nah, they’re pretty different. Different owners, different investment classes, etc. The one that gets less attention is far more actively evil than the one that all the conspiracy theories are about.
You can’t trick me into reading the AvP books a second time!
What about a third?
Well, maybe not the entire series…
I hear you, but there are people literally confusing the two with specificity.
But also, from the article:
Wesley LePatner, a Blackstone executive who served as CEO of the firm’s real estate income trust, was among four
peoplekilled
They’re the same picture.
Last week, the Department of Justice announced it had filed an amended complaint to its antitrust lawsuit against RealPage in order to sue six of the largest U.S. landlords for their alleged participation in a nationwide rental price-fixing scheme. According to the complaint, the six landlords allegedly coordinated their rents with each other through use of RealPage’s pricing algorithms and direct communication with competitors about rents and occupancy, among other tactics. Of those six landlords, three are owned by private equity firms: Blackstone, Greystar Real Estate Partners, and Cortland Management.
Blackstone, the nation’s largest landlord, with around 350,000 rental units, has faced years of scrutiny from advocates for its poor treatment of tenants. In August, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) published a report examining how Blackstone has profited from rent hikes and ramped up evictions in California. In 2021, Blackstone acquired 5,800 rental units in the San Diego area. Since then, the report showed, Blackstone has increased the rent at these properties 38% — almost double the 20% average rent increase for all apartments in the San Diego market during this period. The rent increase at some Blackstone-owned buildings was especially high – up to 79%. The report also noted how Blackstone touted to investors multiple times how the firm’s real estate investments benefit from declining new supply of housing, a key driver of the affordable housing crisis.
“As more and more Americans struggle with the cost of putting a roof over their heads, corporate landlords were allegedly colluding to raise rents ever higher,” said Jordan Ash, Director of Housing at PESP. “Everyday Americans can’t keep up with the cost of rent. Homelessness is skyrocketing. Folks are choosing between medicine and a place to live. We applaud the Department of Justice for taking decisive action to hold profiteers like Blackstone accountable.”
And she was CEO of that.
I will bet you a dollar that she would speak at charity dinners talking about how her company creates safe living spaces for low income women or some shit. She would say anything to spin the fact that she made the world a worse place for hundreds of thousands of people.
She can rot.
