Imperialism, Fog-city style

DiFi and Blum: a Marriage Marinated in Money

WILL PARRISH and DARWIN BOND-GRAHAM

""On April 17, 2009, with the edifice of the global economy rotting under an architecture of monumental greed, war deficits, and official hubris, the University of California, Berkeley conducted a groundbreaking ceremony for its Richard C. Blum Center for Developing Economies. Before a throng of students, faculty, staff, and PR specialists affiliated with the Center’s new multi-UC campus “Global Poverty & Practice” program, the Blum Center's namesake was joined on stage by one of the many political heavyweights he counts among his business partners, Al Gore. The former Vice President praised Blum as a long-time friend and cited the new institute as a key to solving the interlocking problems of global poverty and global climate change, two of the many vexing boogeymen threatening to destabilize the profit-making order.

To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, who published a book on the general subject in 1923, some of the greatest sociopaths in this country's history have affixed their names to university buildings in an effort to burnish their reputations.

Richard Blum is a San Francisco-based finance capitalist presiding over a business empire that is, to say the least, expansive. Hedge funds? Blum owns one outright and wields a significant share of various others. Real estate? His primary investment vehicle, the $7.8 billion Blum Capital Partners, owns the largest real estate brokerage firm on the planet, CB Richard Ellis, of which Blum is chairman of the board. Construction? Until public scandal prompted him to sell off his holdings, Blum was a majority partner in a construction and engineering company that did billions in business with the US military, among other government clients. Education? Try being the resident Alpha Regent of the largest public university system in the world, the University of California, while also being a primary owner of the world's second-largest for-profit education firm, Career Education Corporation.""""

Then for a Darwinist, who cares about a few billion shekels in war-profits, or public unis run by financiers, such as Blum, CB Richard Ellis, and DiDi? The usury meme, perhaps. Maezulltufggies