Whose Property Is It?

“Wall Street” is all in a tizzy over an entirely private deal made by the owner of all two of companies involved in the deal [emphasis added].

The valuation was surprising and so was how the companies got there. Only one set of advisers worked for both sides, when a deal of this size would normally take armies. In short, the unusual process resulted in a megadeal few public companies could get away with.

The news writers willy-nilly assume that all deals must have “armies” of advisers, just because. Why would an owner of two private enterprises need more than his own teams—or himself—to assess whether or how to merge his privately owned companies? Other than spreading fees out among a plethora of Wall Street investment advisor firms, I mean.

The news writers spent a whole section of their piece on the matter of The advisers worked both sides.

This proceeds, cynically, I claim, from a false premise: both private companies are/were owned by the same man. What “both sides?” There was only the single owner’s side.

And whence the question, in the first place? These are private enterprises, beholden to no one in the public sphere, especially the denizens of The Street. Even were the two private enterprises owned by two separate private individuals, no one on The Street has anything legitimate to say about the matter. Maybe this sort of interference-wannabe is part of the motivation for not going public and for taking public companies private.

No, the question implied, but never asked out loud, by these Wall Street Wonders is who owns the two companies—Elon Musk or “Wall Street?” The two news writers address this for themselves, but never put it to the wonders they claim to cite.

Reviewing Harvard’s Federal Funding

The Trump administration has begun reviewing Harvard University’s $9 billion in Federal funding. The question I have is how badly does Harvard need any Federal funding?

Harvard’s endowment is some $53.2 billion as of last year, and the school got a 9.6% return on its endowment’s investments last year. That allowed its endowment to grow by nearly 5% year-on-year despite disbursements from the endowment.

Harvard claims $6.4 million in annual operating expenses as of last year, and it spent $749 million in scholarships and its own grants for its students.

With all of that, I ask again, how badly does Harvard need Federal funding? The school’s endowment doesn’t seem to be doing much more than collecting dust, investment returns, and net growth, while the school collects billions of average citizens’ tax money for its programs. Given that, why should citizens of Iowa, or Montana, or Utah—or New York, or Illinois, or California—pay for Massachusetts-domiciled Harvard’s spending decisions?

My answer: Harvard has little to no need for taxpayer monies.