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Sarah Chayes reminds us of the Larry Summers presidency of Harvard, featuring people like Andrei Shleifer.

(Also featuring Jeffrey Epstein, but that’s for a different post.)

[Before Hunter Biden’s legal but unethical activity in Ukraine,] there was already a template… for how insiders in a gas-rich kleptocracy could exploit … a [government] crisis using Western “advisers” to facilitate and legitimize their plunder—and how those Westerners could profit handsomely from it. A dozen-plus years earlier, amid the collapse of the U.S.S.R. of which Ukraine was a part, a clutch of oligarchs rifled the crown jewels of a vast nation. We know some of their names, in some cases because of the work of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office: Oleg Deripaska, Viktor Vekselberg, Dmitry Rybolovlev, Leonard Blavatnik. That heist also was assisted by U.S. consultants, many of whom had posts at Harvard and at least one of whom was a protégé of future Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

Yes, she’s talking about Professor Andrei Shleifer, whose greed cost Harvard millions, but all is forgiven.

*****************

UD wants very badly to see the end of Trump.

Yet she also thanks Chayes for focusing on a particularly disgusting practice.

Scratch into the bios of many former U.S. officials who were in charge of foreign or security policy in administrations of either party, and you will find “consulting” firms and hedge-fund gigs monetizing their names and connections.

Margaret Soltan, September 27, 2019 3:46PM
Posted in: just plain gross

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4 Responses to “Sarah Chayes reminds us of the Larry Summers presidency of Harvard, featuring people like Andrei Shleifer.”

  1. Bill R Says:

    Re: “Before Hunter Biden’s legal but unethical activity in Ukraine”

    My understanding is that Biden accepted a $600,000 job for which his only qualification was that he was the son of the vice president of the United States. This is known as “influence peddling” and is hardly legal but I understand it’s distressingly common.

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Bill: I think your understanding is correct. Beyond removing, one way or another, the President, the Ukraine scandal would do a huge national service if it shed tons and tons of light on the disgusting practice of lazily and corruptly trading on your name/position for money. At the very least, it would mean that corporate boards as currently constituted – Money for Nothing – might actually be abolished.

  3. Bill R Says:

    There is a funny aspect to this. The Ukrainians are happy to pay off the Biden family in expectation of future favors. They soon find out the club swings both ways and they are accepting dictats about which officials are to be fired or retained.

    It’s an old story. There is the Golem and the unfortunate Dr. Faustus, for example. It’s a recurring theme on the Sopranos and a variation appears in “The Monkey’s Paw”. Remember? “His last wish was for death”

  4. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Bill R: Yes – I find myself thinking about Strega Nona… The Ukrainians are dealing with too much pasta.

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