Thomas J. Barrack Jr. , the wealthy private-equity investor who is in negotiations to buy the Weinstein Co., has spent most of his career trading real estate. But bailing out troubled celebrities has long been a favorite hobby.
.. took control of Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch in 2008.
.. Mr. Barrack helped out Annie Leibovitz, a photographer famous for her work with musicians and movie stars, a few years ago by buying out her millions of dollars of debt. He then helped her raise the money back by promoting exhibits of her work and sales of limited-edition prints.
.. The Weinstein Co. deal appears to be a variant of the Barrack playbook of providing much-needed capital to companies or people in exchange for greater control over their holdings.
.. Financier Steven Mnuchin, now the Treasury secretary, was a Hollywood player who co-financed movies through his RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC venture.
.. Mr. Mnuchin’s executive-producer credit has appeared on recent movies like “The Accountant” and “Wonder Woman.”
.. President Donald Trump.
The real-estate investors got to know each other when Mr. Barrack was working for Texas billionaire investor Robert Bass and helped his boss sell the iconic Plaza Hotel to Mr. Trump for around $400 million in 1988.
.. Mr. Barrack was a major fundraiser for Mr. Trump and served as chairman of the president’s inauguration committee... Mr. Barrack founded Colony Capital in 1991 to buy defaulted real-estate loans during the savings-and-loan crisis. He built his fortune over the years by acquiring property in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.
Mnuchin Says Estate Tax Repeal Will Help ‘Rich People’ Most
Mr. Mnuchin said the estate tax should be eliminated for both philosophical and economic reasons. He said that many taxpayers give the government half their income during their lives and that they should not have to give away a big chunk when they die — even if their families are wealthy.
“Obviously, the estate tax, I will concede, disproportionately helps rich people,”
Mr. Mnuchin’s comments contrasted starkly with his boss, President Trump, who pilloried the estate tax in a speech in Indiana last month by saying it is a drag on the working class.
“To protect millions of small businesses and the American farmer, we are finally ending the crushing, the horrible, the unfair estate tax, or as it is often referred to, the death tax,” Mr. Trump said.
.. Couples can leave their heirs as much as $11 million, none of it taxed, meaning only a few thousand wealthy estates are subject to the tax a year.
.. Just 80 small farms and closely held businesses are expected to pay an estate tax in 2017, the center, a right-leaning think tank, projected.
Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin Risk Their Reputations
When Cohn joined the Trump administration, many corporate executives were relieved, seeing him as a steadying influence.
.. Now, unfortunately, both Cohn and Mnuchin are endangering their reputations in their attempts to sell a tax cut.
.. Within the administration, there are real differences among how top officials have behaved and how they are perceived. Several — Tom Price, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer and Rex Tillerson — have badly sullied their standing with virtually everyone outside the administration. After long careers, they have turned themselves into punch lines.
.. The clearest exception is Jim Mattis, the defense secretary. Mattis has done so partly by avoiding scandal and minimizing conflicts with Trump. But he has also been careful to set his own ethical boundaries. Can you recall a single time when Mattis has said something outright untrue? I can’t. That’s how he has retained his dignity in the eyes of so many people.
.. In the early stages of promoting Trump’s tax cut, they have made a series of statements that are blatantly false — not merely shadings of truth or questionable claims but outright up-is-down falsehoods mocked by various fact-checkers. The statements make the two look more like Trump press secretaries than serious business executives whom members of Congress can trust.
.. They fall into two main categories. The first is who benefits from the tax plan. “Wealthy Americans are not getting a tax cut,” Cohn said on “Good Morning America.” He was echoing a promise that Mnuchin had made before the inauguration: “Any reductions we have in upper-income taxes will be offset by less deductions, so that there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class.”
.. Want to guess how many families in New York State — population 20 million — are wealthy enough that they’re likely to pay any estate tax next year, according to an estimate based on I.R.S. data? Just 470. The number is so low in Montana, Vermont, West Virginia and four other states — likely fewer than 10 families in each — that the I.R.S. doesn’t provide details, to avoid privacy concerns.
.. Then there are the two men’s deficit claims. “This tax plan will cut down the deficits by a trillion dollars,” Mnuchin said. Cohn claimed that “we can pay for the entire tax cut through growth.”
.. The Harvard economist Greg Mankiw coined the phrase “charlatans and cranks” specifically to describe people who claim that tax cuts pay for themselves. And Mankiw is a conservative who’s worked for George W. Bush and Mitt Romney.
.. Neither one of them has yet turned 60 years old. These won’t be their last jobs.
Loyalty to Trump isn’t enough
Trump demands not just loyalty but flattery, too. He insists that his courtiers treat his pronouncements, however absurd or offensive, as infallible holy writ. Members of his Cabinet have made a humiliating bargain: humor him, suck up to him, and maybe — just maybe — he will leave you alone and let you make policy.
.. Trump demands not just loyalty but flattery, too. He insists that his courtiers treat his pronouncements, however absurd or offensive, as infallible holy writ. Members of his Cabinet have made a humiliating bargain: humor him, suck up to him, and maybe — just maybe — he will leave you alone and let you make policy.
.. Retiring Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, encouraged Tillerson to stay on because he, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly “are those people that help separate our country from chaos.”
.. other Cabinet members have made their peace with the Sun King’s demand for unctuous deference. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin looked as if he were in physical pain as he went on the Sunday shows and defended Trump’s demand for NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to be fired.
Chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, who almost quit after Charlottesville, told reporters he stayed on for the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to enact sweeping tax reform.
.. What these officials don’t seem to fully grasp is that their policy initiatives can be undercut by the president at any time, and probably will. Look at budget director Mick Mulvaney, who has big ideas about shrinking government and the deficit. He didn’t anticipate having to wipe away Puerto Rico’s debt, which Trump offhandedly promised to do.