Tag Archives: Morgan Stanley

Elections Have Consequences

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Forty years ago, I was not interested in politics. America seemed to be getting along fine without my involvement. I was tending to my own life, believing the mainstream media, and not really paying attention. I think a lot of us were there at various times. It’s hard to be involved when you are working and raising a family. Unfortunately, the days of coasting are over.

On Wednesday, The New York Post posted an article about an offer Dallas, Texas, has made to Morgan Stanley.

The article reports:

Dallas lawmakers signed off Wednesday on a $18.5 million incentive package to lure a $1.3 billion Morgan Stanley office tower to the city, The Post has learned — and this week’s stunning victories by far-left New York pols could expedite the exodus of businesses.

Officials at the Dallas City Council unanimously rubber-stamped the deal 15-0 that would give the New York-based bank a special economic grant and up to a decade of property tax abatements, according to a municipal filing reviewed by The Post.

In exchange, the Wall Street giant would build a major regional office downtown and shift nearly 5,000 jobs to the city — the latest coup for the booming Texas financial corridor known as “Y’all Street” which beckons New York moneymen looking to flee Zohran Mamdani’s ‘tax-and-spend’ left-wing policies.

The article quotes Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson:

“American capitalism, free market competition, and even economic success itself have all been vilified by New York’s top elected leaders,” Johnson said. “While that makes me sad for my friends who call New York home, I must admit that I am pleased to welcome the tens of thousands of financial services jobs that are shifting from Manhattan to Dallas.”

The article concludes

Landing Morgan Stanley would give Dallas more than bragging rights. The permanent location sits inside the city’s Downtown Connection tax increment financing district, and the firm’s arrival would deepen a financial footprint that already trails only New York nationally.

To clinch the deal, the city is also nominating both phases of the project for Texas Enterprise Zone designations, which could unlock state sales-tax refunds worth up to $5 million.

If approved, construction could break ground this fall with operations beginning in 2027.

Morgan Stanley’s global headquarters are set to remain in Manhattan, where it has operated for decades.

Let’s see if Morgan Stanley chooses to leave its headquarters in Manhattan and if the New York City voters wake up and smell the coffee.

Twenty-four Years Ago

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This is the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on America by Islamists. Note that I said Islamists—not Muslims. Islamists have the goal of a world ruled by Sharia Law. Muslims simply practice their faith and want to be left alone.

Two of the heroes of 9/11 were Rick Rescorla and John O’Neill. Rick Rescorla was a British army officer who was the head of security for Morgan Stanley at the World Trade Center. He understood the Islamist mind and knew there would be a second attack on the World Trade Center. He routinely held evacuation drills for the employees of Morgan Stanly and had appointed fire chiefs for each department. John O’Neill was an FBI counter-terrorism expert who left the FBI in 2001 due to friction within the bureau. His focus on Osama Bin Laden and predictions of a second attack on the World Trade Center were not appreciated. He became head of security at the World Trade Center in late August 2001. Neither man survived the attack. Rick Rescorla went back into the tower to save people and John O’Neill’s remains were found on Liberty Street.

Recently the Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association (CCTA) did a radio show featuring someone who was in the second tower when the plane hit. You can go to cctaxpayers.com to hear that radio show. Patty Monachino’s story is a compelling reminder of the events of that day.

This is a picture of the Teardrop Memorial, Russia’s gift to the United States in memory of 911. The monument To the Struggle Against World Terrorism was dedicated on September 11, 2006, by President Clinton. It is located in Bayonne, New Jersey, at a place where the twin towers were visible. To read the entire story of the monument and how it came to rest there, this is the link to the story 911monument.com. The website tells the story of what inspired the monument and how it came to be.

Discrimination Based On Race Used To Be Illegal

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On Sunday, Paul Mirengoff at Power Line Blog posted an article about a new program at Princeton University.

The article reports:

Last week, Princeton freshmen received an email regarding Morgan Stanley’s Freshman Enhancement Program. That program “is designed to help diverse rising sophomores in college gain a better understanding of the various businesses and career paths Morgan Stanley provides.”

If selected for the program, rising sophomores “will participate in a hybrid program consisting of virtual learning and an in-person component.” They will also receive what Morgan Stanley describes as “valuable training, as well as opportunities to network with each other and learn from Morgan Stanley professionals across our divisions.” And they “will have the opportunity to interview for the 2023 Sophomore Summer Analyst Programs for the specific track they are in.”

Who is included in the “diverse” group that will receive these benefits and advantages? That group includes Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and/or LGBTQ+ freshman undergraduate students in the class of 2025. Everyone else is excluded. In fact, the program description lists membership in one or more of the above-mentioned groups as a “qualification” for the program.

It’s fine, in my view, that Morgan Stanley, Princeton, and other colleges involved in this program want to provide opportunities to students from a diverse set of backgrounds and, in particular, students who come from low-income families. It occurs to me, however, that anyone who’s a freshman at Princeton has a good opportunity to enter the world of investment banking and financial services.

Princeton students from any kind of family and background already have “privileged” status in the job market. It’s far from clear that any of them needs to be “enhanced.”

In any case, excluding students on the basis of their race, ethnicity, and or sexual orientation is problematic and illegal. And that’s what Morgan Stanley’s program does. It makes no pretense of using a “holistic” analysis to identify freshmen who come from low-income families or from other backgrounds (e.g. recent immigrants) that might put them at a disadvantage in seeking employment with Morgan Stanley or other firms in the same field.

In my view, Morgan Stanley, Princeton, and other participating schools are violating federal civil rights statutes through this program. They are probably violating state law, as well.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in employment because of race, national origin, and sex. That has been expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Excluding white heterosexual males and females from the program is illegal.

There are also other Civil Rights statutes being violated.

The article notes:

Title VI states that “no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Its ban on discrimination extends, but is not limited to, admissions, recruitment, financial aid, and alike, but also academic programs, student treatment and services, counseling and guidance, discipline, classroom assignment, grading, vocational education, recreation, physical education, athletics, housing and employment.

The Freshman Enhancement Program seems to run afoul of Title VI by discriminating in the distribution of training and employment opportunities.

Title IX is similar to Title XI. It prohibits sex discrimination (including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity) in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. The Freshman Enhancement Program expressly discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Thus, Princeton seems to be violating Title IX.

I hope some of the students who are ineligible for this training program will hire some good lawyers and put an end to this foolishness.

This Is Long Overdue

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Yesterday Fox News reported that President Trump has awarded the posthumous Presidential Citizens Medal to Rick Rescorla. Rick Rescorla was one of the heroes of September 11, 2001. This medal is long overdue.

The article reports:

The U.K.- born Rescorla worked as the director of security for Morgan Stanley, which had its headquarters in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Following the 1993 bomb attack on the Trade Center, Rescorla designed and implemented evacuation drills to prepare employees for another attack.

Rescorla was born in Cornwall and served in the British army in Cyprus. He also worked as a policeman in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) before coming to America at the age of 24. He enlisted in the Army and fought in Vietnam before leaving active duty in 1967. He then studied at the University of Oklahoma, earning a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and a master’s degree in English. He also earned a law degree from Oklahoma City University and taught at the University of South Carolina. He retired from the Army in 1990.

The article continues:

After the first plane hit the towers on 9/11, Rescorla ordered Morgan Stanley employees to get out of the South Tower and ignore building announcements telling people to stay at their desks. As he directed workers in the stairwells, Rescorla went right on singing his hymns. One of Rescorla’s last phone calls was to his close friend, Dan Hill, who he had known since his days in Rhodesia. Rescorla told Hill to get to New York to help with the aftermath of the attack.

The article concludes:

Rescorla was last seen climbing up the stairs on the 10th floor of the South Tower. He is credited with saving nearly 2,700 people that day. He was 62 when he died.

Rescorla’s wife Susan, who has spent the last 18 years preserving her late husband’s memory, accepted the honor from Trump.

“Of all the accolades… and all the people along the journey who have touched my life, each is so memorable because I was able to learn more about this incredible man than I had during our short time while he was here on earth,” she said. Susan and Rick had been married for fewer than three years at the time of his death.

In his remarks, the president recalled Rescorla’s last words to his wife, spoken in a phone call from the South Tower: “I’ve never felt better in my life. I love you so.”

For more of Rick Rescorla’s story, see the article posted here on September 10, 2008.

The Day Before

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This is an updated version of an article I posted on September 10, 2008:

Today is September 10, 2018. Seventeen years ago, it was the day before. We were all going about our business, enjoying a beautiful fall, and making plans for the future. I wonder, if we could have seen into the future, is there anything we would have done differently that day.

There was one man who was living in a different world than the rest of us–even on September 10. His name was Rick Rescorla. He was the vice president for security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, a brokerage house with 2,700 employees in the World Trade Center in the south tower on floors forty-four through seventy-four and 1,000 employees in Building Five across the plaza. Because of the foresight of this man, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter lost only six employees in the bombing of the World Trade Center. His story is told on his website, RickRescorla.com.

Rick felt strongly that the terrorists who had attempted the first World Trade Center bombing would try again. He asked his company executives to move from the towers, but the company’s lease went until 2006. Rick held evacuation drills on a regular basis in spite of the grumbling of his fellow employees. Every few months all 2,700 employees would march down the stairs and out of the building in an evacuation drill. On September 11, 2001, by the time the second airplane hit the second tower, most of the company’s employees were already out of the building. There were three employees missing, and Rick and two other people went back into the building to find them.   All six were killed when the building collapsed.¹

I tell this story today for two reasons. First, Rick Rescorla is a hero whose foresight saved many lives. Second, Rick Rescorla understood that there were terrorists who wanted to destroy America even before there was a “war on terror”. We need to think back to September 10, 2001, and remember what our innocence was like and the price we paid for it. Thank God for a man who chose not to be innocent.

  1. Most of the information in the above two paragraphs is from the book BREAKDOWN by Bill Gertz (subtitled “How America’s Intelligence Failures Led to September 11”).

The Chickens Are Coming Home To Roost

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Even though the November election is seven months away, this is the election season. One of the goals of the Democrat party during this season is to convince Americans that ObamaCare is a good thing and that we like it. So far that effort is not going particularly well. Based on some numbers posted by Forbes Magazine, it is about to get worse.

Yesterday Forbes Magazine posted an article with the following headline:

Health Plan Premiums Are Skyrocketing According To New Survey Of 148 Insurance Brokers, With Delaware Up 100%, California 53%, Florida 37%, Pennsylvania 28%

Democrats may be okay with those numbers, but to a lot of Americans, those numbers represent one more broken promise in ObamaCare.

The article reports:

Health insurance premiums are showing the sharpest increases perhaps ever according to a survey of brokers who sell coverage in the individual and small group market. Morgan Stanley’s healthcare analysts conducted the proprietary survey of 148 brokers. The April survey shows the largest acceleration in small and individual group rates in any of the 12 prior quarterly periods when it has been conducted.

The average increases are in excess of 11% in the small group market and 12% in the individual market. Some state show increases 10 to 50 times that amount. The analysts conclude that the “increases are largely due to changes under the ACA.”

Not only has ObamaCare wrecked the American healthcare system, it has spent massive amounts of money to do so and has placed enormous financial burdens on Americans trying to purchase the required healthcare. It is truly time for ObamaCare to go away.

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We Remember September 11, 2001

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September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City: V...

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We were young and naïve. We were like children who trust and believe that the world is a safe place. We hadn’t yet grasped the fact that there were people in the world who meant to harm us. But among us were those who were not naïve.  Men who understood the threat and tried to warn us and prepare us for what they suspected was coming.  One of those men was Rick Rescorla. Rick Rescorla died on September 11, 2001, when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.

Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today reminding us of the accomplishments of Rick Rescorla.

Scott Johnson reports:

I first wrote about Rick Rescorla in 2003 after finishing James Stewart’s Heart of a Soldier, the book based on Stewart’s New Yorker article “The real heroes are dead.” (“The real heroes are dead” is what Rescorla would say in response to recognition of his heroism on the battlefield in Vietnam.) The book is good, not great, but it touches on profound themes in a thought-provoking way: life and death, love and friendship, heroism and sacrifice, destiny and fate, man’s search for meaning, all fall within the book’s compass.

On September 11, 2001, Rick Rescorla was working for Morgan Stanley in the south tower of the World Trade Center. He was head of security for the company and had routinely conducted evacuation drills. On September 11, he led the employees down the tower’s one usable fire escape to safety. He was killed when he went back into the tower looking for stragglers.

We need to learn the lesson of September 11. Even when things are peaceful, we need to be aware of the events and people around us. We need to understand that the world is not always welcoming to the principles of freedom and democracy. We need to remember the heroes of that day—there were many—some we know about and some we don’t know about. We honor those heroes by moving forward with the lessons we learned on September 11, 2001.

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