Revere
Rookie
- Banned
- #1
A German.
These lefties are going to make the debt Bush sold overseas look like bumming quarters for a bus ride.
FT.com / US / Politics & Foreign policy - Tycoon offers help to debt-laden California
These lefties are going to make the debt Bush sold overseas look like bumming quarters for a bus ride.
FT.com / US / Politics & Foreign policy - Tycoon offers help to debt-laden California
The state is in for a rough ride, with spending cuts and tax increases expected over Mr Browns term. But help may be at hand from the most unlikely of corners: Nicolas Berggruen, the so-called homeless billionaire, who has assembled a small group of business and political heavyweights including Condoleezza Rice, former California governor Gray Davis and Googles Eric Schmidt to formulate proposals to reform the states tax and revenue base.
Mr Berggruen earned his nickname after selling his house and most of his own possessions apart from his art collection and private jet and controls a vast business empire that includes Karstadt, the German department store chain, and Prisa, the Spanish media group that publishes El País.
The German-US national has few business interests in California, although is often photographed mingling with film stars and hosts a lavish pre-Oscar party each year at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood. As he sips an espresso in his regular suite at The Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills, he says he has an enduring love for the state and a fascination with political and fiscal reform. California is a bellwether state. What happens there has an impact on the rest of the US and even the rest of the world.