The Observation Deck

From "Think Progress"

How a Ukrainian tycoon became Cleveland’s commercial real estate kingpin

https://thinkprogress.org/how-did-this- ... -fH2EF__MQ

Clevelanders so busy believing the hype, they don;t even recognize a movie set when they live in one.


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there is some distinction between new Ukrainian money and new Russian money at this point.
this article appeared to be about new Ukrainian money.

ryan costa wrote:there is some distinction between new Ukrainian money and new Russian money at this point.
this article appeared to be about new Ukrainian money.

Dark money is still dark money regardless of its source or where it lands.

Obviously, I understand that their are vast differences between Ukrainians and Russians.

Dark money in Cuyahoga County should be a concern to all of us.

my understanding is that the Optima was funded by conventional Oligarchs from the former Soviet Union and its republics.
The Oligarchs were simply guys who succeeded in the privatization of Soviet or Russian or Soviet Republic assets.
Some years ago I asked a local guy what Optima is. He told me some guy's relatives gave him 300 million dollars and told him to buy some buildings.
so, it is no worse than some homegrown tech billionaire buying and not being very good at running buildings.

ryan costa wrote:my understanding is that the Optima was funded by conventional Oligarchs from the former Soviet Union and its republics.
The Oligarchs were simply guys who succeeded in the privatization of Soviet or Russian or Soviet Republic assets.
Some years ago I asked a local guy what Optima is. He told me some guy's relatives gave him 300 million dollars and told him to buy some buildings.
so, it is no worse than some homegrown tech billionaire buying and not being very good at running buildings.

"Titanic" buildings and restaurants then spend millions and millions and never open. Or open and close.

Drive down Euclid Ave. until you get to the real gentrification #40th east to University Circle you see tens of buildings that have been rebuilt, and rebuilt, and rebuilt for a decade or more. It is if Cleveland has been spinning its wheels since the 50s. Dark money as Mark calls it needs to stay in the system long enough for it to pop out somewhere else as in the sunshine money.

Think about it, now we have the largest foundation of its kind in America, and one of the largest, that has been redesigning Cleveland since the 50s, and Dark Money billionaires spending, and Cleveland only has a new logo every 18 months in time for Christmas every two years.

Ohhhh and the leakage of humans from the county continue.

Is it real, a movie set, or a patient the doctors have decided to treat and not cure?

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ryan costa wrote:my understanding is that the Optima was funded by conventional Oligarchs from the former Soviet Union and its republics.
The Oligarchs were simply guys who succeeded in the privatization of Soviet or Russian or Soviet Republic assets.
Some years ago I asked a local guy what Optima is. He told me some guy's relatives gave him 300 million dollars and told him to buy some buildings.
so, it is no worse than some homegrown tech billionaire buying and not being very good at running buildings.

Let's just keep in mind that the industrial and economic wealth of the Soviet Union was brutally looted by its communist managerial class with the aid of Western economists and institutions.

I recommend Klein's book "Shock Doctrine" on this topic, particularly the later chapters that narrate the Russian looting.

And, read the bank complaint filed in Chancery Court in Delaware by Privatbank.

What may I ask is a "conventional" Oligarch?

Mark Kindt wrote:

ryan costa wrote:my understanding is that the Optima was funded by conventional Oligarchs from the former Soviet Union and its republics.
The Oligarchs were simply guys who succeeded in the privatization of Soviet or Russian or Soviet Republic assets. Some years ago I asked a local guy what Optima is. He told me some guy's relatives gave him 300 million dollars and told him to buy some buildings. So, it is no worse than some homegrown tech billionaire buying and not being very good at running buildings.

Let's just keep in mind that the industrial and economic wealth of the Soviet Union was brutally looted by its communist managerial class with the aid of Western economists and institutions. I recommend Klein's book "Shock Doctrine" on this topic, particularly the later chapters that narrate the Russian looting. And, read the bank complaint filed in Chancery Court in Delaware by Privatbank. What may I ask is a "conventional" Oligarch?

What Mr. Kindt said about simple, conventional oligarchs... and the mobbed up new, new Russian economy. Those that survive pretty much operate only with the blessings of Russian leadership.

I'm not too sure about it being a Russian company today when the Ukraine was in a civil war and Russia removed one of their districts and annexed it. If I recall the President of Ukraine was remove illegally by a coup because he wanted closer economic ties to Russia. The US was up to its arse in the illegal transfer of power to a west head of state puppet.

How could a poor country like the Ukraine produce a company with $ 30 million dollars for investment, easy between 2012 to 2018 the US, we the taxpayers, gave that country $ 2,667,000,000 in foreign aid. Part of it was for economic development, so they are using our money to buy part of Cleveland. At least we getting a return on our money that was ill spent.

I watched bales of cotton being loaded on ships leaving Galveston going to Taiwan, South Korea, etc, with the label "Donated by the people of the USA" and watched ships arriving at the same dock with finished textile goods. Hard to compete with foreign countries with cheap labor and donated materials. Now you know who destroyed the textile industry in the US, it was our typical inept, inert and ignorant federal government.

Cleveland will never be a truly great city, which is sad considering it was on that trajectory prior to the depression.

Political corruption has kept us from reaching our potential, and has kept generations of people from ever moving up.

This Russian dark money thing could easily happen here - no one cares. The politicians are out for themselves and if there’s something in it for them, anything goes!

Don’t take my word for it, we are in the top 10 of corruption, based on convictions, since 2000.

Imagine how many more if anybody really went after the perpetrators.


https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/15-m ... 2018.html/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes ... aphic/amp/

Any funding that comes from Miami and Miami area banks is questionable.
Therefore it is better not to question it.

ryan costa wrote:Any funding that comes from Miami and Miami area banks is questionable.
Therefore it is better not to question it.

I want to continue my observation that there are legal claims asserting that major investments in downtown Cleveland have illegal sources.

Ms. Conant has documented her statements with citations and references.

I concur with her position.

Further, I will make the point that local governments lack the mechanism to determine sources of investment capital being invested in their communities.

Finally, much of the capital being invested is being supported by taxpayer subsidies (tax deferral, tax abatement, public funds, public assets, etc.)

Much of the national real estate boom in the past decade has come from dark money sources.

Table From Forbes Magazine:

So How Is Cleveland Doing ?

Mark Kindt wrote:Table From Forbes Magazine:

https___blogs-images.forbes.com_niallmccarthy_files_2019_02_20190215_Corruption.jpg

So How Is Cleveland Doing ?

Without looking behind the numbers (or reading the article), I could say a few things in reaction off the top of my head (none of which may be true):

1. The Cleveland area has more convicted criminals per capita than most of the other larger areas i.e. Cleveland is more corrupt.
2. The bad guys in the Cleveland area are dumber than national averages and are easier to convict.
3. Law enforcement in the Cleveland area is more effective (on a per capita basis) at catching and convicting the bad guys.
4. Despite any of the previous three statements being possibly true, Cleveland area law enforcement have nevertheless failed to catch and convict about six of the top (dumber than average corrupt) public officials in Lakewood.