The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which planned, built, and owned the site. They also operated it from construction until July 2001.

The world trade center was required to be insured against terrorism by the banks in the leasing deal. That was an obvious requirement for the banks to include because of the recent (at the time…) 1993 world trade center bombing.

Larry Silverstein got the insurance so recently before the attack because he signed a lease that included the insurance provisions, and he signed that lease in July 2001 because negotiations for the deal took from January 2001 until July 2001. Prior to that, the Port Authority was having trouble keeping the occupancy of the building high, and they thought private management of the building would increase tax revenue, and give them money for other projects. The plan for privatization began in the 1990s, and coincided with other revitalization efforts in the area, some managed by the Port Authority, and others stemming from the city government.

I think in context there’s nothing surprising involved here, and the timeline of the attack was driven by different things than the timeline of the leasing deal. In other words, this is a coincidence.

Honk what you wanna honk And let the honks honk out Honestly, I honk honk you honk brave Honk honk you honk to honk And honk honk honks honk honk Honkily, I honk honk honk honk honk

Days before the Queen of England died, the Roman Empire collapsed. Coincidence? (Literally no, but I sure could speculate).

It’s a cycle I can describe, but cannot understand. A business has some minor decline in sales, or profits, or whatever. Private equity firms convince one group of people this is the biggest disaster, and the company is ruined forever, hardly worth anything. Simultaneously, they convince a second group of people that the company has a strong business model, and will recover soon.

The second group lends the company a ton of money to buy itself from the first group of people, for the private equity firm. Now, the private equity firm tries to make a temporary spike in value, pay themselves large dividends, and sell the (now actually, fundamentally broken) company for as much as they can.

The original shareholders lose. The employees of the business lose. The banks (or their insurance company) lose. Private equity wins.

My lack of understanding is, if I were a bank, I would spot this scam either the first, or second time it happens. Next time Mitt Romney came to ask me for ten billion dollars, I would tell him to pound sand. How has it taken actual professional bankers hundreds of times to (still not) see the cycle?

Likewise, the insurance companies backing some of these loans must know they’ve lost billions on this. Why haven’t they done anything?