When even Tucker Carlson is complaining about a billionaire, you know we have reached peak capitalism. As Tucker Carlson (just typing that name makes me want to puke) rightfully pointed out, billionaire Paul Singer, before he bought Cabela’s and decimated the town of Sidney, gave Joe Ricketts’s “Ending Spending” (LOL) superPAC 3.7 million dollars between 2013-2015. Paul Singer also gave $10,000 to Pete Ricketts’s campaign in 2013, and $25,000 to his campaign in 2014. Paul Singer ALSO met with Joe Ricketts and other billionaires at Joe’s ranch in Wyoming in 2015, shortly before the sale of Cabela’s. Of course Little Peter Ricketts claimed ignorance (which honestly isn’t far-fetched for him, but come on), said he didn’t see it as a conflict of interest, and only said that he was “grateful for the support”. He promised he would do everything he could to keep jobs in Sidney (stop me if you’ve heard THAT one before), so of course within months hundreds of people lost their jobs and left Nebraska.
After the sale of Cabela’s, Cheyenne County lost nearly 350 people between 2017-2018, on top of having lost nearly 390 people in 2016, and 90 people in 2015. They were dealt a further blow last month when the town of Sidney was informed another 118 jobs would be relocated to Springfield, Missouri in 2020. Pete and Joe just took the millions of dollars from their billionaire pal to pad their own already grossly overinflated pockets and turned a blind eye and cold shoulder to the suffering of an entire town.
Now with the sale of TD Ameritrade on which Joe Ricketts will make 2.5 BILLION dollars, and Pete will make “just” $29 million, hundreds in Omaha are sure to lose their jobs, and Omaha is left to deal with the eyesore vanity project building they demanded be built for them with taxpayers money, thanks to TIF abuses that Omaha and Lincoln city councils are so fond of. Some people are enragingly hailing Joe Ricketts as a hero for putting in some bullshit, do-nothing language before signing off on the sale asking Schwab to pretty please if they think about it maybe try not to fire everyone at once while his parasitic son tries to hold on to the governorship that was bought for him. If Joe really cared about Nebraskans keeping their jobs, he and his son wouldn’t have sold out three huge employers in Nebraska, pocketing billions for their own personal gain while Nebraskans suffered each time.
Incidentally, do you remember just three years ago when TD Ameritrade bought out Scottrade in St Louis and told everybody not to worry? How did that work out for St Louis? (Hint: a thousand people lost their jobs)
It is exhausting detailing these nefarious deeds inflicted on Nebraska by the Ricketts family day after day. How much longer are we going to put up with this? When will the people of Nebraska stand up and say NO MORE?
