Firing of Whistleblowing Emergency Room Doctor Ming Lin By Blackstone-Owned TeamHealth Demonstrates Outsized Role of Private Equity in Hospital Staffing — Yves Smith

However, the furor over the mistreatment of Dr. Lin did largely manage to skip over the question of how TeamHealth [owned by Blackstone] is even legally in the position to effectively provide hospital services when they are not licensed to do so. Several groups protested Dr. Lin’s ouster and one, the American Academy of Emergency Medicine, focused squarely on this issue.

Similar to insurance companies approving and denying care prescribed by physicians. Screwing with provision is one thing but practicing medicine without a license is another.

WTF?

Naked Capitalism
Firing of Whistleblowing Emergency Room Doctor Ming Lin By Blackstone-Owned TeamHealth Demonstrates Outsized Role of Private Equity in Hospital Staffing

Yves Smith

Zero Hedge — Landlord Blackstone Rushes To Capitalize On Housing Bubble By Launching First Ever REO-To-Rent Securitization

In addition to the phenomenon of "foreclosure stuffing" described here extensively before, one of the main reasons for the artificial drop in housing supply has been the ongoing government-subsidized,GSE/FHFA endorsed REO-to-Rent initiative, through which large asset managers have been encouraged to take advantage of government funded, risk-free financing and purchase foreclosed properties in bulk, with the intention of converting them into rental properties. The REO-To-Rent has traditionally been open to the biggest of financial companies, or at least those who don't have the stigma of legacy mortgage origination resulting in billions in litigation reserves, which means mostly hedge funds and PE firms. One of the main players in the space, Och-Ziff, decided to pull out of the landlord business in October of last year because, as Reuters reported, "the returns it is generating from rental income are less than expected and it is looking to take advantage of a recent rebound in home prices in northern California." In other words, selling while the selling is good.

Of course, there is another, far more traditional way to offload risk while preserving some of the upside: dump the balance sheet exposure to others while giving them a fraction of the potential upside yield. This is precisely what the big banks were doing during the last housing bubble when massive residential mortgage-backed security portfolios were packaged, spliced, securitized (sometime without the feedback of firms like Paulson pre-shorting the MBS courtesy of firms like Goldman) and sold off to other yield-starved investors. Everyone knows how that ended.
So fast forward to today, when this final missing link from the credit and housing bubble is finally here too, following news that mega-PE firm Blackstone is pushing forward with the first ever REO-To-Rental securitization.....

Zero Hedge
Landlord Blackstone Rushes To Capitalize On Housing Bubble By Launching First Ever REO-To-Rent Securitization
Tyler Durden

Remind me how this is "productive?"

The Ugly Truth About America's Housing "Recovery" -- It's Wall St. Buying Homes to Rent Back to Their Former Owners

Every day, it seems a new report comes out praising the ongoing housing recovery. In Georgia, home prices are up 5 percent over last year, a year in which we also had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. Seems a little odd, doesn’t it? Don't foreclosures usually drive down the market?

That’s because the housing “recovery,” as they’re calling it, is fueled almost entirely by Wall Street private equity firms, hedge funds and the Fed's unwavering support. After creating a massive bubble in home prices that eventually burst and caused our economy to go into a tailspin, these guys have decided to come back for more, and figured out a way to profit off their destruction -- by turning foreclosed homes into rentals and securitizing the rental income.

AlterNet
The Ugly Truth About America's Housing "Recovery" -- It's Wall St. Buying Homes to Rent Back to Their Former Owners
Shabnam Bashiri | community organizer with Occupy Our Homes Atlanta