2 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2022
    1. Blackstone

      Some important points about Blackstone:

      • In separate cases in 2018 and 2019, the hotel chain Motel 6, owned by Blackstone, agreed to settle for a total of $19.6 million for giving guest lists to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without a warrant.
      • The company has invested in companies with links to the commercialization and deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
      • In 2019, a United Nations report found that Blackstone's massive purchasing of single-family homes after the financial crisis of 2007–2008 had "devastating consequences." The report alleged that Blackstone had abused tenants with exorbitant fees, rent hikes, and aggressive eviction practices, and that Blackstone's real estate practices had a disproportionate impact on communities of color, in part because the company targeted foreclosures resulting from subprime loans.
      • In July 2020, Blackstone invested US$200m in the Swedish oat milk brand, Oatly, for a 7% stake in the company, triggering outrage among some segments of its customer base.
  2. Jan 2022
    1. The English common law was "immemorial" custom which ran to a "time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." "In the profound ignorance of letters which formerly overspread the whole west- em world," Sir William Blackstone noted in 1765, "letters were intirely traditional, for this plain reason, that the nations among which they pre- vailed had but little idea of writing. Thus the British as well as the Gallic druids committed all their laws as well as learning to memory; and it is said of the primitive Saxons here, as well as their brethren on the conti- nent, that leges

      sola memoria et usu retinebant.