The rich are about to get poorer…

Well, some of them are.

Carlyle Capital shook financial markets last week after missing margin calls from banks on its $21.7 billion portfolio of residential mortgage-backed bonds. It said some $5 billion in securities held as collateral may have already been sold.

The fund, an affiliate of the U.S.-based private equity firm Carlyle Group, warned that if it fails to reach an agreement with remaining lenders, all of its securities may be liquidated.

“While these talks continue, the company has discussed and requested a standstill agreement whereby its lenders would refrain from foreclosing and liquidating their collateral, and we are awaiting responses,” the fund said in a statement.

Okay. I’m gonna clench my eyelids here, chop some onions, think of kittens getting their cute widdle fuzzy mewy heads bitten off by Alvaro Uribe, and just try really really REALLY hard to squeeze out a few crocodile tears.

Nope, sorry, can’t do it. Here’s why:

The Carlyle Group is a private global investment firm which originates, structures and acts as lead equity investor in management-led buyouts, strategic minority equity investments, equity private placements, consolidations and build-ups, and growth capital financings. Carlyle is the eleventh largest defense contractor in the US because of its ownership of companies making tanks, aircraft wings and other equipment. It is also heavily invested in telecommunications. Headquartered in Washington, DC, the firm serves a diverse base of nearly 425 Investors — mainly large pension funds and banks — in 50 countries worldwide. The Carlyle Group does not provide investment or other services to the general public. Carlyle has ownership stakes in 164 companies which employed more than 70,000 people and generated $16 billion in revenues in the year 2000.

Granted, that piece is a little dated. They only have info up to the year 2001. And John Major is not the only former British PM to have joined Carlyle; Toady Blair, BushCo’s English poodle, has also since joined the fold.

Still, just look at the sums of money they’ve played with in the past.

And don’t those words, “The Carlyle Group does not provide investment or other services to the general public”, just jump right out at you? That’s right, folks, they provide absolutely NO SERVICES TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC. They do, however, have a lovely way of helping themselves to the public purse (via the spoils of illegal war). And they also provide cushy sinecures to crappy ex-public servants.

Nope, I’m not at all sorry to hear that disaster has finally come home to roost on the disaster capitalists themselves. I’m only sorry the door isn’t hitting them in the faces nearly hard enough.