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Divernan

(15,480 posts)
Mon Jan 26, 2015, 08:59 PM Jan 2015

Hedge fund managers: grifters widening inequality through insatiable avarice

Robert Johnson, president of the Institute of New Economic Thinking, told attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos that many hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes, should widening inequality fuel civil unrest. “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway."

This raises a number of questions: (1) Wouldn’t it be cheaper for hedge fund managers to simply stop paying politicians to rig the economic game on their behalf? (2) Do they really need their “carried interest” tax loopholes and their easy access to insider information? (3) Wouldn’t they rather live on $5 million a year in peace, rather than $500 million and worry about civil unrest? (4) Why do they suppose widening inequality won’t create civil unrest in New Zealand?

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich?fref=nf


Ah yes, Hedge Fund Vultures are raping America, one tax loophole at a time. Read the following article to learn the incredible amounts these grifters pay themselves and learn some eye-popping facts about "these smarmy fuckwads who operate said Hedge Funds and do it with little, if ANY, regulatory oversight." From Leopold’s writeup, via Alternet, (http://www.alternet.org/story/151569/how_dracula_hedge_funds_are_sucking_us_dry), one eye-popping fact:

the top 10 hedge fund elites make on average nearly $1 million an HOUR.

As Leopold points out..those guys are trying real hard to maintain a low profile. But he managed to find data on their pay scale, in relation to other rich folks, for 2010 and included the median family income level here in these United States in the following chart:
The Highest Income Celebrities, CEO and Hedge Fund Managers (2010)

The Top Ten------------------ Average Yearly Income---- Years for average American family to earn as much.

Hedge Fund managers --------$1,753,000,000-------- 35,217 years
Movie directors/producers------ $126,000,000 --------- 2,531
Top celebrities from all fields ----$119,800,000-----------2,407
Pop musicians------------------------$87,200,000---------- 1,752
Non-financial CEOs------------------$47,100,000------------- 946
Athletes--------------------------------$44,600,000-------------896
Movie stars----------------------------$42,600,000-------------856
Authors-------------------------------- $26,900,000-------------402
Lawyers-------------------------------- $20,000,000------------402

http://www.roundtree7.com/2011/07/hedge-fund-execs-the-gamblers-rake-it-in-at-our-expense/

Corporate vultures who are betting against us really do not deserve that level of pay.

In economics, there’s supposed to be a connection between what you earn and the economic value you produce. Otherwise, it’s called an economic “rent” – which is just a polite way of saying it’s an outright rip-off. These guys (and they are all guys) are ripping off our economy, and it’s up to us to put a stop to it.

Why am I so sure they’re ripping us off? I’ve had the dubious honor of exploring some of their biggest deals, including the “Greatest Trade Ever,” in which hedge funds bet against the housing bubble and won big. It turns out those bets were rigged. Hedge funds brazenly colluded with big investment banks to create securities that were designed to fail, so they could bet against them. So far the SEC has forced Goldman Sachs to pay $500 million in penalties and JP Morgan recently coughed up $153.6 million. This was to settle charges that these banks failed to inform investors that hedge funds had a heavy hand in constructing securities so that they would fail.

In fact, we can now show that hedge funds helped to prolong the housing bubble, deepen the crash and profit along the way. No matter what their apologists say, those hedge fund profits came from trash securities that never should have seen the light of day. Not only didn’t they create positive value for the economy, they created billions of losses that led to bailouts, unemployment and massive public debt. Whether any of them engaged in outright fraud, we leave to the courts. It doesn’t matter. It was a monumental economic rip-off, whether legal or illegal.

To really get your goat..let me tell you what tax rate they get to use, drumroll please…

To add enormous insult to our grievous injuries, these hedge funds managers only pay a 15 percent federal income tax rate (instead of 35 percent) on nearly all of their obscene incomes. That’s because of a tax loophole that allows them to declare their income as capital gains — they call it “carried interest.”




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Hedge fund managers: grifters widening inequality through insatiable avarice (Original Post) Divernan Jan 2015 OP
So us "little people" Curmudgeoness Jan 2015 #1
our congress and president have no problems with this sort of thing, as neither has done msongs Jan 2015 #2
Ah, but now the remediation begins. Jackpine Radical Jan 2015 #3

msongs

(67,199 posts)
2. our congress and president have no problems with this sort of thing, as neither has done
Mon Jan 26, 2015, 11:23 PM
Jan 2015

much or anything to remediate it

Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)
3. Ah, but now the remediation begins.
Mon Jan 26, 2015, 11:40 PM
Jan 2015

In his last 2 years, our Lame Duck President with a solidly Republican Congress is going to put through a magnificent liberal agenda.

The unicorns will be distributed shortly thereafter.

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