Wall Street winners get billion-dollar paydays

[flashl]

Source: IHT

NEW YORK: Hedge fund managers, those masters of a secretive, sometimes volatile financial universe, are making money on a scale that once seemed unimaginable, even in Wall Street's rarefied realms.

One manager, John Paulson, made $3.7 billion last year. He reaped that bounty, probably the richest in Wall Street history, by betting against certain mortgages and complex financial products that held them.

...

The hedge fund managers James Simons and George Soros each earned almost $3 billion last year, according to an annual ranking of top hedge fund earners by Institutional Investor's Alpha magazine, which came out Wednesday.

Hedge fund managers have redefined notions of wealth in recent years. And the richest among them are redefining those notions once again.

IHT

Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/16/business/wall.php

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An after 'Tax Day' thought: ... Tax breaks for billionaires: Loophole for hedge fund managers

[Submariner]

1. Loophole: How to skim baby-boomer 401(k)s and get away with it

brought to you by deregulation by the crooked Bush junta.

[gratuitous]

2. While the losers only get multi millions

Meanwhile, as the markets collapse and the middle class and working class take it in the shorts once again, the Big Money Boys pocket more money they don't need, can't spend, and that escapes normal routes of taxation.

[ShockediSay]

4. Take a look at these 'predetermined option sales' where no tax is paid on income

realization.

[TomClash]

3. What is to be done?

. . . someone once famously asked.

[truthisfreedom]

5. The most frightening quote comes at the end of the article...

Since 1913, the United States has witnessed only one other year of such unequal wealth distribution - 1928, the year before the stock market crashed, according to Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. Such inequality is likely to impede an economic recovery, he said.

[slipslidingaway]

6. Kick...

"Where are all the Customer's Yachts?"