Working the system or working harder?
Perhaps it’s worth noting that in 2007, the top 50 managers of hedge funds earned a total of $29 billion (see Bloomberg link below). John Paulson (no relation to Treasury Secretary) the former Bear Stearns Cos. managing director who founded New York- based Paulson & Co. in 1994, was paid an estimated $3.7 billion, the most, according to Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine. That’s an average compensation package of $600,000,000 (sic) per manager.
Did American regulators or any member of the U.S. Congress really believe you can make that kind of money through hard work or was it more likely a result of working the system…with games like naked short selling, credit default swaps and baskets of toxic derivatives?
Looking closely at the faces of U.S. elected officials & federal overseers now that the unseemly Wall Street bailout has cascaded upon them it is odd that the only outrage is a rather lame questioning: “Was someone asleep at the switch?” Even the SEC’s muzzled Seeing Eye Dogs know the correct answer was “Not exactly… the switch has been turned off.” The U.S. Congress, of course, made sure it was turned off or they would have turned it on if it was in their best interests to do so. But even with the ‘switch off,’ Wall Street kept complaining about the regulation that it had to suffer ((little as it was) and all the while bankers and traders pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the splendid job they were doing.
Fast forward now to the splendid job our Congress is doing to save the financial system--- they are depending on a bailout written by an unelected financial elite to try to get us out of a disaster caused by an unelected financial elite? Should American voters be good boys and girls and just remain spectators in this charade or should they perhaps be more than seriously outraged? The trouble with crony capitalism isn't capitalism. It's the cronies. When the dust settles, it will be interesting to see how many of America’s unelected financial elite get sentenced to real jail time….
Link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aV51OvVaW7Z8&refer=home
Biting the hand that feeds IT
