AlterNet: Hedge Fund Titans Are Treating Us Like Pawns in Their Economic Chess Games

[marmar]

Hedge Fund Titans Are Treating Us Like Pawns in Their Economic Chess Games

By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted May 13, 2008.

Hedge funds exploited the misfortunes of those caught beneath currency, housing and internet bubbles, and got paid by the boatload.




Recently, two important and related events occurred. The first is that hedge fund kingpin Cerberus Capital Management was considering buying Blackwater, the notoriously Orwellian security contractor that has become the scourge of Iraq and America alike. And the second event? As soon as the news was reported, the deal was killed.

Neither company, you see, likes the publicity. Plus, with Blackwater in its portfolio, Cerberus would have more than lived up to the origin of its name, which comes from Greek mythology. Yes, Cerberus is the three-headed demon dog that guards the gates of Hell.

"We do our best to avoid the spotlight," secretive Cerberus founder Stephen Feinberg reportedly told his staff in a memo earlier this year, "but unfortunately, when you do some large deals, such as Chrysler and GMAC, it is hard to avoid."

True, Stephen, true. When you bail out two of the worst environmental and economic offenders in the automotive business (and subprime debacle, in the case of GMAC), and then follow that up by looking into acquiring what passes for a private army with itchy trigger-fingers and a suspicious habit of corruption and cost overruns, well yeah, people will talk.

The irony is more than sweet; it is transparent, at least for private equity groups, hedge funds, and those that follow and capitalize upon them. As for you, if you find such talk about what on the surface looks like a financial organization to be alarmist, then it might be time you read up on hedge funds. As I wrote last year, private equity groups and hedge funds play both sides of the global economy, its destruction and reconstruction, its war and its peace, its bears and bulls. And they do so by manipulating markets, multinationals and the media with practically zero governmental regulation or oversight, to the tune of paydays that redefine opulence and waste.

Like the similarly invested Milo Minderbinder said in Joseph Heller's brilliant novel of war and capitalism Catch 22: "Anyone who would not steal from the country he loved would not steal from anyone." .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/84682/

[tired]

1. Well, that made me feel great this morning!

Not!

[Hydra]

2. Pawns

Yup, I feel like that most days.

"Work, slave, or no food for you!"

I would have said no one was untouchable...but it appears that most americans have become complacent, looking for someone else to fix the problem, or worse, wishing it will go away with time.

Man, the powers that be must think we are the biggest morons EVER.