DSM-4 Capitalism: Top Billionaire Hedge Funder Sees Himself As a Hyena Devouring Wildebeests

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Mark Ames

Top Billionaire Hedge Funder Sees Himself As a Hyena Devouring Wildebeests
We're ruled over by people who despise us and think of us as prey and themselves as hyenas, busy devouring everything they can.

May 21, 2010 |


Ray Dalio is a billionaire hedge fund manager who makes more money in a single day than most Americans will earn in their entire lifetimes. That’s because hedge funds are the top of the Wall Street food chain — and Dalio runs the largest hedge fund of all, Bridgewater Associates. Life’s good at the top of this food chain: in 2008, a bad year for most Americans, Dalio took home $780 million. That same $780 million could have paid the salaries of about 20,000 teachers — and those 20,000 teachers could have taught about 400,000 American students (using author Les Leopold’s calculations). A lot of people might find this offensive and unjust, but not Dalio—he thinks this is all part of Nature’s Plan, and it just so happens that Nature favors the hedge fund managers:

“I believe that self-interest and society’s interests are generally symbiotic …That is why how much money people have earned is a rough measure of how much they gave society what it wanted.”

So now we know why hedge fund managers are raking in record pay (last year, the top 25 hedge fund managers earned on average about $1 billion each), while hundreds of thousands of America’s teachers are getting fired all across the country: Nature hates teachers and other do-gooders. Sure, Dalio’s hedge fund is flush thanks in no small part to all the teachers retirement funds that Bridgewater managed to tap—without those teachers pooling their money together, he’d have a lot less to plunder, and society would never even know what a great person he is.

To which Dalio would answer, “Be a hyena. Attack the wildebeest.” ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/146964/top_billionaire_hedge_funder_sees_himself_as_a_hyena_devouring_wildebeests_/

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

1. considering that hyenas are sneaking, snarling shiteaters

I would say that is about right.

[blindpig]

2. He is perfectly adapted to his habitat....

Capitalism.

[hobbit709]

3. The French had the right idea in 1792.

[WinkyDink]

5. I've always admired Mme. DeFarge.

[WinkyDink]

4. Example #1 of "WHY WE NEED TO RAISE THE TAXES ON THE SUPER-WEALTHY." I rest my case.