Hedge Funds Part Duex
Today five of the most powerful men in the hedge fund world are in Washington speaking to the Oversight committee. The were invited (told) to testify in Washington to the effect that hedge funds had in the economic crisis that is upon us now.
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George Soros Of Soros Fund Management, John Paulson of Paulson & co., Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies along with Citadel Investment Group’s founder Ken Griffin appeared in front of Committee Chairman Henry Waxman.
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Ironically they agree that there needs to be more transparency from the industry of secretive funds. They also gave different views on whether or not they contributed th the financial crisis. George Soros di say that hedge funds were part of the reason for the financial bubble. Mr Soros wrote in a statement “A deep recession is now inevitable and the possibility of a depression cannot be ruled out,” sent to the Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.
This is the ma who is know for betting against the British pound back in 1992 and recently backing Senator Barack Hussein Obama for President.
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The Committee wants to hear from the leaders in the hedge fund industry about the role of these funds as well as their tax status and regulation. Oddly enough when the financial and economic world was falling apart, these gentlemen made on average $1 billion last year. That is also why they were called to appear in Washington.
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“Currently, hedge funds are virtually unregulated,” Waxman said. “They are not required to report information on their holdings, their leverage, or their strategies. Regulators aren’t even certain how many hedge funds exist or how much money they control.”
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I don’t know about you but this is quite fishy. Why is it that these guys can do what they do and not have to be accountable for their actions? Yes I know that many of them are operated outside of the United States, but they trade in U.S. currency and it’s assets.
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I also know that they are not the only reason for the collapse of the financial industry. Most of that blame does have to fall on the managers of those institutions, rating agencies, investment banks as well as the people who over-extended themselves with credit.
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As to the regulations that were non-existing for the last several years. Most of that blame must be put on Congress, the Treasury Dept. and the Federal Reserve. It’s their job to keep things in order. Unfortunately, many of those politicians were re-elected. Barney Frank, Henry Dodds along with Obama who was able to deflect most of the blame during the election. We will have to wait until 2010 before we have a chance to remove some of these lazy, elected government officials.
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David Ruder, a former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission tried a few years ago to force the hedge funds to register with the agency, but failed was also present at the hearing.
“Although hedge funds have been active participants in the financial markets during the past years, they do not seem to have played a major role in the events precipitating the crisis,” Ruder told the hearing.
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The men who were summoned to the hearing today are some of the leaders in the hedge fund industry. These guys are known by playing by the rules. The bad thing is that there aren’t that many rules for them to follow. Many of the hedge funds that we’ve been hearing about going under are the less respectable ones. The ones that don’t really follow any rules and leveraged the hell out of their funds.
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Tags: Economy, Federal Reserve, Financials, Government spending, Hedge Funds, Security Exchange Commission, Stock market news, Treasury Dept.
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