Saturday, May 8, 2010

The hedge fund industry controls the stock market and Soros controls the hedge fund industry

  • 4/1 "Many people do not realize that the hedge funds are responsible for 75-90 percent of all trading activities on Wall Street. They are responsible for the extreme market volatility. They are responsible for everything that is bad on Wall Street."...
"Hedge fund managers, Weissman (president of the consumer group Public Citizen) said, are in the business of
  • using inside information to make money, a model they’ve successfully translated to Washington,
  • where they’ve built the relationships they are now trading on.

“They have lots of money, and they know how to deploy it effectively to gain influence — and that’s through campaign contributions and connected lobbyists. And they’re doing it with a high level of sophistication and success,” he said.

  • Indeed, both hedge funds and private equity firms have proved adept at hiring some wired players to represent them, particularly on the Democratic side.

The MFA’s (Managed Fund Association) chief lobbyist, Roger Hollingsworth, worked as deputy staff director of the Senate Banking Committee and was one of Dodd’s senior advisers during the previous Congress. And it doesn’t hurt that his boss is Baker, who chaired a House Financial Services subcommittee for more than a decade. Baker’s group spent $3.7 million lobbying last year and $1.3 million in the first quarter of this year....

  • The Private Equity Council and the Managed Funds Association paid lobbyists more than $7.3 million last year and
  • almost $2 million in the first three months of this year,

according to the government watchdog Center for Responsive Politics. And so far in the financial reform bill pending in the Senate, hedge funds and private equity firms have not been subject to the crackdown many consumer groups pushed for."...Politico 5/3/10 ****

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