Obama the Hedge Fund Candidate

By Ed Lasky

We will be hearing a lot about how Republicans on Wall Street have harmed our economy. Hedge-funds-difficult to understand, shadowy, often marked by investors and managers reaping sky-high profits-will be the "straw men". After all, the gunslingers on Wall Street figured out a way to slice and dice mortgages and other financial instruments in ways hard to fathom by most people (and evidently even to themselves).

Let's keep one thing in mind. As even the liberal New York Times has stated:

Barack Obama is the candidate of the hedge funds because of the outsized support these titans of mismanagement have heaped upon him.

George Soros-hedge fund pioneer and titan-was early in his support. As emperor of a range of 527 groups, he has wielded his influence to help his largest political investment to date: Barack Obama.

Wall Street has showered money not just on Barack Obama but on the Democratic party as a whole. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton have acted to shield the hedge funds and Wall Street from harm and have acted to saddle the taxpayers with the burdens of their failed investment strategies (more akin to gambling).

While Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been deeply involved in lobbying Democrats (and Republicans), Barack Obama-master of judgment-chose a former head of Fannie Mae, Jim Johnson, to be one of three people on his Vice-Presidential vetting team. Johnson was knee-deep in causing the problems that have blown up Fannie Mae and much of the financial and homebuilding industry along with it.

How to avoid the blemish? The master of distraction slams oil companies-despite a profit-margin that is a fraction of Wall Street's (however you measure profit-whether against assets, revenues, etc.) and whose executive compensation as a whole (with exceptions such as the former chief of Exxon) pales in comparison to the hedge fund managers funding the Obama campaign.

Obama-hedge fund candidate. Remember that going forward.