First, welcome to readers from DirectorBlue and thanks to Doug Ross for posting my piece on Hope ‘n Change’s treatment of Israel.
And now for the main event. In my previous post, I wondered aloud when we would see a ‘talk back’ to Hope ‘n Change, a president whose instincts run to the vindictive. When we’d see people of stature and courage with the communications skills to take on the Teleprompter of the United States.
Before we get to one guy with the guts to talk back, let’s look at the personality of Hope ‘n Change’s ‘car czar’, Steven Rattner. According to one anonymous Chrysler creditor, Rattner is a madman. From FinemRespice, via DirectorBlue:
Confronting the head of a non-TARP fund holding Chrysler debt and unwilling to release it for any sum less than that to which it was legally entitled without compelling cause, this country’s “Car Czar” berated the manager of said fund with an outburst of prose substantially resembling this:
Who the fuck do you think you’re dealing with? We’ll have the IRS audit your fund. Every one of your employees. Your investors. Then we will have the Securities and Exchange Commission rip through your books looking for anything and everything and nothing we find to destroy you with.
Faced with these sorts of threats, in this environment, with valued employees in the crosshairs and AIG a fresh, open wound upon the market, the fund folded.
And now to one guy – all the more courageous because he’s a ‘nobody’ – who’s decided to publicly talk back. Via Michelle Malkin, meet AQR Capital Management LLC hedge fund manager Cliff Asness, who penned an essay about Hope ‘n Change and his henchmen.
The President’s attempted diktat takes money from bondholders and gives it to a labor union that delivers money and votes for him. Why is he not calling on his party to “sacrifice” some campaign contributions, and votes, for the greater good? Shaking down lenders for the benefit of political donors is recycled corruption and abuse of power.
Let’s also mention only in passing the irony of this same President begging hedge funds to borrow more to purchase other troubled securities. That he expects them to do so when he has already shown what happens if they ask for their money to be repaid fairly would be amusing if not so dangerous. That hedge funds might not participate in these programs because of fear of getting sucked into some toxic demagoguery that ends in arbitrary punishment for trying to work with the Treasury is distressing. Some useful programs, like those designed to help finance consumer loans, won’t work because of this irresponsible hectoring.
Last but not least, the President screaming that the hedge funds are looking for an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout is the big lie writ large. Find me a hedge fund that has been bailed out. Find me a hedge fund, even a failed one, that has asked for one. In fact, it was only because hedge funds have not taken government funds that they could stand up to this bullying. The TARP recipients had no choice but to go along. The hedge funds were singled out only because they are unpopular, not because they behaved any differently from any other ethical manager of other people’s money. The President’s comments here are backwards and libelous. Yet, somehow I don’t think the hedge funds will be following ACORN’s lead and trucking in a bunch of paid professional protestors soon. Hedge funds really need a community organizer.
This is America. We have a free enterprise system that has worked spectacularly for us for two hundred plus years. When it fails it fixes itself. Most importantly, it is not an owned lackey of the oval office to be scolded for disobedience by the President.
I am ready for my “personalized” tax rate now.
Glad to see you’ve still got your sense of humor, Cliff. Be sure to watch your back.
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