hedge funds are a grotesque parasite.

And from what I read here, most DUers don't have a clue as to why.

"A hedge fund is a private investment fund charging a performance fee and typically open to only a limited range of qualified investors. In the United States, hedge funds are open to accredited investors only. Because of this restriction, they are usually exempt from any direct regulation by regulatory bodies. Hedge funds are credited to Alfred Winslow Jones for their invention in 1949. <1>

As a hedge fund's investment activities are limited only by the contracts governing the particular fund, it can make greater use of complex investment strategies such as short selling, entering into futures, swaps and other derivative contracts and leverage.

As their name implies, hedge funds often seek to offset potential losses in the principal markets they invest in by hedging via any number of methods. However, the term "hedge fund" has come in modern parlance to be overused and inappropriately applied to any absolute-return fund – many of these so-called "hedge funds" do not actually hedge their investments.

As a result of both legal constraints and self-interests surrounding the release of information to the general public, hedge funds have acquired a reputation for secrecy. Unlike open-to-the-public "retail" funds (e.g., U.S. mutual funds) which market freely to the public, in most countries hedge funds are specifically prohibited from marketing to investors who are not professional investors or individuals with sufficient private wealth. The release of a hedge fund's historical returns to the public, for example, could be construed as marketing.

Since hedge fund assets can run into many billions of dollars and will usually be multiplied by leverage, their sway over markets, whether they succeed or fail, is potentially substantial and there is a continuing debate over whether they should be more thoroughly regulated."

Read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_fund

Wealthy hedge fund managers closely guard their investment strategies, but mounting political donations reveal how some "hedgies" are betting in the crowded US presidential race.
Hedge funds' campaign donations have skyrocketed in recent years as trading profits have ballooned and the industry has lobbied Congress aggressively this year against raising taxes on managers' often multimillion-dollar earnings.

Democratic White House hopefuls have been more successful so far, compared with their Republican rivals, in winning funds.

The top-grossing recipient is Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd who garnered 714,500 dollars in donations from the hedge fund industry in the first nine months of the year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).

The CRP, which tracks political cash flows, says Republican presidential aspirant Rudolph Giuliani holds second place with donations of 565,000 dollars followed by Democratic contenders Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

Link: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071202230410.3bfg24xo&show_article=1

hedge funds and their employees donating to presidential candidates sucks. Consulting for one sucks even worse. Making millions off of one equally sucks.

of all kinds of problems. Schumer does not agree with the taxing of these funds if I remember correctly. They are not good for anythig except the people who have the money to play the game and sometimes they get bit and then cry to get bailed out.

WASHINGTON — Senator Obama is joining John Edwards in calling for hedge funds and private equity firms that go public to pay higher taxes, increasing the pressure on Senator Clinton to take a stand on an industry facing mounting scrutiny in Congress.

A spokesman for Mr. Obama told The New York Sun late yesterday that the Illinois senator had asked to co-sponsor legislation that would treat all publicly traded partnerships — such as hedge funds and private equity firms — as corporations, forcing them to pay a 35% tax rate on income. Currently, those firms pay no corporate income tax; instead they are taxed on the income of their individual partners, often at the lower 15% capital gains rate.

This is the first definitive step Mr. Obama has taken toward supporting the bill.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, issued a statement backing the legislation along with a similar effort to force managers of hedge funds to pay more taxes on profits known as "carried interest."

http://www.nysun.com/article/58261

And so are too many democrats. But of all the people running who have no credibility on this, JE is in a league of his own. His history with Fortress, in the very recent past, is one of the major reasons I don't trust his populist talk.

know what and how he was explaining it which didn't really hold water but I don't mistrust him totally because of it anymore than I do any candidate. Unfortunately, it is hard to find any one who is 100% clean. As far as I know Kucinich is probably the cleanest of them all.