Clinton campaign might not work for Chelsea's paymasters

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/feb/22/andrewclarkonamerica

Andrew Clark in New York
guardian.co.uk,
Friday February 22 2008

snip----

Chelsea has been shuttling around America to support Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. She has taken leave of absence to do so from the New York hedge fund where she works, Avenue Capital.

So it was a bit awkward this week when Hillary Clinton chose to lay into hedge funds during a roundtable discussion on economics at a restaurant in Parma, Ohio. As her daughter watched from a few feet away, Mrs Clinton questioned whether hedge fund executives really do any real "work".

"We also have to reward work more," she told voters in the recession-hit rustbelt state. "And by that I mean, I have people in New York working on Wall Street as investment managers, as hedge fund executives. Under the tax code, they can pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes on $50m dollars, than a teacher, or a nurse, or a truck driver in Parma pays on $50,000. That's very discouraging to people."

It's not the first time that Mrs Clinton has used this line - she pounded hedge funds vigorously while campaigning for the New Hampshire primary. But it does highlight a curious tension in the Clinton camp.

As a senator from the Big Apple, she has enjoyed huge donations from Wall Street and her aides have been diligent in wooing so-called hedgies. Bill Clinton was guest of honour last year at a $2,300-a-head reception at the home of millionaire hedgie Clifton Robbins in America's ultra-rich hedge fund capital of Greenwich, Connecticut.

Chelsea Clinton's boss, the Avenue Capital founder Marc Lasry, is a Clinton donor and serial Democratic fundraiser. Lasry is a noted vulture capitalist who specialises in pouncing on distressed debt.

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....sticks and stones, etc......