Hedge funds get 'free ride'

Wall Street has taken its lumps in Washington recently and Goldman Sachs has become everyone’s whipping boy, but hedge funds and private equity firms have escaped relatively unscathed.

“There’s no question they’ve gotten a free ride,” said Robert Weissman, president of the consumer group Public Citizen.

And one reason for that, according to Weissman, is a particularly well-connected group of lobbyists. More than half the 83 lobbyists registered last year to work for the industries’ two trade groups, the Private Equity Council and the Managed Funds Association, have served in government — from Capitol Hill to the Treasury Department.

While the revolving door is nothing new, the roster is nonetheless impressive — it has included three former members of Congress (Republican Richard Baker and Democrats Vic Fazio and Martin Frost) and about a half-dozen top staffers with ties to members of the Senate Banking Committee, including its chairman, Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).



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if the US were to crack down on them, they will simply set up shop in another country. This is a major problem as many of these hedge funds are so big they can manipulate the world economy and when they flex their muscle the economy and the people of the world usually are the ones that suffer.

We should also declare contracts made in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens of the corrupt and wealthy to be invalid when made by United States persons.