Hedge Funds Stride the Stage of World Affairs

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http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/hedge-funds-stride-the-stage-of-world-affairs/?ref=business


President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina, above, is battling Paul Singer, a hedge fund manager.



Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, was re-elected with a huge margin last year, leaving her political opponents fractured and demoralized. But in recent months, she has found herself locked in battle with a determined adversary who may outmaneuver her.

Her opponent is not a participant in Argentina’s domestic political scene. Rather, he is Paul Singer, a soft-spoken New York hedge fund manager. Through one of his funds, Mr. Singer is fighting in United States courts to press Argentina to pay up on some defaulted bonds. Mrs. Kirchner has refused.

Mr. Singer may be deploying arcane legal strategies thousands of miles from Argentina, but his tactics are dominating the nation’s political discourse. “This has been on the front page every day in Argentina,” said Maria Victoria Murillo, a professor of political science and international affairs at Columbia University.

In other words, a hedge fund has become an important political player in a democracy of 41 million people.


***fuck hedge funds. fuck the big financial houses.

[HiPointDem]

1. Paul Singer was one of Rick Snyder's big political backers. Jesus, small world. When you fucking

run it.


Paul Elliott Singer (born August 22, 1944) is the founder and CEO of hedge fund Elliott Management Corporation and The Paul E. Singer Family Foundation. Singer grew up in a Jewish family in the New York City metropolitan area.[3] He obtained his B.S. in psychology from the University of Rochester and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Singer then spent the next four years working for corporate law firms in New York and the investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.[4]

In 1977, Singer founded the hedge fund Elliott Associates L.P. with $1.3 million from various friends and family members. Elliott Management oversees Elliott Associates and Elliott International Limited, which together have more than $16 billion in assets under management.[5] According to The Guardian, "Elliott's principal investment strategy is buying distressed debt cheaply and selling it at a profit or suing for full payment."[6]

Singer is Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.[13] He serves on the Board of Advisors of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University and the Board of Fellows of Harvard Medical School.[14][15] He serves on the Board of Directors of Commentary Magazine.[16] Singer is a member of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation.

Singer has been active in Republican Party politics and was a major contributor to George W. Bush's presidential campaigns.[17] In 2007, Singer led a financial industry fund-raising effort for Rudolph Giuliani, first as regional finance chair and later as senior policy adviser.[18]In 2011, Singer played a major role in passing legislation that would allow same-sex marriage in the state of New York by, along with other major GOP donors, throwing his support behind it. In 2012, Singer provided $1 million to start a super PAC named American Unity PAC. According to the New York Times, the PAC's "sole mission will be to encourage Republican candidates to support same-sex marriage, in part by helping them to feel financially shielded from any blowback from well-funded groups that oppose it." (See, fascists like gay marriage too!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Singer_%28businessman%29


While Snyder spent nearly $6 million of his own cash on his 2010 campaign, he had serious back-up. As Mother Jones’ Andy Kroll reported last winter, the Republican Governors Association spun off a short-term PAC called RGA Michigan 2010 which spent over $8.3 million, “54 percent more than any other PAC had poured into any election in Michigan history” (some of that cash was allegedly funneled out of state, but over $5 million went to the state GOP). Among the group’s top donors: David Koch, Paul Singer, and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. $1,485,000 came from the DeVos clan, who co-founded the direct-marketing company Amway.

Paul Singer chairs the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank which has received funding from a Koch-backed foundation. Singer also directs Elliott Management, which played a lead role in buying up the debt of Delphi, the auto parts company which supplies to GM and Chrysler, and made a major profit off of the auto bailout. As Greg Palast reported in The Nation, “Of the 29 Delphi plants operating in the United States when the hedge funders began buying up control, only four remain, with not a single union production worker.”

Manhattan Institute = ALEC member.

http://markmaynard.com/

[HiPointDem]

2. kick