Friday, November 14, 2014

Whose investments?

I know of an elderly couple who lost $40,000 last year on their retirement savings because of thrashing by their so-called financial manager.

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/895441147135149




Most small investors (including you if you’re managing to squirrel away any money in the stock and bond markets) don’t know how much of their money ends up in the pockets of fund managers, portfolio managers, hedge-fund managers, and bond-fund managers. Although the financial sector’s share of GDP is only 6.8 percent, financial profits last year were a whopping 24 percent of total U.S. profits. Consider Pimco, the largest bond firm. Last year its former head, Bill Gross, got a year-end bonus of $290 million; its former CEO, a $230 million bonus. Look elsewhere and you find similarly astounding figures. Steven A. Cohen, whose hedge fund was found to have engaged in insider trading, raked in $2.3 billion last year alone.

We’re all subsidizing Wall Street in one way or another, and the Street is using our money to bribe politicians of both parties -- so,for example, Dodd-Frank gets watered down to nothing, no bankers are jailed, and the Street can continue to treat the economy as a giant casino. Beware any 2016 presidential hopeful who takes money from the Street.

No comments:

Post a Comment