Free Republic

Well, we certainly lost a big one. Despite hopes I share that this November’s polls will help mitigate the damage, this giant leap towards socialized medicine is a big loss for the Republican Party, and for the American people. And I say “leap towards” socialized medicine as this bill is not nearly the Left’s end game. It’s not meant to work, it’s meant to destroy the private health insurance industry, an industry that realized this only too late. It’s meant to help bring on, through socialized medicine, further breaking of the budget, and further conditioning of the American people to...

... [L]et’s discuss the President’s recent rhetoric. Paraphrasing him, “we will get back all the people’s money.” And the applause line, “every dime!” OK, fine. But most of the banks, and in particular the ones in the headlines for paying large bonuses, have paid back all their TARP loans. This logic causes him no pause. Apparently, and we must read between the lines as this is the most transparent administration ever, he means all the money lent out to everyone through TARP not just to banks. So, loans to the car companies, and AIG, and FNMA/FHLMC, all must be paid...

What We Know That Ain’t So Will Rogers famously said, “It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.” So it is with the health care debate in this country. Quite a few “facts” offered to the public as truth are simply wrong and often intentionally misleading. It seems clear that no truly productive solution will emerge when these false facts represent our common starting point. So, this essay takes on the modest task of simply disabusing its readers of some untrue notions about health care.

Cliff Asness, whose firm manages some $20 billion of assets, has written an open letter blasting President Obama for his attack on the hedge fund industry in the wake of the Chrysler bankruptcy. As you'll recall, hedge funds, which hold approximately $1 billion in Chrysler bonds, refused the government's offer to take approximately thirty cents on the dollar. Obama accused hedge funds of holding out "for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout." These comments have enraged many in the industry but few have spoken out publicly. Asness, whose firm doesn't hold Chrysler bonds, says the industry is genuinely afraid...

So much for any hope that the government would uphold rules and abiding by contracts. Instead, we keep getting examples of something else – that when President Obama fails to persuade firms to follow his wishes, he does not hesitate to use threats of financial destruction. Cliff Asness, the co-founder of the $20 billion hedge fund AQR Capital Management, laid bare the latest attacks with an open letter on Wednesday: “The President screaming that the hedge funds are looking for an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout is the big lie writ large. Find me a hedge fund that has been bailed out....

Clifford Asness, the brains behind the $9 Billion Dollar hedge fund, AQR Capital Management, isn't involved in the Chrysler mess, but he was appalled by Obama's treatment of his colleagues, so he had to make a stand. He wrote this letter which appears below to President Obama, defending the non-Tarp Chrysler investors and his industry in general. A copy of the letter has been making the "rounds" within the investment community, and finally landed in New York Mag. The letter is a well-reasoned, strongly worded "F**K You to the President. Something tells me that Mr. Asness is going to have...

Clifford S. Asness Managing and Founding Principal AQR Capital Management, LLC The President has just harshly castigated hedge fund managers for being unwilling to take his administration’s bid for their Chrysler bonds. He called them “speculators” who were “refusing to sacrifice like everyone else” and who wanted “to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.” The responses of hedge fund managers have been, appropriately, outrage, but generally have been anonymous for fear of going on the record against a powerful President (an exception, though still in the form of a “group letter”, was the superb note from...