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Next entry: Pandagon on Gawker on Double X Previous entry: Children: The Lady Tamer

A Climate Of Fear Has Seized Our Billionaires

According to Forbes Magazine, there is but one voice in the lonely wilderness of insanely rich white men, one voice ringing out above the clattering din of fearful mumbling in our nation’s boardrooms and lobbies of our nation’s best proctologists: Clifford Asness.

“I run an approximately $20 billion dollar money management firm,” Clifford Asness explained in a note that he circulated to friends and investors earlier this month. The note criticized President Obama’s economic policies. Despite his company’s assets, Asness continued, “I am indeed fearful in writing this. It’s really a bad idea to speak out. Angering the president is a mistake.”

This, friends, is how fascism begins.  Or socialism.  I forget which.  It’s whichever one had the black dude with the jump shot in charge of it.

As far as I can tell—and I Googled on this until my fingertips grew tender—Asness is the only businessperson of any standing to have opposed the administration in public.

Now, perhaps the author of this piece is cursed with some sort of fragile-finger syndrome, the tips of his phlanges crackling and crumbling under all but the merest of touches (although that makes how he wrote this column a mystery) but, ahem, this took me one Google, twenty seconds at most.  It isn’t technically a businessperson, but it is a whole group of them, all of whom could be purchased in one fell swoop if Obama is displeased with their speech or if Commissar of Black Business Young Jeezy decides that he would enjoy referencing his ownership of Procter & Gamble in his next single. 

I understand that there’s an element of danger in having billions and billions of dollars at your disposal and making polite criticisms of the President’s policy; after all, the GOP ran a terrible ticket against him and yet he still snuck in Black Saboteur Michael Steele to tear down the party from the inside.  The real question here, however, is why the author of this piece, a writer for billionaire Steve Forbes’ magazine, has decided to have his boss disappeared in the middle of the night for a poorly-written bit of whiny e-mail reproduction.  I guess this is how fascism/socialism (facialism?) works.

 

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Posted by Jesse Taylor on 11:30 AM • (37) Comments

Has anyone actually seen Obama angry yet?  It must be terrible to live in a world where “powerful person balances concerns of entire nation in his policy, not just your bank balance” = “personal vendetta against your bitchy email.”

Comment #1: Kyso K  on  05/24  at  12:06 PM

HA ha! His name is “Asness”.

Comment #2: felagund  on  05/24  at  12:11 PM

“I am indeed fearful in writing this. It’s really a bad idea to speak out. Angering the president is a mistake.”

It must be terrible to be a billionaire, attacked on all sides, unable to freely move among the proles, hiding in the panic room at the heart of one of your huge mansions, cowering in your stretch limo to and from the airport where you keep your private jet, always fearful that one of the maids, or one of the gardeners may turn out to be a government mole.

“Take pity on these, the wealthiest of my children,” as Jesus no doubt said somewhere.  Tragically, fate dictates they must continue, alone, to carry this awful burden…

Comment #3: MikeEss  on  05/24  at  12:32 PM

The thing that really gets me about this sort of self-pitying crap from the Super Rich (and their lickspittles, as in this asshole’s case) is how little they really have to complain about; Obama campaigned as a’ centrist’ and is governing as your basic timid, middle-of-the-road, Corporate Democrat. He has done nothing to truly upset these people, and look at them kick! Can you imagine their reaction if he were implementing an agenda that was actually inconvenient to them?

Comment #4: John D.  on  05/24  at  12:54 PM

Hello everyone, I’ve been reading pandagon for a while; this is my first time commenting.

He’s fearful?  Not nearly fearful enough.

The government has recently taken the extraordinary step of bailing out billionaires like him to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.  This is the equivalent of driving through every street in America and confiscating a car out of every driveway.  This after said billionaires and the firms they manage wiped out half the savings with which they were entrusted.

These people crossed the line long ago, but if they were to go back to that line and take a good look at it, they might notice just how much of president Obama’s ass has been put there for their sake.  Now, with the once-again skyrocketing price of oil despite weak fundamentals, it would seem that these same Captains of Finance rather than being properly chastened, have taken the bailout money and gone right back to the roulette table.  They can win it all back, honest.

They have no idea just how angry people are at how they’ve been treated by the monied elite.  They have no idea how sick people are of their inflated sense of entitlement.  This is the stuff revolutions are made of.  If I were president, I would be telling these people that if they continue to squander the public’s largesse, they will be pilloried on the National Mall and citizens will be allowed to pay twenty-five cents a piece to skull-fuck them until the entire bailout has been paid back.  If they think Obama’s public speech is inflammatory and scary, they have no idea just how much trouble they’re in.

Really, if I were one of these guys I wouldn’t be writing articles for Forbes. I’d be too busy moving to a villa in the jungles of the Amazon, or New Guinea, or some other place that isn’t stuffed to the gills with people I’ve fucked over royally - not an easy feat in a global economy.

Comment #5: DaveL  on  05/24  at  01:11 PM

I just took the time to register (after reading here without registering for at least 4 years…) just to say that damn Jesse, you are on fire!!  I lol’d, um, ol.

We live in truly absurd times.  Swift would LOVE him some 2009.

Comment #6: okto  on  05/24  at  01:15 PM

Those poor wealthy white men.  We should act—at once!—to assuage their fears.  I’m sure investing their collective hundreds of billions in public education to create the labor force for the next economic surge would soothe their tangled nerves immeasurably.

It only hurts at first, we promise.  Shh.

Comment #7: kaninchen  on  05/24  at  01:32 PM

citizens will be allowed to pay twenty-five cents a piece to skull-fuck them until the entire bailout has been paid back.

In market research, we would call this “a price so low, I would question it’s quality”.

Comment #8: I Heart Puppies  on  05/24  at  01:36 PM

Is it wrong that my inner 8 year old thinks it awesomely appropriate that his name is “Asness”? Just one “s” short of spelling it truly appropriately ...

Comment #9: Gar Lipow  on  05/24  at  01:42 PM

<i>I am indeed fearful in writing this. It’s really a bad idea to speak out. Angering the president is a mistake.</a>

Just like when the faux “secret service” read those bumper stickers and barred him from a Bush speech during the ‘04 campaign.

Oh, that wasn’t the same guy?

And if he’s that afraid, and still has a lobbying presence in DC, he can STFU.

Comment #10: ThresherK  on  05/24  at  01:47 PM

Curse you, manual HTML coding without previewing first!

Comment #11: ThresherK  on  05/24  at  01:49 PM

HA ha! His name is “Asness”.

Yeah, that made me use my Google-fu to make sure he was a real person.  Dick Assman is, after all.

Here’s what Fortune* magazine had to say about him in February 2008:

Clifford Asness’s model-based strategies made him a darling among investors. Now his firm faces steep losses and the threat of an employee exodus.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/22/news/newsmakers/aqr_asness.fortune/index.htm 

Looks like he’s trying to make himself relevant somehow since his Money-Fu has left the building.


* No, I will not tempt the html gods by trying to make the link clickable from the “Fortune” sentence.  No.  I have angered them much and they will kluge it up and make it not work.

Comment #12: Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes  on  05/24  at  02:16 PM

People in charge of billions of dollars fucked up our economy.  They took money from the people in charge of jobs, investments, properties, wealth, hope, our health insurance, our economy, our environment, and other things and said, “We know how to make it all work, just let us skim a bit off the top of everything and it will all go well.”  Then they took a little more than a bit, then insisted that their bit be even bigger, we never questioned them since they seemed to be managing things pretty well, and we were fools.

Those people had no business being part of our business.  We need to completely rework our financial market to keep those “too big to fail” types from even getting extra-large.  We need to screw those who have taken trillions of dollars of the people’s work and turned it into nothing.  They should be scared, since they are going to never be trusted again.  And what expertise do they have to offer?  What experience has shown that this fucked up version of supposed capitalism is good in the long run?  This wasn’t capitalism, but was instead corporatism.  And it has failed.  Capitalism requires that this correction lead to these people get their asses handed to them, but we won’t go that far.  Instead, I just hope we can save capitalism from these fools.  Are these next few years are going to be revolutionary and violent or revolutionary and educational?  I’m betting on “Yes.”

Comment #13: 3letterjon  on  05/24  at  02:49 PM

Has anyone actually seen Obama angry yet?  It must be terrible to live in a world where “powerful person balances concerns of entire nation in his policy, not just your bank balance” = “personal vendetta against your bitchy email.”

There’s a word.  Starts with “p”, rhymes with “erection”.  Republicans engage in it a lot.

“Dude, if I was President I would *so* use it to get back at those who disagree with me!”...

Caren, I laugh in the face of the html gods, for I type like I make love!  Fast, with a lot of mistakes.  And, um, not watching what I’m doing and too often hitting the wrong buttons.  And, um, usually making inappropriate comments out loud.  And, uh, in a spirit of aggressive mischief.

I’ll start this analogy again.

Comment #14: Phoenician in a time of Romans  on  05/24  at  03:00 PM

You do realize that this is pure projection, right—that people who acted against the Bush Administration genuinely were persecuted (no-fly list, prosecutions against whistleblowers, etc.)?

Comment #15: Punditus Maximus  on  05/24  at  03:01 PM

I’ll start this analogy again.

Caren, I laugh in the face of the html gods, for I type like I make love!  Way too often, I ejaculate too fast and half cocked, and have to try to do better with another - no, that’s not working either.

Comment #16: Phoenician in a time of Romans  on  05/24  at  03:09 PM

the president would have to know and care who this guy is to actually give a rat’s ass what he thinks about his policies, and worrying about angering the president? serious paranoia and quite the narcissist.

Comment #17: chibi  on  05/24  at  03:11 PM

I’m scared.  I really am.  I’m scared of these knee-jerk conservative assholes that are so stupid, but have somehow managed to build successful businesses.  I’m scared of these rednecks that are so afraid that Obama’s going to take their guns and their god.  I’m scared.  I’m really scared that the very people (cough, Glenn Beck, cough) that are afraid that we on the left are planning some sort of violent fascist revolution are going to be the assholes that fire first.  You know what else scares me?  I think it’s going to be Latinos and gays that are their first scapegoats.  That part is all ready happening to a certain extent, but it really worries me.

Comment #18: Spooky Skeptic  on  05/24  at  03:15 PM

“We know how to make it all work, just let us skim a bit off the top of everything and it will all go well.”

The root problem is that so much of manipulating other people’s money is a zero sum game. Hedge funds in particular. The smartest managers will make money, but there’s really no way to identify who they are. Fund managers are like Texas Hold-‘em players asking to play with your money, because they are sure to win. And, as mentioned, they siphon off part of your stake, win or lose.

Comment #19: Hector B.  on  05/24  at  04:37 PM

Piator, I am laughing as hard at your antics as I did at Mr. Asness’s name.

Comment #20: Samantha Vimes  on  05/24  at  05:19 PM

Has anyone actually seen Obama angry yet?

I’ll bet he’s the kind of guy who just goes terrifyingly quiet when he’s angry. *shiver*

Comment #21: Clio  on  05/24  at  05:37 PM

Obama’s gotten a touch irked at Biden. But being a mature adult and a professional, he doesn’t have (or at least hasn’t had) tantrums in public.

Comment #22: Hershele Ostropoler  on  05/24  at  09:02 PM

Cliff Ass Nest? 

LOLOLOLOLOL!

Comment #23: Ms Kate  on  05/24  at  10:22 PM

Wasn’t that trading floor asshat claiming that he was being persecuted by the Obama administration and feared for his family?

Comment #24: Ms Kate  on  05/24  at  10:24 PM

All this heartrending drama over a 4% tax increase on only the portion of your income over $200,000.

I’m starting to understand why Stalin thought labor camps for the aristocracy were a good idea.

Comment #25: Mnemosyne  on  05/25  at  02:06 AM

I think I prefer a more Swiftian approach.

Comment #26: Phoenician in a time of Romans  on  05/25  at  02:32 AM

Wonderful.  The premature communication strikes again.

The Swiftian approach.

Comment #27: Phoenician in a time of Romans  on  05/25  at  02:34 AM

Very cool! Love Aerosmith ..... Checkout Sweet Emotion on their live albu, “Live Bootleg”. Totally rocks!

Comment #28: EricJG  on  05/25  at  06:34 AM

That’s their live album, “Aerosmith Live Bootleg”. Sweet Emotion on that is the sole reason I boght a new record player ....

Comment #29: EricJG  on  05/25  at  06:47 AM

Well!  If my taxes wen’t up 4% I’d certainly move to <strike>Britain, Germany, France, Pogo Pogo</strike>.... never mind.

Comment #30: Magis  on  05/25  at  10:14 AM

Monaco, Andorra or Liechtenstein, I believe, Magis.  I’ve looked into this for when I win $680,000,000 in the international mega-Lotto rumoured to be starting up next year.

This fantasy currently falls just above seducing Scarlett Johannson and just below developing superpowers.  That’s pretty pathetic, even by my standards.

Comment #31: Phoenician in a time of Romans  on  05/25  at  12:44 PM

Clifford Asness’s model-based strategies made him a darling among investors. Now his firm faces steep losses and the threat of an employee exodus.

So one might say that he was everyone’s “As” darling before, but now ... he’s just a bum.

Comment #32: The Chinuk  on  05/25  at  01:28 PM

Those poor wealthy white men.  We should act—at once!—to assuage their fears.

Well, I’m pishing my life away at a job that pays me enough to just scrape by which I’m keeping because I have a mortgage to pay and my wife has diabetes.

I don’t see what else I can do. I’m already doing all I can.

Savings? (heh) What is that word you are using there!?!?!

Comment #33: The Chinuk  on  05/25  at  01:30 PM

Why they gotta be white?

Comment #34: whiskeytangofoxtrot  on  05/26  at  03:44 AM

“Why they gotta be white?”

I don’t know, but since they almost always are, perhaps you can tell us why…

Comment #35: MikeEss  on  05/26  at  11:51 AM

It was a joke, dude. Take it easy, white bread.

Comment #36: whiskeytangofoxtrot  on  05/26  at  06:38 PM

“He has done nothing to truly upset these people, and look at them kick! Can you imagine their reaction if he were implementing an agenda that was actually inconvenient to them?”

FDR may well have saved their granddad’s asses from revolution and look how they treated him.

Comment #37: witless chum  on  05/27  at  11:35 AM
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