Money and Bugs
I was glancing over the last issue of Forbes (dated April 27, 2009) before tossing it and thought I'd mention a small article on page 32 titled "Wall Street's Highest Earners."
Lots of empty headed commentators, many of which seem to work for CNN, have been talking about how everyone on Wall Street is losing money. Well, that would be news to the 10 men listed in the Forbes article. #10, David Harding, no doubt was embarrassed by only making $290,000,000 last year but the rest of us would have been pleased as punch by that much moola. And yes, that is 290 MILLION. Number one on the list made almost 10 times more.
James Simons "earned" $2.8 billion (yes, with a B) running the Renaissance Technologies hedge fund. Part of that was from fees (for example, his Medallion Fund charges 44% of profits + 5% of assets) and part was from his equity stake in the fund. That's a pretty decent paycheck in a year that most people lost money. No real surprise that his biggest stakes were shorting stocks. This past year, that was like fishing in a barrel though shorting when so many people were going long showed courage of convictions.
George Soros, one of the most famous hedge fund operators, only made 800 million last year. Sad, huh? An immigrant from Hungary, Soros gained financial experience in London and NYC for nearly 25 years before he began to run his own funds (Jim Rogers was his partner in the early days) and eventually made his fortune, estimated at $11 billion despite giving away around $6 billion across the past 30 years.
Rogers has an interesting quote, in 2007 he sold his NYC home and moved to China stating "If you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York City, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia." Hes been very outspoken about China's economic potential dating back to when he traveled across China by motorcycle during a trip he took around the world. So far, the past 2 decades have proven him right, but the future is still murky. Or to quote a movie, The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves.
On to the bugs. Eh, I'm feeling lazy. I'll write about the bugs later on. It was going to focus on Precambrian events so remind me about it if I forget.
Lots of empty headed commentators, many of which seem to work for CNN, have been talking about how everyone on Wall Street is losing money. Well, that would be news to the 10 men listed in the Forbes article. #10, David Harding, no doubt was embarrassed by only making $290,000,000 last year but the rest of us would have been pleased as punch by that much moola. And yes, that is 290 MILLION. Number one on the list made almost 10 times more.
James Simons "earned" $2.8 billion (yes, with a B) running the Renaissance Technologies hedge fund. Part of that was from fees (for example, his Medallion Fund charges 44% of profits + 5% of assets) and part was from his equity stake in the fund. That's a pretty decent paycheck in a year that most people lost money. No real surprise that his biggest stakes were shorting stocks. This past year, that was like fishing in a barrel though shorting when so many people were going long showed courage of convictions.
George Soros, one of the most famous hedge fund operators, only made 800 million last year. Sad, huh? An immigrant from Hungary, Soros gained financial experience in London and NYC for nearly 25 years before he began to run his own funds (Jim Rogers was his partner in the early days) and eventually made his fortune, estimated at $11 billion despite giving away around $6 billion across the past 30 years.
Rogers has an interesting quote, in 2007 he sold his NYC home and moved to China stating "If you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York City, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia." Hes been very outspoken about China's economic potential dating back to when he traveled across China by motorcycle during a trip he took around the world. So far, the past 2 decades have proven him right, but the future is still murky. Or to quote a movie, The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves.
On to the bugs. Eh, I'm feeling lazy. I'll write about the bugs later on. It was going to focus on Precambrian events so remind me about it if I forget.
Comments
Okay, I will.
Bet they were bigger in the Precambrian.
To hell with the money people - they will always survive because of their sociopathic tendencies (I didn't claim they were all sociopaths, just that they share some of those traits).