HEDGE FUND = our ruin

There are now at least 10,000 hedge funds, of which 8,000 are registered in the Cayman Islands. However, the 400 funds with $1bn or more under management do 80% of the business. They cannot be regulated. They have over $1.5 trillion in assets and the daily global derivatives turnover is almost $6 trillion (equal to half US gross domestic product). With the economic climate euphoric over the past five years, most funds have won, although some have lost. In the year ending this August, nearly 1,900 were created and 575 were liquidated. Standard & Poor would like to rank their credit-worthiness, but has yet to do so: bigger funds claim to use computer models to make trades, and three of the 10 biggest claim they make purely quantitative decisions. (http://mondediplo.com/2006/10/02finance)

GAZA2009--Chris-Hedges--XjBttx6Gd2c.mp4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjBttx6Gd2c

Chris Hedges condemns Israeli Gaza Massacre

Chris Hedges, author, spoke at a Revolution Books Town Hall Meeting at Ethical Culture Society January 13, 2009 condemning Israel and US complicity in Israel's murderous destruction of Gaza

January 16, 2009

Hedges: 'American stalwarts' Falk, Kucinich, Chomsky, & Finkelstein 'ignored or spurned like lepers'
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/02/hedges-falk-kucinich-chomsky-finkelstein-ignored-or-spurned-like-lepers.html

This took place a month ago. Great speech at a town hall on Gaza organized by the Society for Ethical Culture in New York, from Chris Hedges, a little incantatory, what you'd expect from a minister's kid:
to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army; and [call] it a war-- It is not a war, it is murder.

And beautiful statement about American "stalwarts" Norman Finkelstein, Dennis Kucinich, Richard Falk, and Chomsky getting shut out of the press.
ignored or spurned like lepers. They are denied a platform in the press, they are rendered nearly voiceless.

Hedges also uses the g-word
The lesson of the Holocaust is that when you have the capacity to halt genocide, and you do not, no matter who carries out that genocide and who it is against, you are culpable.