No Own - No Sell

[sarals]

Soros: Patriotism Ends at the Stock Market
Wes Vernon
Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2001
WASHINGTON – A major uproar may be coming in the halls of Congress over top-dollar investors who are betting against the economy and helping to push the market down.
One such investor is noted financier George Soros, a major backer of Bill and Hillary Clinton

This financial attack by short-sellers like Soros is going on even as small investors are sinking their meager cash reserves into the American economy to help their country in time of war.

Well-placed sources tell NewsMax.com that regulators are aware of this, but so far have merely tried to apply pressure through back channels.

Amidst the patriotic fervor encouraging Americans to "invest in America" so as not to let the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks wreck the economy, there are those who not only are not participating, but also are actually working against it.

Hedge-fund managers have been making bets against transportation, hotel and auto stocks. Hedge funds manage billions and can get extremely high leverage in the futures markets.

A relatively little-noticed article in one of the inside sections of the Sept. 20 Wall Street Journal reported widely circulated rumors that "U.S. regulators urged large hedge funds to temper the size of their bearish bets on Monday."

Those regulators, presumably with the Securities and Exchange Commission, get their operating budgets from Congress. Members of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees have aides who scour newspapers for precisely this kind of information. Many who know what's going on hope these influential lawmakers will soon speak out.

An insider in the financial services industry tells NewsMax.com, "We had calls from small people trying to invest $100 to $500. The people were attempting to be patriotic and wanted to invest in America. I find it absolutely sickening and heartbreaking that billionaires investing money for extremely wealthy people are helping to push the markets lower."

The hedge funds, he explained, can "amplify the effect [of] using leverage." This bet against America has nothing to do with "orderly markets or the invisible hand of capitalism," he adds.

While Joe and Jane Six-Pack were calling in to place their faith in America, well-known hedge-fund manager George Soros was telling a group of business leaders in Hong-Kong, "I don’t think you can run markets on patriotic principles."

On issues from the death penalty to environmentalism to drug laws to gun control, Soros is notorious for using a large part of his considerable fortune to propagandize left-wing positions.

The Journal article singles out hedge-fund managers Soros and Leon Cooperman. The latter is quoted as saying, "I'm very patriotic. I have a flag in front of my home. I cried a lot over the weekend. But I owe it to my investors to do what is rational."

So they're sending a message that investing in America is not "rational"? To some inside the industry, it smacks of hypocrisy to tell small investors to put up their money while the elites are working against them.

"The crushing of the markets will cost more jobs, make more people depressed and frightened, and will hurt America," an industry source observed to NewsMax. He called it the equivalent of "a second attack being done by 'Americans' against Americans."

Several insiders are alarmed that the SEC and the Treasury Department have not worked to curb the hedge funds or reduce the leverage they are able to generate.

That may change. Joe and Jane Six-Pack are willing to carry their share of the load until they sense they're being played for suckers. If they vent some outrage to their elected lawmakers on Capitol Hill and regulators at the SEC, those who seek to make a killing from America's misfortune may be in for a surprise

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/9/23/163013.shtml