"Millionaires and billionaires," President Obama says derisively, must make more "sacrifices" and live by the same rules the rest of America lives by. But there are seven little words that will never appear on the White House teleprompter: "And that means you, too, George Soros."
For all his (and his wife's) bashing of greedy Wall Street hedge-fund managers, Obama has shown nothing but love to the world's most famous hedge-fund mogul. The feeling is mutual and deep(as in deep-pocketed).
Soros and his family shelled out $250,000 for Obama's inauguration, $60,000 in direct campaign contributions and untold millions more to liberal activist groups pushing the White House agenda. While the class warrior-in-chief assails conniving financiers who exploit loopholes and corporate titans who imperil the planet, he lets the Soros exemptions to his attack-the-rich rules slide like butter on a hot plate.
This week, for example, Soros announced he was "quitting" the hedge-fund industry. The headlines emphasized his decision to return about $750 million to outside investors (a drop in his $30 billion bucket of personal wealth). He's reconstituting the business that landed him on Forbes magazine's "wealthiest people" list as a "family" interest. But the move has "self-serving politics" written all over it.
Over the past year, Soros provided coveted support for Obama and the Democrats' Byzantine financial "reforms" under the sweeping Dodd-Frank law. He preached to financial publications around the world about the need for increased regulatory controls over his industry. And in November 2008, while paying obligatory lip service to concerns about going too far, he submitted a statement to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that recommended: "The entire regulatory framework needs to be reconsidered, and hedge funds need to be regulated within that framework."
Frameworks for thee, but not for he, however.
Somehow, in touting its one-year anniversary last week, there was nary a peep about the myriad loopholes and defacto waivers being granted to Obama's powerful benefactors whose names start with "S" and end in "-oros."
