What is it with Dems and hedge funds? Not long ago we learned that Mr. Two Americas worked for one. Today we find out, in a front-page profile in the New York Times, that Chelsea Clinton also works for a hedge fund.
But the Times was strangely shy about divulging the fact. Only those who persisted through 18 paragraphs and 977 words were rewarded with that noteworthy nugget. And even when the Times did get around to informing us, it managed to find a sympathetic spin to place on Chelsea's decision to work for what many liberals like to portray as the poster child for evil capitalism gone wild.
Last fall, Ms. Clinton moved on, taking a job analyzing investments at Avenue Capital, a hedge fund run by Marc Lasry, a loyal donor to Democratic causes generally, and Clinton-related ones specifically. The company invests its $18 billion in the debt of troubled businesses.
Friends say financial independence is important to Ms. Clinton; she may improve on her low-six-figure McKinsey salary by hundreds of thousands of dollars at Avenue because of potential bonuses, according to industry headhunters.
Get it? Chelsea isn't greedy, like those other hedge funders. No, it's simply that "financial independence is important" to her. Wouldn't want to be a burden on the folks, let alone end up on food stamps.
Why do I suspect that if the child of a prominent Republican candidate worked at a hedge fund, the Times might have played things more prominently, and less sympathetically?
Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net
