Windfall
Main Entry:
wind·fall Listen to the pronunciation of windfall
Pronunciation:
\ˈwin(d)-ˌfȯl\
Function:
noun
Date:
15th century
1 : something (as a tree or fruit) blown down by the wind 2 : an unexpected, unearned, or sudden gain or advantage
Windfall
Definition
Money received which was not expected and not a direct result of something the recipient did
So the definition is that these are profits that are unearned. How they are unearned is not explained. Oil companies are evil. Everyone knows that. They're screwing you and me to make money at the pump. Never mind that oil is the the largest global commodity market in the world. It can't be that. Or taxes. Or the fact that our refinement capacity hasn't grown in 30 years. Or that we have over 50 different blends nationwide that cannot be sold when there's an overage in one area and a shortage in another. None of those things cause high gas prices. Just the Evil Rich Oil Companies.
The other target of liberal ire is financiers who make millions. Except George Soros. He's exempt because he hates Bush. Never mind that he almost singlehandedly destroyed the British pound to make his money and caused immense hardship to a great many Britons in the process. All those sins are washed away because he funds leftist polemics.
Of late we've been hearing about the outrageous amount of money hedge funds and their managers are making. One example this week from from IHT. Excerpt:
Five managers earned more than $1 billion (€630,000 million).
One contributor to the enormous amounts of money hedge fund managers are making is the unraveling of the traditional "2 and 20" method of compensation. For years, funds typically charged 2 percent of the amount invested plus 20 percent of the profits.
Ezra Zask of Lakeville Capital Management, a hedge fund advisory, said some of the bigger hedge funds are now charging as much as 5 percent of the invested principal and 40 percent of the profits.
Some investors are willing to pay higher fees to funds' managers if they show they have consistently beaten the market, Zask said.
One manager — John Paulson of Paulson & Co. — earned $3.7 billion (€2.32 billion) last year, which management consultant Peter Cohan pointed out means Paulson in 2007 made 30 times in one hour what the median family made all year.
Leftist logic would intervene here and say that there's no way anyone could have earned that much money. Nothing he does or can do would be worth that much. The government should take at least 2 billion of that and give it to poor people. After all, who couldn't live on the remaining $1.7 billion? One key factor is that liberals always refer to income being "distributed" rather than earned. This post is an example but DonViti violates the rule by using the phrase "income earners". He will be sent to re-education at Berkley until he learns to use the phrase "income recipients" or "corporate fatcats". We cannot have people talking about earnings as that implies merit. Fairness of earnings is determined by how much the person really "needs". That is, once you are really rich you aren't entitled to earn any more money because you couldn't possibly need it. Whether or not it is fair to take money legally earned isn't the way things are viewed. Anyone who makes that much money must be exploiting someone, somewhere to do so. This logic is never applied to the entertainment industry. Singers, actors and sports stars don't have their earnings questioned. Primarily because they are assumed to be liberals and therefore, good people. Good people with lots of money do great things with it. And they have, somehow earned it. After all, they're famous. Being famous entitles you to riches and makes you immune from criticism regarding wealth. How this is so is beyond me. This too, is an unexplained article of faith. Back to the article:
Driven in part by fees hedge fund managers are making, income inequality in 2007 was at the highest level since 1928, the year before the Great Depression began.
In fact, even among hedge funds the disparity has widened, Cohan said: The top 50 managers make a disproportionate share of the fees earned in an industry that by some accounts has 10,000 funds.
Stunned by news stories about Schwarzman's lavish lifestyle, some members of Congress tried to change laws allowing hedge funds' profits to be taxed as "capital gains," at 15 percent, and not income at a rate more than twice that.
Emphasis mine. This is the most clear cut admission that class envy drives liberal politics than I've seen in a while. Congress sees someone living lavishly. Enjoying himself. Can't have that. No no no. We need to get our hands on that money. I have votes to buy!
Lower taxes notwithstanding, Xavier Gabaix, a finance professor at New York University, said it is not clear whether such gaping inequality is necessarily bad.
Because hedge fund managers make their money by charging fees on investments from rich people, these fees represent the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the very rich, he said.
By contrast, the income inequality plaguing many developing countries represents rich people profiting at the expense of the poor, he said.
Further, Gabaix said the economy may benefit when these managers spend the money they have earned.
So, taking money from the rich to give to the very rich. Where's the problem? Also, Professor Gabaix outs himself as a "trickle down" guy which is the financial equivalent of being a Flat Earth Scientist to liberals. They can write him off as a moron or a loon based on that last sentence.
What do they do with all that money? Some people think they have a huge pile of it stashed away gathering dust. They never consider that whether they save that money, invest it or spend it, they're creating jobs. Any activity aside from putting it in a pile and burning it, is going to employ somebody. What else do they do with it?
Several hedge fund managers have a reputation for philanthropy. According to one report, George Soros — the second-highest-paid hedge fund manager last year at $2.9 billion (€1.82 billion) — has spent $6 billion (€3.8 billion) on philanthropic activities ranging from fighting poverty in Africa to funding universities in Russia.
In a fit of mighty restraint, the IHT didn't include efforts to unseat President Bush in his list of philanthropic activities. I imagine there was a blood bath in the editor's meeting over that one.
James Simons, who took home $2.8 billion (€1.76 billion) as manager of Renaissance Technologies Corp., co-founded the Simons Foundation, which finances education and health projects.
That last bit is selling Mr. Simons rather short. Who is this guy anyway? Let's check his Wikipedia entry:
Autism research
The family's charitable foundation has committed $38 million to find the causes related to autism in recent years, and plans to spend another $100 million in what is becoming the largest private investment in the field of autism research, while Simons personally exerts extraordinary control over where and how his money is spent. Simons has provided DNA from his family for study (his daughter is autistic), and has given assistance in helping solve research problems. When MIT asked for brain research funding, he stipulated that the project focus on autism and include scientists of his choosing.
On June 11, 2003, the Simons Foundation hosted its first "Panel on Autism Research" in New York City, a day-long event highlighting research into the causes of autism, the accurate genomic mapping of autism, and in the study of the biochemical mechanisms that occur in people with autism. Attendees included David Amaral, Dr. Eric Courchesne, Dr. Nathaniel Heinz, Tom Insel, MD, Catherine Lord, PhD, Dr. Fred Volkmar and Dr. Paul Greengard. The Simons Foundation recently gave $10 million to two researchers at the Yale University Child Study Center to study genetic influences on autism.
He's a remarkable guy. He requires an unprecidented amount of control over the projects he funds. He personally chooses the scientists and requires frequent updates and briefings on their progress. Any project he funds has a maximum of 12% of administrative overhead. The rest goes to research. That money would never have been spent on autism research had the government seized it. It would likely be spent on something named after Robert C. Byrd. Simons is my hero for reasons that my reader(s) will find pretty obvious. We need men like him to fund valuable research that the government does not and will not. Even if he doesn't and wants to spend it on frivolous things, it doesn't matter. Its his money he earned it and he should get to keep it. If people really cared about what is fair and what is just rather than how much people should be allowed to keep we'd all be a lot better off.
