Nick W.I do not GAF who #KenGriffin is in real life or the fact that he made a ton of money through being a hedge fund manager. That's that job where basically you play with other people's money and come out stinking rich on the other side.
The editors at the #WashingtonPost have forgotten their journalistic past. They have mostly forgotten what it means to take a stand and call out assholes such as Donald Trump for being the greed monsters and terrible people that they are.
It was #BobWoodward and #CarlBernstein at the Post who helped expose the unethical and seedy side of #American politics. It was those two reporters along with several other writers at national newspapers during the seventies who helped in bringing about the downfall of President Richard #Nixon.
The new WaPo editors and owner have completely forgotten this history and why people today are tired of the ultra-rich behaving like extortionists. For the Post to come to the defense of Griffin as if unfettered capitalism always came first in every instance is really disingenuous and absolutely misleading.
Jeff Bezos' bold greed and his awful brand are really on display here. Bezos owns the Washington Post. Bezos always was a hack who drove a lot of independent American book publishers and also book stores out of business when Amazon was founded. The transition point started when Amazon started selling books and launched the online Kindle book selling service. The point of starting Kindle was to strategically and financially undercut all of the brick-and-mortar book stores. This was also billionaire Sam Walton's ruthless strategy: Walmart was single-handedly responsible for putting many smaller mom-and-pop retail stores across the Midwest and the rest of America out of business during the late 1980's and 1990's.
PS - See the blue backdrop in the photo of Ken Griffin? #MichaelMilken who founded Drexel Burnham Lambert was the low-life businessman who was *the* junk bond king during the 1980's. Gen X'ers: remember the Savings & Loan scandals that made their way to US Congress? That was Milken and his cronies (see the image in my comments that briefly explains how that occurred). The financier Michael Milken was PARDONED by Donald #Trump in 2020.
These people are all on the same payroll. They are avaricious beyond reproach. That just means people such as #Bezos are so greedy and that they've lost touch with reality to the point where they will run over everybody to procure even more money for their off-shore accounts.
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New York Mayor #Zohran #Mamdani has been scrambling to come up with money to fund a major expansion of city government, and he has put the politics of envy at the center of his effort. This is bound to be a fiscal failure, but it’s already a moral one.
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Last month, the social-media-savvy socialist filmed a video outside the New York home of billionaire Ken Griffin. He told viewers who lived there and declared, “We’re taxing the rich.” Why pick on the hedge fund manager?
The mayor didn’t accuse Griffin of violating any laws or even dodging taxes. His only crime was owning a nice penthouse — that is, being a successful person. Griffin said Tuesday that the video was “creepy and weird.” It was also unethical.
“He seems to have forgotten that the CEO of another American company was assassinated just blocks from where I live in New York,” the Citadel chief executive noted, referencing the assassination of #UnitedHealthcare ’s #BrianThompson in December 2024.
Luigi Mangione, awaiting trial for that premeditated murder, has inspired copycat violence aimed at the affluent. New court filings allege that the Los Angeles man charged with starting last year’s deadly Palisades Fire was also motivated by Mangione. When investigators asked him why someone might commit arson, he “responded that it would be out of resentment of the rich enjoying their money,” prosecutors say.
Mamdani’s office said the mayor wants “all New Yorkers to succeed” and that this is about reforming the tax code. Yet such an egregious video isn’t about a good-faith debate over fiscal policy. It’s about vilifying Griffin.
To class warriors like Mamdani, success in a capitalist economy is akin to theft. Entrepreneurs don’t provide services for their customers; they steal from them and spend the money on themselves while others suffer. This is the opposite of reality...
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