Friday, January 23, 2009

Semantic Losses


I couldn't help noticing a contributed post to Albourne Partners's Village which was [somewhat imprecisely] entitled "Majority of Hedge Funds and FOHFs Lost Money in 2008". Being pedantic, and a stickler for accurate semantics, the headline should have read: Majority of Investors in Hedge Fund and FOHFs Lost Money On The Investments Last Year". And this is part of the industry's asymmetric problem, no? Few managers and even fewer FOHFs "lost" money in their management companies (excepting those perhaps with large incentive-fee deferrals invested in their Funds , though with post-redemption and shrinkage, this too will change in 2009.

2 comments:

  1. Cass,

    Jeremy Grantham's Jan 09 investor letter says that in FOMC minutes Geithner was not one of the few objectors to Greenpan great moderation theory and in public writers Geithner wrote in support of it. Part 1, pg 4. I'm not sure why you think Geithner objected to Greenspan's permagrowth approach. If he objected privately, and advocated it publicly, he may well continue to support those policies publicly.

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  2. Jeez...

    Geithner *just* got sworn-in on TV, 30 minutes ago -- and he's already processing the TARP funds (now THAT'S efficient!)...

    Now all we need to do is figure out a way to rile up the Chinese so they just hold a "buyers' strike" on the upcoming Treasury auctions and send yields to the moon (got any ideas?)....

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