'Astounding paychecks' Scrutinized by 'World News'
ABC “World News with Charles Gibson” fanned flames of class warfare with a story about the high incomes of hedge fund managers, leaving out how much these individuals must be paying in taxes or how much profit they had made for their investors.
“Some of them made a lot, I mean really a lot,” said anchor Charles Gibson before John Berman began his April 24 report.
According to Alpha magazine, the top 25 hedge fund managers earned a combined $14 billion last year. The top one, James Simons, made $1.7 billion by himself.
“Hedge fund managers make huge bets on stocks and commodities,” explained Berman before quoting a business school professor who said taking on such high risks “deserve[s] high returns.”
For comparison, Berman said $14 billion is “enough to pay
But certainly these hedge fund managers are helping employ quite a few teachers with their tax payments, though viewers didn’t hear how many because ABC didn’t ask.
Nor did the program point out that such compensation depends on “how much money the firm has in assets,” and the firm’s performance for investors, according to Alpha Magazine.
Instead ABC focused on the impossibility of trying to spend more than a billion dollars by interviewing a personal shopper about the price of sheets and a grocery store manager who said everything in the store would only cost about $2.6 million.
“It turns out a billion dollars is hard to spend,” concluded Berman.
“It does boggle doesn’t it,” said Gibson ending the segment.
It is worth noting that left-wing political activist and donor George Soros ranked number four on the list at $950 million a year.
