John Paulson: How The Hedge-Fund Manager Made $15 Billion Betting Against The Housing Market

newsweek.com:

In a span of just three years, hedge-fund manager John Paulson went from practically unknown to practically unparalleled. After a series of smart bets against the housing market made Paulson's hedge fund billions of dollars--including days where it made more than $1 billion--he earned a place alongside George Soros and Warren Buffett as an oracle of investing.

Read the whole story: newsweek.com

Comments

[MilwaukeeDan]

I never heard of Paulson, but this just further exposes Wall Street for what it has become, a giant casino where everything can be bet on.

[ebanks84]

Capitalism in this country has been taken to its highest sinfulness by men who could care less about PEOPLE and more about MONEY. In that respect, CAPITALISM SUCKS!

If the American people would have known that capitalism could be so infected by such educated evil men, I seriously doubt we would have allowed it to prosper to this extent without meaningful regulations to keep it at bay. That's exactly why I believe the government has been dumbing down Americans over the years so they could NEVER know the damage they were perpetrating on the citizenry.

Our country has been invaded by these sinister evil minded men/women and we need to confront these issues and regulate our government to fight back exclusively in the name of the PEOPLE.

[oath of fealty]

Stock market surging while main street keeps getting squeezed

good articles: http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com

It looks like 9-8% unemployment is the new normal since the govt. wants ppl to be unemployed. Otherwise we would have REAL shovel ready projects and green jobs instead of the BS we have now.

[Loki11467]

Nothing Oracle about this. Smart yes. oracle no. The Economist was predicting this crash since 2004.

[PhilipTaylor]

Combine the UNETHICAL nature of Paulson with this and you have REAL DAMAGE:

G0D @ NANOSECOND SPEEDS!

NOW IT IS AUTOMATED and THEFT OCCURS IN NANOSECONDS -

Ask G0LDMAN about their PhD developed THEFT SOFTWARE:

1. Automatic Nanosecond Intercepts other trades and insert G0LDMAN Trade ahead to get Bounce!

2. Automatic Market Manipulation - 01L, Commodities, Stock, Derivative, Options, you name it!

SCAM 1:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2009/07/matthew-goldstein-at-reuters-has-broken-a-story-about-a-potential-major-security-breach-involving-goldman-sachs-vaunted-tradi.html

SCAM 2:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=am7Ds.JhNxvw

G0LDMAN and others are feeding off those Data Centers over in Jersey...and making a mint.

[PlayTOE]

engineer the housing market collapse
make money betting it will collapse

but care for anyone put out of their home? not.

[poster1122]

Exactly how did he "engineer" the housing collapse? He didn't sell a single mortgage--much less to anyone who couldn't afford it. The housing market ultimately collapsed because people couldn't pay the debts they built up; that was going to happen regardless of what bets he made. All he did was buy up the policies that would pay off if it collapsed. Had the bubble continued, he would have lost a ton of money, so one can argue that he got lucky. But he certainly didn't do anything nefarious. People have been predicting the collapse for over 5 years now. He just happen to guess the timing correctly.

[SFA]

Oh so he made money by Put ......

Many may not agree with me all this money is made by Put & Call options is not linked to any underlying asset or service provided.

This is really money made out of thin air.............but he did win the bet...so it's not his fault that such nonsense is allowed.

[Carolab]

As Mr. Paulson and others at his office discussed how much was being spent by the United States and other nations to rescue areas of the economy crippled by the financial collapse, he discovered his next targets, certain they were as doomed to collapse as subprime mortgages once had been: the U.S. dollar and other major currencies.

Mr. Paulson made a calculation: The supply of dollars had expanded by 120% over several months. That surely would lead to a drop in its value, and an eventual surge in inflation. "What's the only asset that will hold value? It's got to be gold," Mr. Paulson argued.

Paulson & Co. had never dabbled in gold, and had no currency experts. He was also one of many warming to gold investments, worrying some investors. Some investors withdrew money from the fund, pushing his assets down to $28 billion or so.

Mr. Paulson acknowledged that his was a straightforward argument, but he paid the critics little heed.

"Three or four years from now, people will ask why they didn't buy gold earlier," Mr. Paulson said.

He purchased billions of dollars of gold investments. Betting against the dollar would be his new trade.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703574604574499740849179448.html

[PhilipTaylor]

Thanks for this info and I thought he only bet against Housing, but he also was against the Dollar!

I now know what the protocols are and that it was a so called Hoax! Not so sure!

[Carolab]

The Protocols really bring out the A-S charges.

[MillinMn]

good for him.


but for all of that money, what real value accrued to Main Street due to his investment approach?

[duxguts]

Isn't capitalism wonderful?

[ebanks84]

No. And I believe that's why the powers that were involved in these financial debacles made every attempt to keep the citizenry dumbed down so we would NEVER know what the financially educated evil men/women were doing behind our backs to rob usll and keep us under their manipulated control.

[PhilipTaylor]

He paid Capital Gains Max TAX of 15% while his secretary paid 35%

THE THREE THINGS STEALING OUR DEMOCRACY AND TRUE CAP1TALISM (VAMP1RE BANKSTERS)

1. Our Corrupting V0TE Selling Campaign Funding System

2. The BANKSTER OWNED FED Reserve System manipulated by Foreign and Wall Street Banksters

3. Distorted TAX system - Go Back to 50 year Tradition= TOP TAX Rate of 63% to 94% on incomes over $550,000! Graph = http://pol.moveon.org/budget10/chart/?id=15734-8599887-MahjTHx&t=1

Apply to Hedge Fundsters!

Overcome these THREE Problems and A Functional Democracy by the People and for the People will blossom.

[peacekitten]

there are no words for the contempt i have for this man.

and he managed to only have to pay 15% in total taxes on all that money.

[PhilipTaylor]

YES Peacekitten! $3.7 Billion / Year Ruining Families and Companies applying UNETHICAL PRACTICES MADE LEGAL BY A CORRUPT CONGRESS and President!

[SaltySaltillo]

He did nothing wrong.

[Democratt]

Stock market surging, middle America burning . Welcome to Amerika..land of jobless recoveries and v shaped recoveries for wall street.

hat tip to: http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com

the system needs to be overhauled cuz nothing seems to change .

[SaltySaltillo]

What is not to love about this story. Not everyone made as much as Paulson, but here this is the "retirement" letter of Andrew Lahde, one of Paulson's peers who pocketed $6M through the housing collapse.

http://images.nymag.com/images/2/daily/2008/10/20081017_lahde.pdf

[je7374]

This is such a sad statement at to the state of our country.

Maybe even the trolls are getting tired of this.

[SaltySaltillo]

This is not such a sad story. You would be surprised at who these "winners" are. There is a book coming out called "the Greatest Trade Ever" that portrays who the tiny few who made these hedge bets are...

But the best of all is Andrew Lahde's goodbye letter... you should read it yourself before you pass judgment on these instant billionaires.

http://images.nymag.com/images/2/daily/2008/10/20081017_lahde.pdf