Everyone But Michael Steinhardt Is Dumb or Sinister

Michael Steinhardt is shooting his mouth off again, big time. This time around it seems that Warren Buffett is a con-man and gave his money away "thoughtlessly". Also, when Steinhardt was doing the hedge fund thing it was hard, but now apparently it is easy. My take, sitting here running a hedge fund (and knowing a bit about Steinhardt), is that Steinhardt is, well, (let's put this nicely) off the mark. No doubt Steinhardt is a smart and accomplished man, but he is known to lob facile charges of rampant idiocy in the world outside of Michael Steinhardt. When we first checked in with him, Bush era economic advisors were all a bunch of idiots. Well, presumably we've gotten the type caliber of folks that Steinhardt approves of these last couple of years - we don't know, Steinhardt won't say - but I'm not sure the millions of folks out of work, underemployed or struggling with stagnant wages/rising costs would express pleasure at the newfound caliber of economic policy thinkers. But these latest charges smack of something other than deep, albeit contrarian, analytical insights. Could be age-induced crankiness, could be a man long out of the arena lashing out because he is not in the arena, could just be Steinhardt's over-inflated reputation for genius meeting reality, who knows. Let me suggest to you, the audience a few possibilities: a) Warren Buffett gave his money away wisely to an enduring and well-run foundation, 2) Warren Buffett made no attempts to manipulate the press, but that giving away a maga-fortune makes news whereas not giving away large sums makes no news, 3) Bush era economic advisors were no worse than Obama era advisors perhaps even better, 4) running a hedge fund is just as hard today as running one 20 years ago, 5) Michael Steinhardt is full of gas, but because he has lots of dough can get on TV and say just about anything.