One of their campaigns is to organize bank workers. Bank workers in other countries are unionized. Why not in the U.S. as well?
The Hedge Clippers campaign looks at hedge funds and private equity, thus hedge clippers clipping their power. It basically says, “These are the finance capitalists that are driving political and economic inequality.” What we have done is both deep dive reports and exposés, plus lots of direct action to directly confront them. Our little joke is that we have either been incredibly prescient or Trump picked his entire Cabinet by looking at who we have been fighting. Pre-Trump winning, we were saying whether it is Goldman Sachs or Steven Schwarzman from Blackstone, these are the people who are really running the government. Lots of folks are laughing saying we are a conspiracy cult or something. Then, when Trump got elected, he put all of these people directly in charge. It is sort of an irony that Trump’s election was probably the best testimony to the idea that whether it’s Democrats or Republicans, a player is really who is running the show.
We are doing a lot of work on mapping the different Trump worlds. There are the people, like Steven Mnuchin and the Goldman Sachs folks, that are [working] directly in the administration and we map all the benefits that their companies will reap from that. Then, there are the Steve Schwarzmans and the Carl Icahns and this other set of players that run committees for him. So, they can essentially create government policies that will further enrich their companies. Then, there is a third set of people like John Paulson, who made all his money in the housing crisis, who may not be directly working for Trump, but who supported him and is now going to reap the benefits. For example, he is heavily invested in Puerto Rico.
What we have been looking at is, how do you identify the corporate collaborators with Trump, and then look at ways to start putting pressure on them so that they pay a price for the fact that they are in bed with Trump.

I am grateful for Hedge Clippers’ research and diligence. The only way to send a message to these vulture capitalists is to hit them in the pocketbooks as it is the only language they speak. Progressives need to disinvest with them and put savings into local credit unions.
“60 Minutes” had a story last night about how mostly tech corporations are abusing the H1B rules. They are supposed to only hire foreigners when they cannot find qualified Americans. Instead, they are firing Americans to hire H1Bs in order to make more profit. When I saw this story and the pain of the displaced workers, I wondered why they hadn’t formed a union to fight such abuse. Unions create safer better workplaces and protection of workers’ rights. The greedy oligarchs want all the money and power to stay at the top while they step on the little people. Workers need a wake up call!
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“Workers should not be forced to sell predatory products or cheat people as a condition of employment.” Agree. And this principle should and can be tweaked to fit teachers who are forced to administer tests to students who are not yet of age in an environment where there is no educational benefit, but big bucks for the test makers.
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Recently, hedgeclippers visited pension funds and presented the evidence that hedge funds do not reduce volatility nor, do they outperform other investment vehicles. The board of Ohio’s PERS chose not to listen. Pensioners need to get involved, telling their representatives in OPERS and the other pension systems that the institutions’ primary goal should be to fight those who plot to destroy defined benefit plans.
Teachers should help to inform bus drivers, cafeteria workers and other education staffers, who are in state pension systems, to get involved.
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