From Robber Barons of Yesteryear to the Vulture Whores of Today

In Vernon L. Parrington's Pulitzer Prize winning, book, Main Currents in American Thought" he clearly and eloquently characterizes the Robber Baron's role in the break with democratic tradition and social consciousness and the continuing political contest between aristocracy and democracy that is so apparent today.

"Freedom had become individualism, and individualism had become the inalienable right to preempt, to exploit, to squander. Gone were the old ideals along with the old restraints. The idealism of the forties, the romanticism of the fifties-all the heritage of Jeffersonianism and the French, Enlightenment-were put thoughtlessly away, and with no social conscience, no concern for civilization, no heed for the future of the democracy it talked so much about, the Gilded Age threw itself into the business of money-getting." -- Vernon Parrington

Robber Barons, the personification of capitalist exploitation definitely violated ethical and moral boundaries, but at the same time contributed to what makes the United States the strongest country in the world today. Their ruthless ingenuity propelled us from an agrarian economy to an industrial one for better or worse; the manifestation of their energy palpable.

Today, many of the "robber barons" are nothing more than common whores. They make money off money at the expense of poverty stricken to average people all over the world, leaving nothing in return but the ravaged remains of hard working people.

Markets are amoral; hence it's up to "we the people" to apply moral values where none exist.

Paul Singer, the founder of New York-based hedge fund or vulture fund Elliott Associates is one example of this new type of "robber baron" or as I call them, marauder whores.

My apologies to any ethical "robber barons" of which I'm sure there are many, but unfortunately for every ethical "robber baron" there are two "vulture whores".

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Vulture Funds Fund Rudy Giuliani's Run for the White House

Vulture funds buy up the debt of poverty-stricken nations at bottom of the barrel prices, when the debt is about to be wiped out, and then turn around and sue the poor nation for the full value of the debt plus whatever they feel like charging in interest.

Recently, Mr. Bush forgave Congo its outstanding balance; yet at the same time will not prevent vulture funds from massively profiting off Congo and countries like them, eradicating any benefit his debt relief would have provided. It appears as if George Bush is clearing the path for the vultures to swoop down on these ailing nations and finish them off.


Kevin Carter's winning photo above shows a heart-breaking scene of a starving child collapsed on the ground, struggling to get to a food center during a famine in the Sudan in 1993. In the background, a vulture stalks the emaciated child.

Haunted by the horrific images from Sudan, Carter committed suicide in 1994.


Empowered by the US Constitution, Mr. Bush can stop these heinous vultures from picking the bones of the poorest of the poor with the stroke of a pen, if they are interfering with America's foreign policy. Singer, who is suing Congo for many times the amount of the money owed to profit one-thousand times over, is interfering with Bush's attempt to relieve that part of the world its outstanding balance.

Rudy Giuliani's biggest contributor, is Paul Singer, who runs the hedge fund, Elliott Associates, founded in 1977 and one of the oldest hedge funds under continuous mangement. Elliott Associates came under fire in 2001 when it refused to accept Brady Bonds, (In the late '80s and early '90s, U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady created a broad-based debt restructuring plan, in which the severely indebted nations agreed to issue a transitional bond, called a Brady bond, and many major private lenders agreed to accept these bonds in a swap for their outstanding loans.) instead of the full amount owed to them.

"Mr Bush has the power to block collection of debts by vulture funds, either individual ones or all of them, if he considers it to be at odds with US foreign policy, in this case debt relief for poor countries."

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