2101 Tea Hedge

Now that this debt ceiling slash government shutdown crisis is temporarily over it's time to take a step back and ask ourselves the question you once saw in old detective novels. Cui Bono?

Cui Bono means "who benefits." It's an old notion that asserts the best way to determine who is responsible for a heinous act is to determine who benefits most from it.

So, since it's almost universally agreed that the government didn't benefit, the Tea Party didn't benefit, the R's or the D's didn't benefit, and the country as a whole, or all it's furloughed workers didn't benefit, who the heck did?

Not one to accept random facts where a conspiracy theory will do, here's mine. A clue: During the crisis, which was basically manufactured by some 80 Tea Partiers who meant well according to their principles, the stock market was more volatile that it has been in quite a while, stocks up and down with a great deal of intensity. 

Flim and flam. Most people think the stock market has winners and losers, benefiting more or less equally from bad and good sells and buys. Generally trading finishes up, so long term investors can make steady gains over many years, barring economic meltdown mortgage derivative a-stock-alypses. 

But one type of investment is designed to make money whether a stock goes up or down. Hedge funds. Basically, hedge fund managers make bets, on buyers or sellers buying and selling, then skim money off the tiny margins of up or down transactions. 

Hedge fund managers make boatloads of money during volatile stock markets. When everybody's happy they don't buy or sell. When they're scared they go crazy. 

Cui Bono? The Hedge Fund Managers. 

They've infiltrated and manipulated the Tea Party.  

America, ya gotta love it.