Kass: Blinded by the Derivatives Boom

This blog post originally appeared on RealMoney Silver on Oct. 22. EDT.

Permit me the opportunity to give you my perspective and to reflect on the intermediate-term prospects I see for the capital markets.

We live in a brave new investment world. With the explosion of hedge funds -- the newest and most aggressive and dominant investor -- riches beyond the highest degree of avarice can be only a year away.

Industrialization of America business icons (Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc.) are no longer the leaders, nor are the kids of the dot-com boom (Bezos, Yang, Case, etc.); today, the masters of the universe are hedge fund managers (Ed Lampert, Stevie Cohen, Paul Tudor Jones, etc.). ...