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Will No One Free Us From The Washington-Wall Street Embrace?
Today’s New York Times features an article headlined “Goldman Ties Enrich Public and Private Life for Romney.” It details how the likely Republican candidate for president not only keeps his family money tucked away with the corporate face of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, but is getting much of his campaign money channeled from this same outfit.
My, my.
Stories such as these will likely appear with great frequency this election season for a very simple reason: Most Americans either distrust or deeply dislike an investment community (aka Wall Street) that they associate with a stiff-the-public crony capitalism, and the press loves to accommodate this feeling, while the Obama campaign is positively salivating at the prospect of promoting it.
Given his past career using Wall Street generated loans to buy companies and then re-sellng these companies with the aid of Wall Street investment banks, and continuing to depend on these Wall Street contacts for his own wealth and campaign funding, it seems extremely unlikely that were Mitt Romney to become president, he would take any steps not favored by The Street.
If only all of President Obama’s own key economic advisers weren’t also either former Wall Street big earners, future Wall Street big earners, or joined at the hip with big Wall Street investment banks in other ways.
Treasury Secretary Geithner was recently quoted saying he probably wouldn’t stay in the Obama administration if the president wins a second term. Will his replacement, along with other key Obama advisers, fit in the now all too traditional “keep The Street” happy” mold? And if so, would a second Obama term really end up being less friendly to Wall Street (and its not always Main Street interests) as a first Romney term?
You have to wonder: Will no one in the Oval Office ever come forth to free us from a pernicious Washington-Wall Street Embrace?
More about this author at: This God-Awful Political Season (In Verse)
6 Responses to “Will No One Free Us From The Washington-Wall Street Embrace?”
There have always been secretaries that have had their careers shaped by banking and investment firms. But at the same time, there does not seem to be a period where the Wall Streeters controlled the office for as long a period of time as has been over the past few years with Paulson and Geithner. There were periods where there were wall Streeters followed by CEO’s of large corporations and even individuals with government careers appoint to the position. This seem to have led to a more balanced approach to economics.
So maybe Obama will find a CEO of a manufacturing company or large service/transportation company to fill the position if he can find one. And here in lies the key. Other than Buffett or Gates, it may be difficult to find an outsider with CEO credentials to fill that position given his division of the country. There are not too many CEO’s that are in the 99er’s. Most of them are the 1%’ers.
Powerful advocates for the middle class are long overdue. Without those our country will keep sinking. It’s as simple as that.
Timeless truth from “The wizard of Id”…
King: “Remember the Golden Rule!”
Peasant #1: “What’s that?”
Peasant #2: “Whoever has the gold, makes the rules”
The wizards of Wall Street are seriously overrated. Every year they put less and less of their money into investments in productive assets that help the economy and more of it into their games that only profits them and actually hurt the economy.
We need a simple transaction tax. A tax on trades that sounds so ridiculously small that no one would think that it would impact anything would do, say one tenth of one percent for example. But it would stop the program trading where massive amounts of stocks are bought and sold literally within seconds to take advantage of small fluctuations in prices that the traders know will happen under a well defined set of conditions. They are not investments in any sense of the word and they make the market less stable. And the only ones who profit from them are the traders who don’t pay commissions on trades and the manufacturers of the high speed super computers required.
I agree with zephyr– but the middle class seems to be too busy making ends meet to notice what is going on in the Romney campaign. Last time Obama got a lot of money from Wall St- probably because they figured he’d win even without it and that they’d better get on his good side. This time all of those companies are going with Romney.
If he wins I can see the same conditions that brought on the first Wall St meltdown returning to finish off what is left of the middle class. Obama hasn’t been successful getting businesses to create jobs- but he HAS been an advocate for us
Here’s an idea, maybe they can try raise the interest rates. We need loans to fund growth in the middle class. But right now two things are happening:
1) Banks can still mess around in the investment world
2) Rates are so low that traditional banking activities like that are less profitable, therefore the banks are not very much motivated to give them.
Really, who is benefiting from such low rates at this point and for this long? If banks could make a profit in some more traditional practices they would push them harder. I know it sounds counter intuitive that higher rates will result in more loans, but I think it will. Also, teh money will go to where its needed, a middle class that’s looking for an influx of investment money for small businesses. Also, the investment side of things would make money again in something other than high risk vehicles like derivitives that basically never make it to the real economy.