Saturday, May 26, 2012

Wall Street Psychology and Politics

No one went to jail, so why is Wall Street so mad? Not prosecuting any of the parties responsible for the recession has just served to embolden them. 

 America’s idiot rich: The 1 percent is complaining louder than ever. There can be no reasoning with people this irrational

How billionaires destroy democracy. Wall Streeters have rigged the economy and the government against the people. Here's how they did it.

Crony Capitalism: After Lobbying Against New Financial Regulations, JPMorgan Loses $2B in Risky Bet


Why Can't Obama Bring Wall Street to Justice?
The absence of prosecutions, and the fact that the cops on the beat hail from the place that represents the banks, does not sit right with many who hoped Obama would fulfill his promise to hold Big Finance accountable. The left's frustration fuels the Occupy movement, and chills the Democratic base. And it gives Romney, the career capitalist, an opening he is avidly exploiting. Through last fall, Obama had collected more donations from Wall Street than any of the Republican candidates; employees of Bain Capital donated more than twice as much to Obama as they did to Romney, who founded the firm. By this spring, however, resolution had come to the GOP contest, and Wall Street could see a friendly alternative to Obama. While most of Romney's contributions so far come mainly from the financial sector, Obama's donations from Wall Street have dropped sharply. But this turn may yet help Obama, playing into the Romney-as-plutocrat theme. Just the other week, the Republican candidate quietly slipped into a fundraiser at the home of hedge-fund king John Paulson, who made a killing shorting mortgage futures (including about $1 billion on the Abacus deal). The Obama campaign pounced. Obama may yet fully liberate his inner populist--that Obama who in 2010 in an off-Prompter moment uttered a sentence that made blood run cold on Wall Street: "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money."
Democrats and Bain-- Executives at Romney's old private-equity firm have donated more to the Democratic Party than the GOP. Why?
(friendly treatment in Washington, of course)