Want to read about the most selfish assholes ever? - NYT: Why Wall St. Is Deserting Obama

[Pirate Smile]

Why Wall St. Is Deserting Obama

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
Published: August 30, 2010

Daniel S. Loeb, the hedge fund manager, was one of Barack Obama’s biggest backers in the 2008 presidential campaign.
A registered Democrat, Mr. Loeb has given and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democrats. Less than a year ago, he was considered to be among the Wall Street elite still close enough to the White House to be invited to a speech in Lower Manhattan, where President Obama outlined the need for a financial regulatory overhaul.
So it came as quite a surprise on Friday, when Mr. Loeb sent a letter to his investors that sounded as if he were preparing to join Glenn Beck in Washington over the weekend.

-snip-
Over the weekend, the letter, with quotations from Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan and President Obama, was forwarded around the circles of the moneyed elite, from the Hamptons to Silicon Valley. Mr. Loeb’s jeremiad illustrates how some of the president’s former friends on Wall Street and in business now feel about Washington.
Mr. Loeb isn’t the first Wall Streeter to turn on the president. Steven A. Cohen, founder of the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors and a supporter of the Obama campaign, recently held a meeting with Republican candidates in his home in Greenwich, Conn., to strategize about the midterm elections, according to Absolute Return magazine.
Other onetime supporters, like Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, also feel burned by the Obama administration, people close to him say.

That the honeymoon between Washington and Wall Street has turned to bitter recriminations is not news, given that the administration had long pledged to revamp Wall Street regulation in the wake of a crisis that rattled the global financial system.
Less than two years ago, Democrats received 70 percent of the donations from Wall Street; since June, when the financial regulation bill was nearing passage, Republicans were receiving 68 percent of the donations, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.

-snip-
Mr. Obama was viewed as a member of the elite, an Ivy League graduate (Columbia, class of ’83, the same as Mr. Loeb), president of The Harvard Law Review — he was supposed to be just like them. President Obama was the “intelligent” choice, the same way they felt about themselves. They say that they knew he would seek higher taxes and tighter regulation; that was O.K. What they say they did not realize was that they were going to be painted as villains.
That Wall Street view of itself as a victim has prompted much of the private murmurings and the unfortunate — or worse — outburst from Stephen A. Schwarzman, who likened the administration’s plan for taxes on private equity to “when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” Mr. Schwarzman later apologized for the “inappropriate analogy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/business/31sorkin.html?_r=1&ref=business

[flamingdem]

1. More American traitors, a gang of thugs in fine suits nt

[Inuca]

2. That can't be

because we all know that Obama is nothing but a Wall Street puppet. And that the various legislation he pushed were nothing but ways to please his Wall St. donors.

[impik]

18. Screw the professional left. They deserve Bush

[tridim]

3. Villains don't need to be painted as villains.

This story is great news, a gift for our party.

[lib2DaBone]

4. Wall street is not deserting Mr. Obama....

They are kicking him out. They have received everything they want from Obama. (HCR, No Glass-Steegal, Credit Default Swaps still OK)

Just like the true Hedge Fund Vampires that they are.. they will give Mr. Obama his "reward" by giving him the boot. We tried to tell Mr. Obama.. he wouldn't listen.

Hopefully Mr. Obama will wake up and not hand over our Social Security money to these Vampires. (now that he see what kind of reward he is going to get)

[Pirate Smile]

5. They wanted another Bill Clinton - someone who signed the repeal of Glass Steagal - and they didn't

get it so they are throwing a fit.

Don't forget that Obama can only get legislatively what he can pass through Congress and we actually got a tougher bill then we thought we would.

Face it. He isn't the "corporate stooge" you've decided he is.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

6. And yet, so many people here on DU blame Obama and are planning not to vote...

They can't understand that that's what the Repukes what us to do!!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

7. Don't you understand that the President cannot direct Congress to do anything!

There are three SEPARATE and DISTINCT branches of our government. Blame Obama, but why? Why not target those conservative, corporate Dems in the House and Senate who are holding up progress?

[Hawkowl]

11. I blame Obama for lack of party discipline

Previous presidents controlled their party members with an iron fist. LBJ, Truman etc. Obama has not even ATTEMPTED to make one Senator pay a poltical price for stabbing him in the back. Nelson? Lieberman? Landrieu? It's like Obama walks around all day with a kick me sign on his back.

[Pirate Smile]

14. We had - for a short time - 60 votes in the Senate. Those 60 include Lieberman, Lincoln, Nelson.

60 Senators exactly makes Every.Single.One their own little dictator. They can stop anything or everything.

Most Senators know that they've been their longer then the current occupant of the White House and they will probably be there long after he is gone.

Pressuring only works in some circumstances. Sometimes it is counter-productive.

The fact that Harry held them together to get what we got in Health Insurance Reform was actually kind of amazing.

People can say it is nothing but I know now that my kids can't be excluded from health insurance because of any pre-existing conditions and they can stay on my insurance until 26. We also can't get dumped by the insurance companies now if we get sick. We needed 60 for the reforms. Any one of them could have ended it.

I think it is crazy to blame Obama for how the Senate is now. It certainly helps Lieberman, Nelson and Lincoln - and Republicans - that Democrats blame Obama for the crap they did.

[Hawkowl]

20. Obama hasn't EVEN TRIED

You pick one Senator. Pick the weakest obstructionist you've got. Then you pull out all the stops and you hold up all appointments in his state. All judgeships, all funding for every conceivable program. You then halt all campaign funding support. THIS is how "Chicago" politics are practiced so don't tell me he doesn't know how to play the game. On the other hand his administration brutally chastises those on the left who got him in office. So it is obvious to me that the problem is not that Obama "can't" it is that he "won't" enforce discipline.

He just chooses not to, with a wink and a nod to his so called "obstructionists". He is giving tacit approval to these Senators by not disciplining them. Throughout his political career, once in office, Obama consistently aligns himself with the establishment's entrenched interests, and discarding the professed values and positions of the left who helped put him into office.

If his house was on fire, and his neighbors who hated his guts demanded that he let his house burn down, Obama would cheerfully compromise and agree to only put out half the fire and let half his house burn down. But only if his neighbors were rich and powerful and not fucking retarded drug users who had unrealistic expectations of reciprocity and fairness.

[Pirate Smile]

21. Well, you have your villain picked out for everything. You are letting everyone else off the hook.

[Hawkowl]

23. The leader is the most responsible

But I don't let anyone off the hook. If someone volunteers to lead and then does it poorly, you can't blame the followers or supporters or even your enemies. They are all failures to lead. Politics ain't beanbag boy.

[Pirate Smile]

24. We have different branches of government where each part has their own responsibilities.

It isn't a friggin dictatorship.

[Hawkowl]

26. Politics isn't dictatorship

Playing hardball politics is not dictatorship. Reward your friends and make your political enemies pay a price. Obama has done neither. Or if you assume he has, then his friends are insurance companies, big pharma, defense contractors, and conservative dems and two moderate rethuglican Senators. Obviously his enemies are progressives and the left.

To insist that we have three equal branches of government is kind of ridiculous at this point in history. The president (as proven by Shrub in modern times and Andrew Jackson and even Jefferson in past) has much more power than the other two branches. The Defense department alone dwarfs all other departments of the government.

Yes, I would prefer that everybody just play nice and rationally discuss their differences and calmly reach compromise solutions that do the greatest good for the most people. But we are humans! Violent, passionate and irrational. You can't logically and rationally deal with people who are incapable of such civilities.

I think the main difference between you and I, is that you may view me as an unrealistic, partisan dogmatist, where I view you as a bit naive as to the true workings of politics and human nature.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

28. You miss two important ingredients from the Truman/LBJ Era....

First, the Democratic Party back then were fearless when it came to embracing the liberal brand. The Dixiecrats were largely marginalized in the party. The progressives, on the other hand, were a dominant force; hence, they got their way. Unlike today's Democrats, they didn't run away from the liberal label. Even today's so-called liberals in the party are too afraid to assert as much.

Second, LBJ was working with a VERY large majority, about 67 Democrats. Many of them were moderate to liberal.

That is not the case today that Obama is facing. Not only does he not have the majority he needs to overcome a filibuster with the likes of LIEberman and Ben Nelson; he is facing a very polarized electorate, more polarized than any time in this nation's history.

Put blinders on if you want. It's one thing to assert party loyalty, especially when it comes to Democrats who were never that monolithic or organized.

It's another to suggest the more warranted criticism of Obama: that he capitulated too much and gave too much to the Right, the Republicans, and conservative Democrats.

In fact, my only real criticism of Obama is that he is too easy-going, too nice, too accommodating, and not forceful enough. Hopefully it will not cost him much more than just the House and possibly the Senate.

[appal_jack]

15. +1, k&r, n/t

[impik]

17. Of course! I knew i'll get a good explanation from you.

[BootinUp]

29. Do you ever get dizzy

spinnin like that?

:hi:

[flamingdem]

8. Here is Loeb's letter for reference

http://dealbreaker.com/2010/08/dan-loeb-breaks-out-the-american-history-text-books-for-q2-letter/

[Pirate Smile]

9. Thanks

:hi:

[Cha]

10. Thanks Pirate

Smile:)

[Pirate Smile]

12. Thanks, Cha!

[Cha]

33. ..

:D

[DevonRex]

13. K&R. Great article. Kind of flies in the face of the meme running around

here constantly, doesn't it?

[impik]

16. Wait! Isn't Obama part of them???

That's what i read here all the time.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dawson Leery]

22. Wall Street has never given a damn about the workers.

They are just going back to their native lands, that is all.
The big banks needed to fail, they needed die. That would have cleaned off their debts.

[BeyondGeography]

25. They're sitting on their money; Obama should question their patriotism

It's war, Barack. Might as well face it.

[JuniperLea]

27. K&R!

Great article! Thanks for posting!

:hi:

[Kahuna]

30. Obama'a a shill for the corporate elites. SQUAWK!

:sarcasm:

[Scurrilous]

31. Thanks.

K & R :thumbsup:

[w4rma]

32. It has been a complete waste of time to cater to them. These parasites will stab you in the back at

the first sign of weakness for a little more cash.

[zulchzulu]

34. These people supported Reagan in the 1980s. Why the fuck would anyone be surprised?

They were selfish little vermin then. Now they turned into even more disgusting vermin. A rat despite the cheese it eats as an upgrade is still a fucking rat.

May they rot in their own vomit.