Thursday, October 20, 2011

Emotional Millionaire Bankers: "Mean Words Hurt Worse Than Actual Regulation"

Banking executives: They have more money than anyone you know will have in their lifetimes, yet have the emotional sensibilities of a 5 year old.
After the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent a recent email urging supporters to sign a petition backing the wave of Occupy Wall Street protests, phones at the party committee started ringing.

Banking executives personally called the offices of DCCC Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and DCCC Finance Chairman Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) last week demanding answers, three financial services lobbyists told POLITICO.

“They were livid,” said one Democratic lobbyist with banking clients.

The execs asked the lawmakers: “What are you doing? Do you even understand some of the things that they’ve called for?” said another lobbyist with financial services clients who is a former Democratic Senate aide.
. . .
“Most Wall Street guys, they feel like they’re going to be burned in effigy,” said Anthony Scaramucci, managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, who gave to Obama in 2008 but is now fundraising for Mitt Romney. Some moderate donors, who have given to both parties, “fled from Obama in his support of the Wall Street protests,” he said.
. . .
“You can’t have it both ways,” said one in-house financial services lobbyist. “It just makes it harder for people who are Democrats in New York, Boston, Chicago to on the one hand be demogagued and then be asked ‘Hey, you can get your picture with the president for $30,000.’ It doesn’t square.”
And the rhetoric strikes a nerve.

“In some ways, I think this is worse than [Dodd-Frank] because it is more symbolic,” said a Democratic financial services lobbyist. “People from Wall Street can deal with regulation, they deal with it all the time … I think it’s just the bashing that sort of drives them crazy.”
Apparently being an extremely wealthy elite isn't enough, you also need be praised by other elites for all of the great work that you're not doing. This just makes me think that Occupy Wall Street, SEIU (and others') have it right in their tactics. If the CEO of Bank Of America or Goldman Sachs go about his day for 10 minutes without being reminded that he's an asshole who has cause the suffering of millions, we aren't doing our job.

2 comments:

  1. Maybe we can make a trade with them? They let us have better regulations and we'll promise to send them card every year on their birthday.

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  2. Yeah! Seriously, if we tell them how awesome they are in exchange for meaningful regulation, that would be an awesome deal!

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