Admit it koan, you and Gasparino are working together.
Clever twist, don't you think? Its not the Rs who are in bed with Wall Street........its Obama.
Obama and Wall Street: An Unholy Alliance, Says Charlie Gasparino
Posted Oct 07, 2010 11:05am EDT by Peter Gorenstein in
President Obama ran and won the 2008 election promising change. Yet when it comes to his handling of Wall Street and big business, it’s been more of the same, says Fox Business News reporter Charles Gasparino.
“Look at the main benefits of Obamanomics. It’s helped disproportionately the fat cats, while I don’t think it’s been very good for Main Street,” he tells Tech Ticker in this accompanying video clip.
Gasparino’s new book, Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street, focuses on what he says is an all too chummy relationship between Wall Street and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. That’s right, contrary to what many conservatives believe, Gasparino says Obama’s policies -- e.g., the continuation of the bailouts and failing to truly address “too big to fail” -- started under George W. Bush and remain in place to help Wall Street, while doing little else for the rest of society.
This excerpt from the book’s introduction pretty much says it all:
“The fact of the matter is, when you strip away the name-calling and class warfare coming from the Obama administration, and when you ignore Wall Street’s gripes about the new financial reform legislation that will put a crimp in some of its profit, these two entities are far more aligned than meets the casual eye. They coexist to help each other -- in an unholy alliance against the American taxpayer.”
The book could just as easily carry the subtitle: The unholy alliance between the White House and Wall Street. Gasparino admits Obama is only the last torchbearer; the symbiotic relationship also existed with his predecessors.
It continues today, to the detriment of Main Street, Gasparino argues, because despite the rhetoric, Obama has surrounded himself with a team of advisers and a culture very entrenched in the revolving-door politics between Washington and Wall Street. It didn’t start with Obama, but he certainly hasn’t done much to end it.
The blame also lies with Wall Street. “I don’t consider Wall Street the epicenter of capitalism, I consider it the epicenter of ‘crony’ capitalism,” Gasparino says. (Goldman Sachs got the nickname “Government Sachs” for a reason.)
Wall Street claims to be a bastion of free-market capitalism; in reality it’s far from it. There was no outrage from the Street after Congress approved TARP. Investment banks converted to bank holding companies to access more government money at a lower interest rate. And for the most part, banks were all too happy to take TARP funds.
Is he right? Do big government and big business have too much in common?
finance.yahoo.com |
