Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Rich Narcissists Still Whining

I wrote an earlier post about hypocrites on Wall Street on August 31. The key take-away for me, other than the enormity of their plunder, was the extent to which Wall Streeters, especially the banks, felt put upon because President Obama has dared to scold them for ruining the economy with the most reckless and breathtaking display of greed and irresponsibility in the history of capitalism. And yet they are still walking around, rich and unindicted, while Obama bailed out their collective and undeserving ass, poured billions into the economy, oversaw a stock market recovery, which disproportionately benefited these same bankers and other wealthy elites, passed a luke warm financial reform bill that won't reform much of anything, and thus does little to slow down Wall Street's dominance, and then agreed to extend tax breaks to America's richest.

And still they whine. Many bankers got behind Republicans in '10, as is customary, after supporting Obama in '08, an especially ironic choice given that Wall Street has done very well under Democratic administrations. They just can't shake that unsupported belief that Republicans are somehow better for business than Democrats. As with so much in our modern political economy, and ever more so in what is becoming a post-factual society, identity trumps evidence.

The President met with a small group of CEOs recently, and none of the banking honchos was invited. So now they are having a snit about it. Ben White at Politico has a good take on a level of animosity towards Obama that, in view of banking's profits and privileges, is irrational and bizzarre.

John Amato, referencing Ben White's article, has his take on it as well.  As Amato says, "You can see how deluded these fat cat CEO's are. I mean a few words will make them cry. As I said, even though the President gave these Masters of Destruction virtually a free pass they will now go back to pumping their millions in the GOP."

Finally, watch the video of Sam Seder's interview with Matt Taibbi.




As Taibbi says, the attitudes of the bank CEOs are "unbelievably obnoxious."

2 comments:

  1. After reading Blue HI's contention that things won't get better and then looking at the video of Taibbi, I got seriously depressed. Is there anything short of death and destruction that we can do that would have some chance of turning things around?

    Putting a few fat cats in the pokey might help.

    Al

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  2. Right, Al,
    In order for that to happen, Eric Holder has to do his job, which apparently is asking too much. I take some solace in knowing that growth and decline go in cycles; nothing is forever. Unfortunately, most of us are going to feel the down cycle for years or decades to come.

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