Main Street turns against Wall Street

[unapatriciated]

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/26/news/economy/easton_backlash.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008092810
A populist backlash is changing America's political climate. Inflamed by the financial crisis and bailouts, a form of class warfare could haunt business leaders for years to come.

By Nina Easton, Washington bureau chief
SEPTEMBER 28, 2008: 10:20 AM ET

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- In one frenzied month Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke remade Wall Street. Along the way they may also have recast American politics. A month of historic government interventions shows signs of triggering a political version of climate change - unleashing a new era of class fury that could hurt U.S. companies, business leaders, and wealthy investors for years.

"A potential calamity," predicts Democratic pollster Doug Schoen. "If the reactions we're seeing hold, we could have real spasmodic anger directed at businesses and corporations." And the timing will have consequences, says financier and onetime GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney: "Unfortunately, politicians have seized on the politics of envy," he told Fortune, "and they are stoking it this election year like I've never seen in my lifetime."

Compared to this, Enron was a warm-up exercise. For all the public outrage over accounting scandals seven years ago, the result in Washington was limited to a financial reporting rule that most Americans have never heard of (though many in the business community still consider Sarbanes-Oxley a destructive overreaction).

By contrast, the implosion of Wall Street, followed by Paulson's escalating series of multibillion-dollar rescues, has fired up populist sentiments that were already building in American politics, promising to reshape legislative battles over everything from tax and trade policies to federal regulation. Union leaders like the AFL-CIO's John Sweeney suddenly sound as if they're in the mainstream of public opinion with statements like this: "One thing is certain. No one - no politician, no investment banker, no television commentator, no economist - should be able to say again with a straight face that here in the United States we just let markets do whatever markets do and everything works out for the best."

Washington hath no fury like Middle America scorned - and there's reason to think it will only get uglier. The government's massive new financial commitments will severely tie the next President's hands in addressing middle-class concerns.

[ixion]

1. well, since wall st. has always treated main street like a retarded cousin

I'm surprised it took as long as it did.

[unapatriciated]

7. As my mom used to say....

the average person puts blinders on to problems that don't directly affect them "until their shoes get tight".

Middle Americas Shoes Are Painfully Tight.

[avaistheone1]

11. Good saying and observation. I see the blinders all around me in the people I work with.

[riverdeep]

2. I have to say, this is as close to actual class warfare as I've seen in a long time.

The typical conservative trick is to say, either that YOU may be the rich someday, or that rich people hire poor people, so you should be happy they exist.

It's starting to look like South American countries where the rich have private armies and bars on the windows in their compounds.

[torbird]

12. We got here slowly

No revolution, of course, but this new attitude towards the financial barons reminds me very much of my grandparents' low-key, staunch opposition to those same interests throughout their working days and retirement. They were all union men (and women), and they were adamant that every American be allowed to enjoy the benefits of the economy they helped create, and to hell with Wall Street piglets!

Resurgence of that view would be welcome.

[CrispyQ]

3. ...

"The government's massive new financial commitments will severely tie the next President's hands in addressing middle-class concerns."

Makes me wonder why Obama would even want the job.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. This Is What Passes For Fury?

In France, when the Predator Class tries to cut early retirement benefits for some civil servants, the country shuts down.

In the US, the Predator Class economically sodomizes the Middle Class and then hands us a bill while mooning us, and we "tsk tsk" and watch a bit of political theater, then go back to trying to pay the bill on the credit card whose interest rate was suddenly hiked from 12% to 26%.

Feh.

[riverdeep]

6. Well, in other nations they risk shotgun fire and police beatdowns to cast a vote.

Here, with some us, if it's drizzling, we go back inside.

[whatchamacallit]

5. OMFG that fucking POS Romney calls it "envy"! Love the rich, worship the rich...

:mad:

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

8. First off, let me say: Fuck Mittens and the horse he rode in on.

Second, I see this as a Very, Very Good Thing®. A little popular anger towards Wall Street is something whose time has come. It is time to for the citizenry to stop with this wide-spread delusion that Wall Street is their great, good friend that has their every best interest imprinted upon their hearts and minds and that their every action is taken to benefit the least amongst us..

Wall Street is the densest concentration of jerkoffs, scumbags, grifters, con men, assholes, jerkoffs, dumbasses, greedheads and sociopaths in the history of mankind. They delude us and delude themselves with equal fervor. It is high time us one-fodder-units started regarding them as The Enemy, both strategically and tactically. We mean less than nothing to them and it glaringly shows.

[unapatriciated]

9. or as my dad would say.....

"We will never sit at their table, hell the family dog at least gets the scraps.....we are not even in line for the slop thrown to the pigs."
My dad grew up on a farm and is one of the smartest guys I know, unfortunately he is 80 years old and is very worried about his retirement going up in smoke.
Like many plans his union invested in "safe" stocks.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

10. We can only hope.

[Loge23]

13. Need another reason?

How about today's NYT Sunday Business section?
Page 11.
There you will find a FULL PAGE AD placed by $85 BILLION load guarantee recipient, AIG thanking "Customers, agents, brokers, advisors, and other partners:" "...for sticking with us".
A full page ad in this section, according to the online posted NYT ad rates runs for $281,736. ($2,236 per contract inch X 126 for full page inches).
Where's any mention of the taxpayers bailing them out?
Maybe we're the "other partners".

If there's to be any mass public protest against the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street, I suggest that it be ON Wall Street,
on a Monday morning. The people of this country have to hammer home the poitn that we are not going to ripped off by these thugs any longer.

[unapatriciated]

16. so when do I get my bonus?

:puke: "other partners" as in grandma's cookie jar. Damn I'm getting so tired of it all.
My Cookie Jar is empty.

[KharmaTrain]

14. Selective Outrage

Isn't it amazing how quickly the "titans" of big business have become the "fiscal conservative" in this fiasco. You've got the same ususal GOOP gang of House idiots...Pence, Kantor, Putnam, Blackburn, Bachman and the other bomb throwers who usually throw their hissy fits in the House and are ignored...but they are getting a national stage and they're playing it to the hilt. These were the same morons who held the "drill, drill, drill" rallies during the Summer recess...the remnants of the "Gingrich/DeLay" machine that are a major reason the GOOP is on the threshold of becoming a permanent majority again.

The problem is two-fold. There has been a lot of manipulation and criminality here. Unfortunately we have a corrupt Justice Department that is just starting to investigate and an SEC and other regulatory agencies that have become political patronage jobs. The corruption runs deep through lobbyist connections and massive conflicts of interest that ineveitably should lead to a lot of prosecutions...but first things first.

The immediate mess is the growing credit crunch...preventing a lot of business in this country from moving forward and with it brings the promise of a lot of job losses as companies shut doors since they can't keep up their payments and people not being able to get any credit to make purchases that would help the economy. We are in the throws of stagflation...the economy is flat and this is a quick fix to prevent it from going comatose. The bill is broken up so that it's not a carte-blanche bail-out, but this bill is sure to be revisited again after the election.

A lot of people are rightfully outraged as those who broke into our house and set it on fire. The house is still burning...the flames still aren't out...so what do we do? Go after those who set fire to the house while the building burns down?

[unapatriciated]

18. Do we allow the arsonist to continue setting more fires?

to use your analogy shouldn't we at least try. You need a Police Department as well as a Fire Department to insure the arsonist do not continue setting fires that threaten to consume us.

[KharmaTrain]

21. The Building Continues To Burn

You don't start the arson investigation until after the fire...and, yes, you try to catch the arsonist, but the two are separate acts, not inclusive. Some want to let the fire burn until the arsonist is captured, meanwhile the house burns down. Remember, we're dealing with a totally corrupt fire and police department that we're 40 days from possibily getting control of...and with that change then comes the needed clean-up of both the police and fire departments to enable them to get the arsonist. Right now they're too compromised...so let's get the fire under control...for now...and then win the election that will give us the power to do a more proper accounting.

[Phred42]

15. SO?

It no longer matters. After the Bailout and the several ADDITIONAL bailouts soon to come (FDIC being one) it's over.

The Fascists have won. Grover Norquist is laughing his ass off.

Next they will clean out Social Security, kill Medicare and sell off every Tax paid for asset we have.

Hyper-inflation due to running the presses 24x7 will begin soon. (although may have already happened since the Reich has not published the M3 since 2005) Even the money in your mattress won't be worth anything.

Sorry Pollyanna. The quality of life for anyone not in the Top 5% is about to tank. Stick a fork in us - we're done.

[unapatriciated]

17. I'm no "Pollyanna"

I know we are beating a dead horse. The difference in myself and "Middle America" is I grew up poor and raised my children as a very poor single mother. Others like myself know exactly what is in store for out children and grandchildren(we have been there) and the picture is not pretty.
Hopefully they will survive just as my parents did after the depression.

edited to add: May we finally learn our history lessons so that we are not having to repeat them over and over again.

[Phred42]

19. This time it's a Sea-Change

This is the beginning of the Feudal Police State and the end of 230 years of Representative Democracy.

We will survive - but in what fashion ?

PS Sorry if you took that I was calling you Pollyanna - I was not.

I was referencing our Pollyannas that don't get it. and that Pollyanna in all of us that still can't bring ourselves to respond to this in the ways that we should - YET.

[unapatriciated]

20. Let us strive for Shakespeare's sea-change

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

and not what Wall Street dictates to us.

You are correct in thinking we have a "Pollyanna" mentality running through our country because the alternative is to frightening for them to acknowledge.
The vast majority of middle class adults have no memory of going to bed hungry so that their children are fed or working two and sometimes three low paying jobs just to pay the rent or care for a sick child.
Many here on DU have experienced this and that is why they are not on-board with this bail-out legislation. It doesn't solve the problem it is just delaying the outcome.
I don't have the solutions and hopefully I'm wrong about what is in store for the next generation.