I’ve watched waterfalls of self-pity roar from Wall Streeters and hedge fund managers for years now. I remember when Leon Cooperman compared President Obama to Adolph Hitler. I remember Leon Cooperman’s moment in the Sun when his letter to the president briefly got some attention. You know, the letter where he wrote that Barack Obama and his “minions” were at fault because “the divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them.”
Yes, Mr. Cooperman’s feelings were hurt because the president said that perhaps the super-rich could pay a little more in taxes and still fly on their private jets. This complaint was pretty widespread in the run-up to the 2012 election. Do you remember this jewel from Mike Allen that came out in July 2011?
Fifty of the most prized donors in national politics, including several hedge-fund billionaires who are among the richest people in the world, schlepped to a Manhattan office or hovered around speakerphones Tuesday afternoon as their host, venture capitalist Ken Langone (pronounced LAN-goan), a co-founder of The Home Depot, implored New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to reconsider and seek the GOP presidential nomination…
…Several of them said: I’m Republican but I voted for President Obama, because I couldn’t live with Sarah Palin. Many said they were severely disappointed in the president. The biggest complaint was what several called “class warfare.” They said they didn’t understand what they had done to deserve that: If you want to have a conversation about taxation, have a conversation. But a president shouldn’t attack his constituents – he’s not the president of some people, he’s president of all the people. Someone mentioned Huey Long populism.
You’d think these folks, who “couldn’t live with Sarah Palin” and couldn’t abide the mildest criticism from President Obama, would have a wee bit of problem about getting accused of murder by Palin-endorsed Donald Trump. But what do we hear from them now?
We hear crickets about Trump and howling about Hillary Clinton.
Clinton’s stance on hedge funders drew fire from hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman, who called her a hypocrite on television. Clinton’s son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsk, is a co-founder of hedge fund Eaglevale Partners. And Clinton’s daughter Chelsea previously worked at hedge fund Avenue Capital, run by well-known Clinton supporter Marc Lasry.
“(She) hangs out with all these people in Martha’s Vineyard and in the Hamptons and then the very first thing she has to say is to criticize hedge funds,” Cooperman told CNNMoney in June. “I don’t need anybody crapping all over what I do for a living.”
Cooperman and his ilk are just the kind to “cultivate their flowers to be nothing more than something they invest in,” and, whether it’s Trump or Cruz, it’s clear that they’re ready to “obey an authority they don’t respect in any degree.”
Take former head of the Futures Industry Association, John Damgard.
Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have been crushing the moderate Republicans he prefers, hurling insults at bankers and hedge fund managers and flying high as the first primaries near in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. But Damgard, a former head of the Futures Industry Association, is one of the many Republican donors from the financial industry who aren’t rattled.
“Not a bit,” said Damgard, a top defender of derivatives in Washington until he retired in 2012. “Doesn’t bug me. In the middle of the campaign a lot of people say things that they think are going to help them get elected.”
Do you see how sophisticated he can be when it’s Republicans blasting Wall Street and Hedge Fund managers?
Their criticism is like water off a duck’s back.
“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” billionaire investor Ken Langone said this week when asked if the success of the Republican front-runners upset him.
For one thing, according to Langone, a Home Depot Inc. co-founder who’s given New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s super PAC at least $250,000, anything can change before the primaries. Life goes on even under President Trump, Langone said, before getting even sunnier.
“The cockeyed optimist that I am, maybe, just maybe, he might turn out to be one of the greatest surprises America ever had,” he said. “You got to be optimistic.”
Back in 2011, Langone and his folks couldn’t take Sarah Palin, but now they’re cockeyed optimists who think Trump might not be so bad after all.
A person involved in government relations at one of the largest U.S. banks, who asked not to be identified, said Trump might be bad overall but wouldn’t come after Wall Street out of the gate like Sanders.
Well, he can be bad overall. Who cares if the president is bad overall? That’s not so much of a problem, right?
As for Ted Cruz?
Well, that’s simple:
Cruz doesn’t frighten one former Goldman Sachs executive who watched the senator help his wife, Heidi, woo clients to a unit that caters to people and families with average investments at the firm of more than $40 million. The senator knows bankers, went to the same Ivy League schools, understands their needs and has taken their money, he said.
So, when Obama bailed these bastards out and made a couple of mildly populist comments about them, he got compared to Hitler. When Hillary Clinton suggests some minor reforms, she’s “crapping all over” what they do for a living.
But Ted Cruz can demonize them and Trump can say they’re getting away with murder and it’s no big deal. They can be trusted to play ball.
Here’s how Cooperman defended his class:
As a group we employ many millions of taxpaying people, pay their salaries, provide them with healthcare coverage, start new companies, found new industries, create new products, fill store shelves at Christmas, and keep the wheels of commerce and progress (and indeed of government, by generating the income whose taxation funds it) moving.
Here’s how Bob Dylan described them.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacredWhile preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked
Yes, they sound thin-skinned when a Democrat criticizes them, but they’re really justing aiming for their mark.
And the president of the United States is the biggest mark of them all.
Do you honestly think anything a Wall Street Banker or Lawyer says has any effect whatsoever on the election or on who votes for whom?
Using Palin as a whipping stick, is simply more meat for the base. “See??? Even people who don’t like Sister Sarah can’t stand that bitch Hillary. We’re right on, Ma. Most everybody believes what we do. They’re just afraid to say so.”
And so it goes …
What they say doesn’t matter, but where they put their money (i.e., whose campaign) may matter a lot, so it’s always interesting to look at their publicly expressed opinions.
A billionaire will listen respectfully when another billionaire talks crap to them, but when the hired help start talking crap – well that’s another matter entirely….
A 35% pay raise can soothe those ruffled feathers
I wonder how much of that $27 million is carried interest. BTW, for those who don’t know, his bank charges it’s customers to make deposits. (Yes, you read that right!).
The Guardian — Sanders smeared as communist sympathiser as Clinton allies sling mud .
Such fun. DEM elites channeling Nixon/McCarthy from the middle to attack their left flank while GOP elites don’t know what to do with all their Nixon/McCarthy descendants running for POTUS.
To be fair, Hillary is only in search of her “Sister Souljah moment.” How to totally diss the DFHs and have them rally in support of her “No We Can’t” campaign.
Clinton goes on offense against Sanders on Iran
She’s accusing Sanders of departing from the administration’s policy with respect to Iran. Does anyone know if that’s true or not? The headlines certainly aren’t going to be help her any, as imo it would seem it’s SHE who is departing with the administration. She slow walked the shit out of an endorsement for the Iranian nuclear agreement, and other than that she’s just sabre-rattling like usual. Different tone than anything the admin has put out.
IMHO Sanders has been more complimentary and respectful of Obama’s Iran negotiations than Clinton. Urging more of the same while Clinton urges more threats to use bombs.
By any objective measure, at least from my view, that is absolutely correct. It’s also how headlines like this read to me.
I think Sanders needs to go balls to the wall with this. Clinton just made a huge opening to splinter off voters who are loyal to Obama, and voters Sanders absolutely needs to win.
Of all the ways to attack Sanders, she keeps reaching for a playbook that’s been dead since at least 2006. What next? Talk about Sanders’ wily positions from the 1960’s on marijuana and drugs?
So, okay for Bill Clinton in 1969, but not okay for Bernie in 1988 as part of a delegation from Burlington, VT when glasnost and perestroika were in flower and the collapse of the USSR was near?
What’s next? A less subtle dig at the ethnicity Bernie’s grandchildren?
In the 1970’s I wonder how true it is. It was not unusual to hear sentiment in Burlington in the 70’s and early 80’s expressing support for the Viet Cong and Castro. Certainly Ortega was viewed by some as a hero.
To be clear, this was not just opposition to US Policy, but support for its opponents.
The left in Vermont was more interested in the third world revolutionary heroes than in the Soviet Union. The Liberty Union, at least at some level IIRC supported human liberty (freedom of the press) and made sure it was reflected in the Party name. This in, part, was designed put distance between themselves and the Eastern Bloc. I want to say that the LU considered themselves part of the anti-authoritarian left but frankly I always considered them idiots.
The Bernie of the 70’s and early 80’s was not a social Democrat. He was a militant leftist. I don’t honestly what more there is to find, but in the instance I am glad the Clintons are digging.
yeah. You know its coming, so get it out of the way fast.
So who hasn’t changed in 35 years? I know I have, much more to the Left.
I don’t think I have. More knowledge and better able to articulate my positions, but change not so much.
Don’t think you could move more to the Left! 🙂
Sure there is. Using conventional notions of left-right, there’s plenty to me left. Only I’m not so into totalitarianism and all the other features of such models take away more from individuals than they deliver.
Perhaps within your social milieu, but in presidential elections, VT was strictly a GOP state, with the exception of 1964, until 1992.
Unacceptable and kind of stupid. This is not going to influence anybody’s view of Sanders except those who would not vote for him under any circumstances. I really want to think well of Clinton, unlike some of my favorite people around here, but this doesn’t make it easier.
I really want to think well of Clinton, unlike some of my favorite people around here, …
Perhaps having observed a person that’s been on the national stage for close to twenty-four years and viewing her politics and behaviors without benefit of rose colored glasses and having functioning memories is what informs the opinions of some people around here.
If I set everything else aside (a tall order because neoliberalcon policies is at the root of the massive transfer of income and wealth over the past twenty years), it’s nearly impossible for me to think well of any politician that seeks to win an election by saying, “vote for me because my opponent is a black.”
Thus, it doesn’t surprise me at all that she and her surrogates would now be out there channeling McCarthy, lying about single-payer health insurance, and the really rich criticism, “Sanders will raise your taxes,” when proposing to raise taxes was the only good reason to vote for Bill Clinton in ’92 (and might have been the only decent thing that he supported and got through Congress).
Sister Souljah: Hillary reminds me of `the slave plantation’ – The Hill, November 12, 2015:
At least Sister Souljah is keeping it real.
I grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood very close to the wealthy areas on the gold coast of Long Island. By the time I got to high school, I was mostly hanging out with kids in the track-1 programs who were overwhelmingly from that side of town. My best friend got a Corvette for his 16th birthday. He couldn’t understand why I would decline to see a movie. I told him I couldn’t afford the $5. His response was, “C’mon; it’s only $5!”
In the summer, I worked at a country club as an attendant in the men’s locker — shining shoes and cleaning toilets. I worked with black and Puerto Rican men who took the train out from Queens. One of my classmates won the golf tournament and strutted around the club like he owned the place. It was on an old Long Island estate with a big mansion. At the time, I knew I was lucky to be white and about to attend an elite college. At the same time, I was so envious of those rich kids.
Now I see my background as a strength. I’m sure there would have been many advantages to being rich. I would have been exposed to more experiences and so maybe my IQ would have been higher. I’d have had many more career opportunities and there would have been people to guide me. Being first in my family to attend college left me pretty clueless about a lot of things. But I wouldn’t have compassion for the kinds of people I got to know cleaning that locker room. I wouldn’t have developed the kind of solid values and loyalty that I like to think are a firm part of my character, which I believe come from growing up working class.
I’ve seen how, for most of the wealthy, all that money doesn’t do them any good. One might think their lives would be easy. For the most part, that’s not the truth. They find plenty to worry and be upset about. It’s fine to have money but, to me, it’s even more important to have work you love and that you believe makes a difference. Ultimately, the greatest joy is to be of service. For many of the wealthy, their money cuts them off from this truth. In order to justify having so much wealth, one has to look down on people. Otherwise, you have to acknowledge your luck and good fortune. And then you’d probably wind up giving most of it away.
I would have been exposed to more experiences and so maybe my IQ would have been higher.
No, experiences don’t raise one’s IQ. It’s fairly stable but traumas and chronic use of some drugs can lower it.
There are some experiences that the wealthy can buy that broadens the education of their children, but more attention goes into hanging with (and being like) wealthy people in wealthy enclaves and that reduces their self-sufficiency and breadth of interests.
Wealth is subjective. You perceive it around you and in you or not. Money has nothing to do with it.
Not entirely. It’s pretty freaking objective when one’s basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing fall short of enough. Also objective in comparison with one’s social and community milieu. Highly subjective when one has more than enough and is consumed with endless wants. I feel fortunate that more than enough makes me less content.
IQ is a very subjective and culturally-impacted.
Travel the world while receiving a high-end education and I would assume that your IQ score would be higher than a kid who grew up in a shack and attended sub-par schools.
It’s impossible to penetrate the Wall Street tautology:
They’ve got this all figured out and won’t budge from it. It’s an incredible bit of sophistry: they’ve convinced themselves that people who create nothing, and yet amass obscene fortunes, are the engine that makes it all go.
A corollary is that they are really Mammon worshipers who erroneously believe they are Christians.
They worship wealth, and those who’ve been blessed with wealth.
Anyone here seen The Big Short?
Yes. Can’t say enough good things about it. Creative and inventive story telling. Excellent pacing. Great casting and acting.
I said more about it and a couple other movies here. No spoiler alerts because I’ve very careful not to reveal much of anything about the story when I write about movies that I expect most readers have yet to see.
Did. Ran right out and saw it opening weekend here in Milwaukee. Liked it. But the script wasn’t very good, I didn’t think. It was kind of a muddle. Lots of star turns (all wanting to get in on the next big thing, maybe they meant well) signifying something important. But what?
The movie doesn’t come right out and say what. Margin Call is a much better movie on more-or-less the same subject, but it’s terse and tightly scripted, less funny.
The most impressive thing about it was the full house at the upper-middle-class cineplex (in Mequon / North Shore / River Hills et al) I went to see it at. On New Year’s Eve! (7 pm show but still). Go figure.
Didn’t see “Margin Call” but it’s focus, mortgage backed securities, was far narrower than that of “The Big Short.” The MBS piece of the crash is relatively simple (and wouldn’t have grown to such toxic heights if not for the other financial instruments that were built on its back.) While “The Big Short” told the story through traders that had picked up on the fact that the MBS were crap and therefore, the derivatives of the MBS, the CDOs, crap to some n degree (and the movie presented evidence of why that was so beyond someone doing a bunch of calculations on a computer), they were looking to buy financial instruments to short the CDOs which expanded the credit default swap market created and sold by banks, hedge funds, and at a later point a subsidiary of AIG*) It didn’t leave out that the CDSs were totally unregulated as to prices and transparency or that it wasn’t a one-time transaction. Would be closer to term life insurance but without a fixed premium rate for some period. Thus, as the CDO market crash became more imminent, the premiums on the CDS that Bury had purchased increased because there was an increased demand for CDS, in part from those that had created and sold them in the first place.
The principles in the movie were on only one side of the trade – short. The bankers and brokers were on both sides, but as of the crash, more long than short. AIG (which wasn’t included because it needlessly complicated the story telling) was also on one side – long, but outside the subsidiary, the corporation didn’t have a clue as to what was being sold (and technically it’s illegal for an insurer doing business in NY to sell such a financial instrument, but complicated regulatory oversight of AIG completely missed this).
It also made clear that at the end of the day, there were no good guys in any of it.
*Before AIG came into the market, the bank/brokers had been able to purchase a somewhat more traditional form of bond security guarantee from AMBAC and MBIA. Stupid but not illegal for either of those companies to sell such guarantees. AMBAC went down. MBIA, for very complicated reasons, managed to survive by bringing back in its recently retired CEO who IMO is wicked smart.)
Brilliant. Great Movie.
Ok. Totally lost me on this post, BooMan. What’s the proposition?
That rich people are best described by some cryptic Dylan song? The answer is blowing in the wind? Somebody help me.
Beats me. Trump’s critique of the hedge fund guys is spot on — however, his solution to tax them, is very weak tea which may explain why he doesn’t scare the bejeezus out of them.
He’s barely planning to tax them, as a matter of fact. He suggested vaguely that he would punish the “hedge fund guys” in a speech in August, but when the proposal came out it wasn’t exactly punishment.
It’s true that his plan eliminates the “carried interest loophole” for hedge fund partners (NOT for partners in private equity firms, which I’ll bet is a lot more money), but: when he taxes the money as regular income instead of capital gains, remember that he’s hugely lowering the marginal rate on income tax, so he isn’t raising the rate from 23.8% to 39.6%, he’s raising it to 25%, a tiny amount. And lowering the capital gains tax itself to 20%, which is a very substantial break for these people, who all have portfolios as well, and will amply compensate for any losses incurred in the “loophole closing”.
The moral is, taxes are the only thing these people care about. They may like to talk liberal, but they will happily sell out the woman’s right to choose, marriage equality, and the Voting Rights Act for a tax break. They wept about Obama’s harsh language and not about Trump’s because they were weeping about the bottom line, which Obama threatened and Trump did not; and they said it was about their feelings and “class war” and so on because they hoped that sounded less disgusting.
Is it really so cryptic?
Maybe that’s your problem.
It’s pretty straightforward if you ask me.
Okay…
The Clintons are hypocrites – their populist musings are absurd.
Obama wasn’t a part of their corruption in the way the Clnitons are.
So yea – I actually think the Clintons deserve this.
“Masters of the Universe” – no better phrase captures their narcissism.
Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you
One of Dylan’s greatest songs, I think.
I’m wondering if, with Bernie pushing her, Hillary’s health problems are surfacing, at least a lack of stamina. There were a couple of diaries over at the Orange place yesterday about her making overly brief appearances at two campaign stops. as far as voters go, it’s important that we know the full story. otherwise we’d elect her and have Bill running the country (what about all those claiming Bill and Hillary have different positions on things?)
I’ll just note these diametrically opposed differences in views of President Obama: the oligarchs quoted in BooMan’s post and elsewhere, and the liberals/progressives in the Frog Pond and elsewhere who bitterly call Barack a neoliberal corporate sellout.
Each side is somewhat deluded.
Billmon on the “sensible alternative” for Democrats and Republicans, Big Gulp Mike. (Because the people are stuck at the emotional and cognitive development stage of five year olds and really just need a billionaire nanny.)