Many have argued that there is a lot of bias in favor of Wall St. over Main St. As a whole, I agree. But I do not believe that I have seen this bias demonstrated by Obama as some here have claimed. I would just like to remind some that the president put in place a balanced taskforce for each industry. The banking stress-tests are currently underway...
As fallout from today’s disclosure that the White House forced or strongly reccommended Rick Wagoner to step down as the head of GM and the overall plan for GM and Chrysler washes upon us, I would like to remind folks that Obama making hard decisions about the auto industry right now does not constitute preference to the financial industry. If I remember correctly, Obama deployed a team of folks led by Steve Rattner and Ron Bloom to dig into the auto companies and he deployed a team of folks to dig into and "stress-test" the financial companies.
It just so happens that the auto crisis is perhaps a bit more clear-cut and easier to get to the bottom of, than the financial crisis. The country’s 19 largest banks are currently being "stress-tested" and the findings are due at the end of April. My guess is that we may see some similar outcomes in the next 30-60 days on the financial front. Since Wells Fargo & Co. Chairman Richard Kovacevich recently came out and blasted the stress-tests as "assinine" one would have to assume that the banks are not liking the deep dive into their long-term overall stability and abilty to maintain capital levels in dire times.
I am more than willing to call out when I see bias, but right now it seems that one case is simply more clear-cut than the other. (Sort of like how a court case for the gunman in a robbery is shorter and quicker than the court case for the mastermind behind the robbery scheme – the latter simply has more layers to uncover.) The banks have sold and resold and repackaged their crap so many times and in so many permutations to so many entities - both domestic and foreign, that the innovative failure of the auto industry is a walk in the park to uncover in comparison.
As Iceberslim pointed out in their rec-listed diary, Obama does not make decisions without all of the available facts. I do not believe that all of these current bank CEOs will be around in a few months. Some of them too, will be forced to step down in order to save their companies. And no, it won't be Obama bending to pressure to show tough love to the banking industry like he did with auto. But knowing Obama, it won't happen until he fully understands the extent of the situation, until the stress-tests are done. For a president who doesn't like to speak without knowing what he is talking about, I highly doubt he would force someone out of a job - blue collar industry or white collar industry, without knowing what the deal is and having a plan better than said CEO was able to offer when they had the chance.