Visual source: Newseum
Mitt Romney continues his attacks on the Wall Street protests:
While GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain continues to barrage the Occupy Wall Street protesters for being “un-American” and “anti-capitalism,” his fellow Republican contender Mitt Romney has pared back his previously harsh words for the protesters.
At a campaign stop today in New Hampshire, Romney said blaming Wall Street for the country’s economic woes is the “wrong way to go.” [...]
Last week, at a campaign stop in Florida, the former Massachusetts governor said the demonstrations were “dangerous” and “class warfare.” But when asked about his comments afterward, the GOP front-runner declined to elaborate, saying “I’m just trying to get myself to occupy the White House.”
Romney knows the road to that White House is through middle class voters, which is how we get this spin:
Romney promised to be firmly on the side of the middle class, even those in labor unions, if elected president.
"I am not running for rich people," he said. "Rich people can take care of themselves. They are doing just fine. I am running for middle class Americans."
If "rich people can take care of themselves," why do they need more tax breaks?
Speaking of rich people, David Brooks pouts:
If there is a core theme to the Occupy Wall Street movement, it is that the virtuous 99 percent of society is being cheated by the richest and greediest 1 percent.
This is a theme that allows the people in the 99 percent to think very highly of themselves. All their problems are caused by the nefarious elite.
Unfortunately, almost no problem can be productively conceived in this way. [...] They will have no realistic proposal to reduce the debt or sustain the welfare state.
The 99-versus-1 frame is also extremely self-limiting. If you think all problems flow from a small sliver of American society, then all your solutions are going to be small, too.
While Brooks pouts, Jonah Goldberg throws a tantrum:
Another criticism of the tea parties has been that they are an "astroturf" organization funded by the nefarious Koch Brothers and other right-wing groups. And there's some truth to that. Conservative groups — opposed to Wall Street bailouts, mind you — did join the tea party cause after it was up and running.
We are now seeing the same thing with Big Labor and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. They're backing the protesters in ever larger numbers. But don't expect cries of astroturfing any time soon.
Why the double standard? The short answer is that what counts as the political center in this country still leans considerably to the left. These young, scruffy, utopian, urban protesters are what rebels are supposed to look and sound like. The tea partiers, meanwhile, are scarier because they're effective and because they challenge the preconceived notions of what American protest is supposed to look like.
Jon Bershad at Mediate brings us Glenn Beck's reaction:
In case you hadn’t heard, Glenn Beck isn’t a fan of the Occupy Wall Street protests. However, unlike some others in the media he isn’t just laughing them off as silly hippies. On the contrary, the protesters should be comforted to know that Beck respects them a great deal. In fact, he respects them enough to think that they’re this close to dragging rich people into the street and murdering them. [...]
“Capitalists, if you think that you can play footsie with these people, you are wrong. They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you. They will do it. They’re not messing around. Those in the media – and I am included in this – they will drag us out into the streets and kill us. If you’re wealthy, they will kill you for what you have. You cannot tolerate this kind of stuff. You certainly do not encourage it.”
From Forbes's Small Business Authority blog:
Don’t demonize banks, don’t demonize bankers but let’s reform and restructure the way these entities fit in to our public policy decisions so we don’t have people like Dick Durbin taxing his enemies in the banking industry through the Durbin Amendment under Dodd Frank and transferring money to the retail trade industry.
If I were an economist or a public policy maker, I would rather have a dollar of capital in the banking industry which can be levered eight to ten times in the form of loans to businesses and consumers, rather than to the retail trade industry to purchase another flat screen TV at a 20% markup so that John Doe can now have another flat screen TV in his bathroom.
Mary Wisniewski and Ann Saphir bring us this tidbit about protests in Chicago's financial district:
Several protesters each paid $2,245 to gain admission to the Mortgage Bankers Association event, organizers said. One protester got to a microphone during a panel discussion and asked Michael Heid, president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, a top national mortgage lender: "How do you sleep at night?"
MBA CEO David Stevens had warned Monday's conference that protesters were expected at the hotel and advised attendees not to "engage or confront" the demonstrators. In a statement, the MBA said those attending its meeting in Chicago were focused on sustainable home ownership and ensuring access to affordable mortgage credit for qualified homeowners.
"We all recognize that our industry faces a trust deficit with policymakers and the public, and that people in our industry contributed to the events that led to the financial crisis," the Association said in a statement.
Mary Sanchez demolishes Herman Cain's claim that if you're not rich, you're not working hard enough:
[P]ut yourself in the place of one of the shiftless college graduates that Cain so disdains. A college degree has never been more necessary to gain a foothold in the middle class — and even a bachelor's degree is becoming less valuable these days. So young people take on frightening levels of student loan debt, because what is the alternative? Now, however, many have no job and dim prospects and huge debts, and nothing is being done to mend the broader economy because one party — the party of Herman Cain — is dead set against it.
Cain and Romney and the rest of their party produce all sorts of flat-Earth arguments against any government action such as public works and restoring taxes on the rich. They also label the Occupy Wall Street protests as "class warfare."
The truth is, Americans respect wealth and tolerate a remarkable amount of inequality. But they are catching on that the playing field is tilted now more than ever, and that the financial arrangements we all must make are becoming more and more predatory. Something is wrong in America, and it's not a failure of the work ethic. People feel themselves falling behind.
Christine Harper reports on Wall Street's reaction to the Volker Rule:
The draft proposal, written by regulators including the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., forbids market-makers who trade debt securities for customers from amassing positions “in expectation of future price appreciation,” Hintz, of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., wrote today in a note to investors. “Thus flow trading may be prohibited.” Such a move would cut fixed-income revenue by 25 percent and reduce profit margins by 18 percent, Hintz estimated.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Morgan Stanley would be the most negatively affected if the rules were adopted because they are most dependent on fixed-income revenue, Hintz wrote. [...]
“At this point, the Volcker rules are simply proposals,” Hintz wrote. “We hope the final rules will be revised and give greater consideration to how brokers will earn a reasonable return from market making.” [...]
The Volcker rule was named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who has argued that banks with access to Fed lending programs should be prevented from making speculative bets with their money or from investing in hedge funds or private equity funds.