Wall Street Wants a Refund

“Buyer’s remorse” is the way Sen. John Cornyn, the Senate Republicans’ fundraiser, gleefully refers to Wall Street moguls’ current disenchantment with the U.S. president they thought they had bought. They didn’t like it when Barack Obama, after a year of throwing trillions of American taxpayer dollars into the bailout sinkhole, dared remark that he had hoped there might be some return for ordinary folks trying to save their jobs and homes. Not just huge bonuses for the folks the president dared refer to as “fat cats.”

“That’s it!” the moguls declared, and promptly shifted their political donations from Democrats to Republicans. Among the unglued was Jamie Dimon, who, as The New York Times put it, “is a friend of President Obama’s from Chicago, a frequent White House guest and a big Democratic donor.” Dimon, who just gave himself a $17 million bonus for last year’s work—after his bank was bailed out by taxpayers—is the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. As the Times observed: “If the Democratic Party has a stronghold on Wall Street it is JPMorgan Chase. … But this year Chase’s political action committee is sending the Democrats a pointed message. … [I]t has rebuffed solicitations from the national Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. Instead it gave $30,000 to their Republican counterparts.” Chump change, given the hundreds of millions that Wall Street doles out to buy legislation, but a warning shot nonetheless.

Phi Beta Iota: Unless the public gets back in the business of governance, Wall Street will continue to play one of the two parties against the other while screwing the 70% of us that did not vote for the token theater group nominally in power–whether Republican or Democrat. See 2008 ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig for free chapters relevant to this challenge.