Kevin Drum - Why Wall Street Hates President Obama

Brad DeLong writes today that the standard bargain between Democrats and Wall Street is simple: we might tax you a little more than Republicans, but in return we'll provide you with "competent economic management in striking contrast to that offered by the ideologically-blinded wingnuts who are the Republicans." And President Obama has done just that. So why do the lords of finance almost unanimously hate his guts these days?

A big part of it, I think, is that Obama was not just supposed to make things better: he was supposed to fix things — to bring things back to "normal"....[But] Obama did not fix things: Wall Street bankers today are a lot poorer than they were in mid-2007. And the Wall Street bankers think that Obama disses them. And the Wall Street bankers know that Obama wants to tax them.

I'm not sure I buy this. My sense is that Wall Street financiers, whatever their other blinders, take a pretty intellectual approach to the macroeconomy, and they know that the economy is doing about as well as they could have hoped back in 2008. The stock market is up, corporate profits are up, and bonuses have rebounded. From a purely self-interested financial point of view, I don't think very many of them are really dissatisfied with the Obama/Geithner/Bernanke regime.

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http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/04/why-wall-street-hates-president-obama