What Wall Street thinks about the protesters:
Publicly, bankers say they understand the anger at Wall Street — but believe they are misunderstood by the protesters camped on their doorstep.
But when they speak privately, it is often a different story.
“Most people view it as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,” said one top hedge fund manager.
“It’s not a middle-class uprising,” adds another veteran bank executive. “It’s fringe groups. It’s people who have the time to do this.”
As the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations have grown and spread to other cities, an open question is: Do the bankers get it? Their different worldview speaks volumes about the wide chasms that have opened over who is to blame for the continuing economic malaise and what is best for the country.
Some on Wall Street viewed the protesters with disdain, and a degree of caution, as hundreds marched through the financial district on Friday. Others say they feel their pain, but are befuddled about what they are supposed to do to ease it. A few even feel personally attacked, and say the Occupy Wall Street protesters who have been in Zuccotti Park for weeks are just bitter about their own economic fate and looking for an easy target. If anything, they say, people should show some gratitude.
“Who do you think pays the taxes?” said one longtime money manager. “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services. This is just disgruntled people.”He added that he was disappointed that members of Congress from New York, especially Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, had not come out swinging for an industry that donates heavily to their campaigns. “They need to understand who their constituency is,” he said.
Generally, bankers dismiss the protesters as gullible and unsophisticated. Not many are willing to say this out loud, for fear of drawing public ire — or the masses to their doorsteps. “Anybody who dismisses them publicly is putting a bull’s-eye on their back,” the hedge fund manager said.
Reading suggestion for the MOTUs, these Wall Street Gang Banksters: Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
Societies which fail when facing major, even catastrophic, change are those where the elites are so far removed from the majority of the populace and the problems the majority faces that they cannot understand or care about making necessary changes. They just continue doing what worked for them and seems to still work.
American voters had hoped that by electing Obama they had chosen a leader who would force the elites to make the necessary changes. Instead, they got a running dog corporatist lackey who worked to expand and cement the worst aspects of the elites’ means of garnering power and wealth unto themselves. The Powers That Be, if Diamond’s analysis is correct, will not continue to succeed all that much longer and will fall, but they will take down the modern financial system and the livings of billions with them.
And that’s not even factoring in greenhouse gas effects on the livability of this planet, our world, this Earth.
But, clearly, they do believe they have become Masters of the Universe, that what they do works. For them, at least, that’s what counts. I’m not sure how they square their destruction of the economy and need for government bailouts with their being so perfect, but they seemingly do believe they can do no wrong. Otherwise, why would they make so fookin’ much money? Right??
Reality bites, maybe not immediately. But it bites, hard.
Our politicians who have decided they need the favor and donations of the MOTU in order to win elections, but also need the votes of the majority, the non-MOTUs, must be facing a very difficult dilemma right now: Either face the loss of Big Money donations OR possibly face the wrath of the 99%ers.
What to do, what to do….
It’s so sad that magazine cover (Time, 11/24/08) depicting Obama as the second coming of FDR wasn’t accurate….
“Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services. This is just disgruntled people.”
He has a weird interpretation of “do[ing] it well”.
“’Anybody who dismisses them publicly is putting a bull’s-eye on their back,’ the hedge fund manager said.”
Hedge Fund Manager doesn’t realize he already has a bull’s-eye on his back.
gullible and unsophisticated
That’s a more accurate description of Tea Baggers and working class members of the Republican Party.
“A long time money manager said of Sen. Schumer and Gillibrand, ‘”They need to understand who their constituency is.'” That sums it up quite nicely. For the plutocrats and the oligarchy the “constituency” of our Senators and Representatives is NOT “we the people” it is them, the wealthy elite. For the money managres, Bankers, and the rest of the Wall Street types, the 1%, us 99% are nothing and mean nothing.
Clearly, they have not gotten the memo.
Those who fail to learn the lessons of history…
Repeat them:
In addition to being sociopaths, these people are idiots. So many things to say about this, but one that stands out in my mind is that the reason finance is one of the only things left in this country is because finance – and the policies it supports through its elected tools – has mostly destroyed everything else.
they are so confident in the correctness of their position that they won’t go on the record. Impressive.
The cluelessness of some on Wall Street can be summed up by the statement, “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services.”
Apparently, they are unfamiliar with the fact that each time a company outsourced or eliminated positions the market rejoiced. That’s WHY they are one of the last remaining markets. Remind me again why I should care if the financial service industry gets “attacked?” As far as I’m concerned I’ll be cheering if the sector reaps what it’s been sowing for other sectors for years.