Obama stiffs Dimon, Blankfein on signing

Wall Street Fumes At White House Fin Reg Rebuke - CNBC, 2010 July 21, by John Carney

The White House’s decision not to invite the chief executives of JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs to today’s ceremonial signing of the financial overhaul legislation has many on Wall Street fuming.
JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein were both left off the invitation list for the signing of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill into law.
Rivals at other major financial firms—including the heads of Citigroup, Bank of America, Barclays, and Morgan Stanley — got invitations.
“Basically, the White House made the decision to invite only the banks that were most sycophantic in the run-up to the passage of Dodd-Frank,” one senior Wall Street executive said.
The White House has refused to comment on the invitations. Officially, neither Goldman Sachs nor JP Morgan Chase would comment about the matter. But privately, Wall Street executives who spoke to CNBC on the condition that they not be identified or their employer named, characterized this as a punishment for crossing the White House during the legislative process.
JP Morgan Chase was very active in the efforts to shape the legislation. Its chief, Dimon, publicly critiqued aspects of the bill. Goldman Sachs was less active and prominent but still played a role in lobbying lawmakers to have some aspects of the bill changed.
“Right now bankers polls as probably the only group of people less popular than politicians. I think the Obama administration made a decision that it enjoys being seen as having an oppositional relationship to Wall Street. This will continue until at least November,” a Wall Street executive said.
Complaints about the White House’s conduct were hardly confined to executives at the firms that weren’t invited.
“It looks a bit like crony capitalism — the White House playing favorites and rebuking companies that don’t instantly agree that every policy coming out of the Democratic caucus on Capitol Hill is the most brilliant idea ever,” an executive at one of the companies whose chief got an invitation said.
But if a war is brewing between Wall Street and the White House, it's a quiet and cold war. At least three executives who spoke to CNBC said that they feared White House retaliation if they were identified for this story. Others said they hadn’t been authorized by their employers to speak on the matter. No one would go on the record with their complaints.
Dimon was once described as Barack Obama’s favorite banker. Only a year ago, the board of directors of JP Morgan Chase held its board meeting in Washington, D.C. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel accepted an invitation to speak at the meeting, although this was later nixed by the chief counsel. Dimon has long been a donor to the Democratic party.
Goldman Sachs and its employees were the second biggest donors to the Obama’s campaign in 2007 and 2008 ..... Both Goldman and JP Morgan Chase were top donors to Emanuel’s congressional campaigns.

Obama's message: "No soup for you, infidels"

If the House Republicans are even moderately successful in undoing some of the Big Government damage passed in these 2 years (despite Obama's and Senate Democrats' best efforts), just the perception of relative stability could lift the economy and market up a bit, and it could look relatively better than 2008 ("Bush's financial crisis") and 2010 ("high unemployment as consequence of Bush's financial crisis")... after all, economy is always relative to some timepost or another.

That's a mighty big IF, predicated on even bigger IFs.

IF everything you hypothesized were to come true, the US economy will not return to even Bush era levels by 2012. Not even the appearance of similarity will prevail. There's just been far too much fundamental destruction of jobs, income, personal wealth, markets, and consumer confidence, for it all to be so quickly rectified.

Democrats are suddenly realizing this, and are now making plans to extend the Bush tax cuts for the middle class (at least) to stave off a political disaster in 2012. That will go a long way to averting a catastrophe of even greater proportions than the one we're now facing, but it does nothing to alleviate or turn around what damage they've already done to the economy.

In fact, the full pain and effects of their meddling hasn't even been felt yet. As I said earlier, Republicans in Congress are going to have their hands full trying to neutralize as much of the Marxist agenda that's already been passed. They won't be able to stop it all. Much of what's been done is beyond their ability to repair, and will have to heal over time in the free market.

Unemployment now stands at close to 10% (and is probably higher, in truth). It is not going to go back to Bush era levels of around 4.5% by the time of the 2012 primary. That much is fairly certain, so the Democrats will not be able to claim that they've improved economic conditions for average Americans.

That's the bottom line on their meddling, and they won't be able to run away from it.

Again, agree with most of what you said.

Exactly. Which is why Obama (and Democrats) would not want to "own" it completely (which they would do if they have small, ineffective majority in Congress - few seats ahead in House and Senate counts). Now, if the House is Republican, they may have a more credible case of blaming ineffective, "obstructionist" congressional Republicans on the problems with the economy, while claiming credit for any positives (perceived or real, but relative to 2008 or 2010) due to Obama and 2008 Congress "stimulus" and "reforms".

In other words, whatever the outcome of 2012 will be - and I am not handicapping because of too many variables and unpredictable things could happen, including the actions or inactions by Republican leadership / elite, which is not even close in strength of personalities or agenda to 1994 counterparts (Contract with America) - the Republican House (Clinton scenario) is Obama's (and, by extension, Democrats) is the only possible salvation, something that could make 2012 competitive, outside of GOP screwing up even worse than nominating Bob Dole or John McCain. Basically, it comes down to this: Democrats will not gain anything for 2012 by keeping entire Congress in 2010, but could gain at least somewhat plausible blame game counter play if they lose it, as Clinton demonstrated in 1996 after he and Democrats were written off in 1994, i.e., the Clinton scenario is their est bet for 2012. IF people are going to be [still] pissed off in 2012, there will be another "outlet," Republicans, for them to punish. Nothing to lose, everything to gain politically by "abandoning" the House and trying to hold on to as much of Senate as possible - where, I suspect, the real efforts and money from DNC will be directed.

The thing about politics, and especially Democratic politics, is that anything except the Tele-Prom-Ter can be outsourced to minions and the media. Keeping Obama in the White House will keep his obstructions going for another 4 years and will solidify / extend the Democratic inroads into judiciary. So most vulnerable / "out of district" Democrats are now taking "one for Obama" whether they want it (voluntarily, and/or for a price) or not (being pushed out or threatened with loss of funding or organizational support).

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