I say take the money then screw 'em. Once you're in the Oval Office, ignore them, you'll still have the ability to get re-elected.

Wall St is just hedging their bets. They see the writing on the wall, and they know that the prospects for GOP this year are not particularly bright. Given the crap that's certainly going to fall out of the market the next few years, they'll need to do anything to carry favor with the next Prez.

And politicians love money, even Dem ones...

Meanwhile, no where is the impact of looming recession and the near-meltdown on Wall Street clearer than on the White House web site. Just days ago, the site boasted about President Bush's glorious stewardship of the U.S. economy. Now, the White House's economy web page reflects the mad scramble to ward off the twin crises of the housing market and the financial system.

For the details, see:
"White House Scrubs Web Site on the Economy."

I was talking with my 95yo aunt yesterday. She says "What the hell is going on?, the world's going to hell in a handbasket!"
I asked her if she remembered the depression. "Of course!" she said. And then she understood completely.
Krugman is right, the financial meltdown isn't hard to understand and was all perfectly predictable.
Pss't, loan me a dollar or billion?

It's simple math. This year's election cycle is estimated to cost $3 billion. That much money is not going to come out of $10 donations.

Now the question becomes, are they more obligated to the people paying them a few hundred thousand a year, or tens of millions?

Huh? What was it that you said Kevin. Can't hear you over the Obama noise machine this morning.

Not only are they on the hook to Wall Street for donations, but where do you think all those politicians have their own retirement and other funds stashed?

The study found that during the boom years of 1993-98, a majority of US Senators were trading stocks - and beating the market by 12 percentage points a year on average. By comparison, corporate insiders beat the market by 5 percent, and typical households underperformed by 1.4 percent.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0309/p01s03-uspo.html

Democrats are already largely unwilling to take on Wall Street

We don't need Democrats to "take on" Wall Street.

That presumes there are clear courses of action to correct whatever problems are identified with the complex system that is global capitalism.

It also assumes that there is some sort of monolitic entity known as "Wall Street," that has a clear purpose and predictable behavior.

The best we can hope for are policies that mitigate the casualties when major market upheavals occur. The difference between Democrats and Republicans will be the triage priority once the damage is done.

I suppose in that sense, if you assume that campaign contributions increase the likelihood that "relief" will be preferentially applied to donor firms, and, by extension, the executive management caste, then this is an issue.

But I think the whole notion of "Wall Street" as some sort of adversary to the common man is inaccurate and unhelpful.

I think many corporate executives are overpaid, overpirvileged dilettantes who contribute very little value to their shareholders, customers and employees. I think most stockbrokers are simply gamblers that are sly enough to convince someone to pay them to gamble for them. BUT... to portray Wall Street as some sort of monolithic entity that can be dealt with in conventional terms with conventional means is rather like declaring a war on "terror."

It won't work. It can't work.

The U.S. has HUGE challenges because of our disproportionate consumption of global resources vs. the value we provide.

The GOP will vilify illegal immigrants, Muslims, and the "nanny state" as the source of the economic troubles we'll all have to grapple with for the next several years. That's attribution bias at it's finest.

Are the Democrats similarly simplistic? Does it all boil down merely having a different set of symbolic scapegoats?

Clinton, Obama "running as populists?" Did I miss Obama's "Cross of Gold" speech or Clinton doing an Eugene Debs impersonation?

I wish they were populists. Sadly, they run with the corporatists.

Robert Rubin was on NPR this morning defending welfare for Wall Street.

As Brojo says, by having Rubin run Treasury, Bill Clinton essentially let Wall Street run Treasury. It's pretty much certain that Hillary would run a pro-Wall Street administration. Obama might take more of a neutral stance, but I wouldn't expect him to take them on either.

Some Democrats worry that the influx of money will make their candidates less willing to call for increased regulation of financial markets

Ooops. I missed the point.

Not the first time it has happened.

I absolutely believe there needs to be an assessment of whether there is a regulatory way to avoid the problems that have arisen from the sub-prime meltdown.

Free market fundamentalists will argue that the system is self-regulating, but that certainly isn't true if taxpayers are forced to bail out firms that would otherwise be eliminated through the natural selection by their beloved invisible hand. The very visible hand of corporate welfare is a problem.

My ranting had to do with the phrase "take on Wall Street," and the assumptions of many people on how to "fix" the economic problems we are facing: underemployment, stagnant wages, overall economic insecurity, lack of affordable health care, etc.

I don't believe in free market magic, but I also don't believe that many of the traditional tools used in the past: labor unions, regulation, protectionism,etc. will work either. The economy is fundamentally different than it was in the 20th century IMO. This probably means a significantly different approach will be needed. I worry that the obvious fixes could make the problem worse.

One reason why the media helped push Edwards out of the race early on ... he probably would have taken on Wall Street at some level.

Bestest.Kevin.Post ever!

“It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people” - Gore vidal

I don't believe in free market magic, but I also don't believe that many of the traditional tools used in the past: labor unions, regulation, protectionism,etc. will work either.

The excesses leading to this financial mess were caused by an unregulated shadow banking system (e.g. the hedge fund's financial network). There are numerous economic analyses out there about how Alan Greenspan essentially gutted the regulatory oversight of the financial sector. The growth of this shadow banking system can be directly tied to the repeal of Glass-Steagall and Greenspan's actions.

Given that we have solid evidence that these actions have correpsonded to a decrease in regulation, what evidence do you have to claim that regulation is not the answer?

Vote Green.

The best we can hope for are policies that mitigate the casualties when major market upheavals occur.

What is happening in the economy at present is not cyclical. Bubbles are not economic cycles. The deregulation starting with Reagan up to Clinton's signing off on the end of Glass-Steagel, prevented the mitigating before the casualties occur that good regulation should do.

Tell Schmuch Chumer to blow it out his ass.

Tell Schmuck Chumer to blow it out his ass.

This is why so many life-long Democrats, myself included, are so frustrated with today's Democratic Party.

It used to be that the Democratic Party was the one that stood up for the little guy. Now most Democrats are no better than Republicans when it comes to maintaining balance between corporations and consumers.

My guess is that this has something to do with the fact that fewer and fewer members of Congress are ordinary citizens any more. I'm guessing that virtually every member of the Senate is a millionaire, as are many members of the House. And when you don't have to worry too much about your personal finances, it makes it a lot easier to forget about all the people who do.

Kevin quotes the LA Times:

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who are running for president as economic populists, are benefiting handsomely from Wall Street donations ...

You know, there was a time when "economic populism" actually meant something.

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism."
-- Franklin Roosevelt, 1938

A bit rusty this morning Cap'n?

I just don't understand how hedge fund owners get taxed at the capital gains rate when they haven't put any of their own capital at risk. Of coarse the answer is it doesn't make sense, but they have lots of money and that's what counts these days. Great sell out, Schumer.

"Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who are running for president as economic populists..."

Awesome, their platforms include single payer health care, a free college education for any American who wants one, raising the federal minimum wage to a living wage, a right to public housing for all who want it, a repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, free day care for all those who want it, an end to the exclusion of agricultural workers from federal labor laws, an end to all corporate welfare, and a reduction of the full-time work week to 35 hours?

Sweet! Finally I can ditch the Green Party and vote Democrat, on account of the fact that the Democratic candidates are running as economic populists, espousing all of the important populist reforms listed above!

Of course, a couple of those above measures may be a little costly, so we'd prolly better offset 'em by making some budget snips in our nation's largest discretionary item: the military. But I'm sure that Hillary and Obama favor such budget cuts... just one more reason why I can vote for them in good conscience in November.

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

Agreed that the bankruptcy bill is terrible, but ...

it's about the ratios though. Hillary and especially Obama are outraising McCain by HUGE amounts. It isn't surprising that finance is a sector where that is true as well.

As long as the corporate media continues to paint "populism" as a dirty word -- favored by (likely racist) redneck yahoos in overalls -- true populism will never be allowed to develop in America.

....Some Democrats worry that the influx of money will make their candidates less willing to call for increased regulation of financial markets, which have been in turmoil after a wave of foreclosures on sub-prime mortgages.

The housing lending spree is "fixed" for the time being (the hard way). The market for mortgage backed securities probably ain't going to come roaring back anytime real soon. So, whoever originates loans now is taking on a lot more risk, and will not have a lot of eager mortgage buyers knocking at the door, especially with prices continuing to fall. Something needs to be done that will allow consumer's some voice on the Fed's board of governors, at the administrative level instead of just relying on Congress. Get a truly proactive mechanism in place. If we had that, then perhaps some of these speculative messes could possibly be averted or aborted before they can do real harm. We need an asset bubble early warning team or something...

You saw what they did to Spitzer.

Economic populism? Puhleeze! John Edwards was the only one who really tried to run on that, and look how far he got; all the media would talk about was his hair and his mansion. In a post above Kevin you talk about how America has a race problem but doesn't know what to do about it? Add in class/poverty to that as well.

Why would anyone Democrat want to take on bankers? Don Siegelman tried to break through the system in Alabama that keeps the state from being able to afford effective government by finding a way to finance schools with a state lottery. He got sent to jail on a frame up by the DOJ. Can't let the common folk see that government might work if it wasn't deliberately being starved of funds.

In New York Eliot Spitzer pissed off Wall Street big time as Attorney General. As governor he was getting ready to look into the sub prime mess and start holding the money boys accountable for the games they've been playing. He may have made it easy for them to take him down, but make no mistake he was a marked man; GOP hit man Roger Stone was saying back in December Spitzer would not finish his first term.

Why would any Democrat be eager to take on Wall Street and the bankers when they've already been shown what will happen to them?

Amen, Kevin.

Maybe some numbers will give give a bit of a clue:

Clinton presidency
NASDAQ 670 - 2772
S & P 500 443 - 1336
DOW 3370 - 10887

Bush 2 presidency
NASDAQ 2772 - 2258
S & P 1366 - 1329
DOW 10887 - 12361

Larry Lessig is trying to use the internet to overcome this sort of corruption.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/stanford-law-pr.html

The bankruptcy bill--the same one Hillary was for before she was against it?

The same one Obama did not vote for?

Confused here.