They will whine about anything they want that isn't good enough, but the rest of us usually seek 'balance' to start with - that gives them a momentum, negotiating, and propaganda advantage. The speculators already get that unwarranted capital gains tax rate break (note: only real start up capital deserves any intrinsic break other than to adjust for CPI) etc. BTW we could easily defeat that rotten rule letting hedge managers count their pay as a "capital gain" by just not giving the break anyway. Democrats had their chance to at least try knocking out that special break, now it can't be done.

I wish Obama hadn't hired so many Streety types, but I heard his folks at least considered (whatever that means) trying a fin-tran tax of maybe 0.25%, a pittance but it would raise money and help suppress bubbles (noise trading etc. and momentum-trailing would be suppressed a bit, it helps.) Obama has to show us mettle now that Repubs have the House, incredibly.

Find minds make find distinctions.

There's a part of me that is starting to regret bailing these schmucks out. I know it likely saved the average joe from a world of hurt, but now I'd dearly like to see these wall street fools tossed out on the street themselves.

Whoda thought The Masters of the Universe were more thin-skinned than Newt Gingrich?

And screw 'em.

One thing about the Politico article that Steve didn't mention is that none of the whiny execs was named. None of the banks they work for was named. Once again, Politico gives rich right wingers free reign to attack the current administration from behind the veil of anonymity. Which just shows what a bunch of cowardly ninnies they are.

Remember, Wall Street screwed up so royally, it nearly destroyed global capitalism, and very nearly caused a catastrophic meltdown of international markets. And now this gang is stomping its feet because they're not invited for White House chats..."

But also remember, they don't see it that way. In their view -- as was well documented at the time -- the "bailout" was premature and probably unnecessary -- the financial engineers would have figured a way out of it -- and in any case, the banks paid back the money with interest. So the government interfered in the market unnecessarily, made a profit, and then turned around and blamed the guys who worked hard to make it all possible! Just another instance of Democratic hostility to free markets.

Also remember, the sense of entitlement of these guys is nearly boundless, in part because they've never known anything else. Many mid-level and junior people had their salaries approximately DOUBLED and their bonuses eliminated -- that is, they got the same amount of money -- in order to reduce the reaction to "bonuses," and they're throwing fits because they don't get bonuses! It's like a dog that isn't fed at exactly the right time -- it goes nuts because the "normal" things aren't happening.

And of course, it's equally "normal" that the princes of their realm be paid great deference by political leaders. After all, every candidate for national office comes to Wall Street with his or her hand out for campaign cash. They certainly owe the Street something for that!

These guys have been skimming -- and enjoying the proceeds of skimming -- for so long they think it's okay and even good. Until the political class finally realizes they're being made fools of, and wades in and chops off a lot of heads, it'll continue like this.

The blind rage that many Americans have for these traitorous thieves and con artists is still there. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that Obama saved their lives, or at least their lifestyles. These ingrates, these Masters of the Universe, still don't know how close they came to absolute ruin. A populist leader wishing to use Wall Streeters as scapegoats probably would have destroyed the world economy, but these maggots would have gotten the justice they richly deserve. Bailing them out was simply a choice for stability over justice; I'm not always certain it was the right choice when I read quotes from these cretins.

Tomorrow I'll state how I really feel.

Adding... my significant other works for a very reputable community bank. Not only doesn't he make six figures (in fact he earns barely more than when he was hired four years ago), his year-end bonus was a $100 gift card (same as last year). Generous considering the economy.

The banking "bonanza" doesn't reach very far down.

Good parasites do not kill their host. Presumably even Obama will figure that out, and get to where FDR was when he said, "... and I welcome their hatred." Our Masters of the Universe should be able to understand the basic concept that they are now a bad parasite and we will deal with them because we must to survive. If they are as bright as they think they are, they might even try to figure out a way to keep that deal minimally bloody.

@Lifelong Dem: "One thing about the Politico article that Steve didn't mention is that none of the whiny execs was named. None of the banks they work for was named. Once again, Politico gives rich right wingers free reign to attack the current administration from behind the veil of anonymity. Which just shows what a bunch of cowardly ninnies they are"
I think, and have stated this many times, that they need to have their names, addresses(all of them) and other personal contact information published. Let them feel how it is to have no privacy. Wikileak all over them. Some people may not be able to contain their rage, if you know what I mean.

Bleh, I'm having a little trouble processing your assertion that: the "bailout" was premature and probably unnecessary. No doubt that is what they think now, but at the time? Surely, Paulson got his information from his former cronies at Goldman Sachs. He sure seemed to think economy was teetering on the brink.

Some years ago I attended a lecture by Professor Coffee of Columbia. As I recall, his thesis was that, making incentives for corporate executives parallel the interests of shareholders- rather than simply building bigger empires, was responsible for much of the Enron and similar corporate problems.

It used to be thought that the ratio between compensation of highest paid and lowest paid should be no more than 20:1. Maybe it is time to revisit these kind of ideas.

So lets focus on what is important... the battle for public opinion starts now.

The Republican proposals summed up:

Abolish modern worker protections, Medicaid, and the Fed with the intent to go back to the glorious 19th century when large banks controlled the flow of money, monopolies cheated everyone, and wages were so low the slums of NY were only a step above those of today's Calcutta.

It was a fetid existence for most people... life expectancy was low, plagues flitted across the land,  and the gap between rich and poor rivaled that of pre-revolutionary France... the rich could build hotel sized houses with gigantic Tiffany windows produced by keeping wages were low, keeping state sponsored debtors prisons, suppressing unions with armed men, and the forcing the unemployed to fend for themselves. This seems to be just the way the modern day Republicans want it to be.

"Impossible!" you say. I ask you, WHY do they defend the irresponsible spending habits of the over rich and denounce modern safety net programs if they do not intend a return to that most complex century? 

I take them at their word.

Now remember, America and the world was never more prosperous than during those times when taxes on the rich were high aka the mid 20th Century. THE SOLUTION to our problems is to tax the über rich and use the money to build infrastructure paying good wages for good work to good people.

Hmmmmmm: My suggestion for community banks is to do a hell of a lot better job differentiating themselves from the large banks. While I thought that Arianna Huffington's "Move Your Money" plan was -- and still is -- a great idea, I was always struck at how the movement was driven from pure altruism (Arianna wasn't making a buck off of it). Where were the local banks who stood to make billions if Americans decided to "redistribute their wealth"?

Why aren't the local banks and credit unions blatantly running ads against the biggest banks? Why aren't they promising to provide services, like promising to not sell off mortgages for securitizing, that the largest banks would never agree to do?

The biggest advantage that large banks have is their large ATM networks. Small banks should be lobbying for ATM-fee caps so that they can be competitive with BofA, Citibank, Wells Fargo, etc. They should also do a better job of banding together to create fee-free ATM networks. This already exists to some extent, but smaller banks rarely advertise it sufficiently, so people go with the "safe" big banks.

Johnny Canuck, I don't actually know how close to the abyss we got -- could be nobody knows -- and certainly a lot of the mechanisms were stuck; after all, at one point, banks wouldn't even lend to banks. But I do know that (1) several of the large institutions said repeatedly that they didn't want the bailout, didn't need it, and took it only because they were being forced to (the logic being that to give money to some banks and not others would be to write the death warrants of the former), and (2) there were several published reports at the time of senior people in the financial sector protesting that the market needed to be left to its own devices to work things out and that the ingenuity of the Street (and perhaps judicious opening of various loan windows by the Fed) would get them through without heavy-handed government interference.

So, whether the "bailout" -- or something milder -- really was needed, they BELIEVED -- or at least said in many ways they did -- that it wasn't.

There's only one meeting that Obama should have invited the heads of the biggest banks to, and that's the one where he told them that since their companies were all irredeemably insolvent they now belonged to the US Government. Try *that* for some "hurt feelings"...

So the banksters get pretty much whatever they want from the government, but Obama shuns them.

Lefty liberals are continually either being sucked up to or admonished by Obama, but seem to get left out in the cold when legislation gets passed.

How about swapping places, then? I bet the liberals/progressives would be happy to never have another meeting with Obama, if only he started implementing their agenda. I highly doubt the banksters would be so satisfied with the opposite situation.

oh great , heres another republican morass, I can get in another swipe at obama, you leftie haters are as sick as tpers, pretty much evenly.

I am astonished that the bankster think that it is only the left that "hates" them for what they have done.
The advantage of living in a bubble, I suppose.

Here is the list of people who attended - - isn't UBS a bank??? What does Centerbridge Partners do??

In my book, he should have added Dan DiMicio of NUCOR; Fisk Johnson of SC Johnson, and others of this realm of folks... but Barack didn't phone me.

Maybe Wall street is worried that the New Yorker article that questioned the economic and social good of the wall streeters got to the WH ...

Greg Brown, Motorola
John Chambers, Cisco Systems
Kenneth Chenault, American Express
Dave Cote, Chairman of Honeywell International Inc.
Scott Davis, UPS
John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Mark Gallogly, managing partner at Centerbridge Partners
Lew Hay, NextEra Energy
Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric
Ellen Kullman, DuPont
John Lechleiter, Eli Lilly
Andrew Liveris, Dow Chemical
James McNerney, Boeing
Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo
Paul Otellini, Intel
Penny Pritzker, Pritzker Realty Group
Brian Roberts, Comcast
Jim Rogers, Duke Energy
Eric Schmidt, Google
Robert Wolf, UBS

Hmmmmmm: My suggestion for community banks is to do a hell of a lot better job differentiating themselves from the large banks. square1
~~~~
That particular community bank advertises itself as keeping money here in our area, makes a good case for itself, sponsors local events, its employees volunteer for various things. They do their best to compete. The small business bill passed in Sept (new money for community banks to loan out) will help, too.

Oh, but if one of those CEOs had been there, the right would have had a field day with it!

I think you're misunderstanding the psychology of this. They hate Obama BECAUSE they failed; they can either acknowledge honestly to themselves that they failed, or they can sit around in denial and blame everyone else. Because the bailouts are evidence of their failure, they revile them... and most of all the people who control them.

It's simple human nature (although not very nice).

Hearing the banksters whine gives rise to thoughts of using 2nd Amendment solutions on them.

Sigh...
-Z