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Its fitting that President Barack Obama delivered a speech about Wall Street at Cooper Union, the same auditorium where Abraham Lincoln launched his national career. It is also safe to say that if Lincoln were alive today, he would take a tough stand on derivatives, credit default swaps and all those other exotic instruments. And he was a Republican.
Donna Brazille
No, I wont torture some Lincoln quote to prove that hed be opposed to whats going on at, or wrong with, Wall Street. Suffice it to say that he earned the nickname Honest Abe as well as his place in history for fighting the forces that allow people to profit mightily from the toil and misery of others.
Wall Street crashed by picking the pockets of hard-working Americans and rebounded to a healthy profitability by the loans it received from American taxpayers.
Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain unemployed or underemployed. Mothers worry how theyll feed their children. Those lucky enough to still own a home worry how theyll pay their mortgage next month. And The Wall Street Journal Magazine can again publish a full-page ad for a diamond-encrusted toilet.
Clearly, somethings not right. Equally clear is that we need to make it right.
Since we all have short memories, lets recall how we got to where we are today. Lets recall that at the end of the Clinton years, the Republicans, under the guise of freedom, removed most government regulations on Wall Street. An orgy of greed and swindling followed. Make no mistake: this is a bipartisan farce that should demand bipartisan cooperation in fixing the problem.
President Obama, the Tea Partys Mad Hatters and both political parties should get on the same page and demand accountability, transparency and, yes, that Wall Street pay back taxpayers with interest. Wall Street has a moral obligation to help Main Street.
Lets face it, had Congress not made legal most of Wall Streets swindles, there would be even more Wall Street executives with Bernard Madoff for a cellmate. Wall Street raised gambling to its highest dark art during the last 10 years. Its called derivatives.
Warren Buffett, no enemy of free enterprise, called derivatives, a fancy name for gambling, financial instruments of mass destruction. Even a financial wizard like Buffett had to admit that no one really understands how they work. Though heads nodded in agreement across Wall Street, nothing was done to rid the financial world of those instruments of mass destruction.
Lets recall that Buffett, one of the richest man in America, also noted, my secretary pays more in taxes than I do. Lets recall that Sen. John McCain wanted us to sympathize with Joe the Plumber because Obama wanted to restore taxes on the rich that he, McCain, helped to remove. And, to be honest, lets also recall that some Democrats have received gobs of campaign money from these rich Wall Street titans.
In a delicious twist of history, President Obama, who also benefited from some campaign contributions from Wall Street, is merely seeking to return to average Americans a huge amount of wealth that Wall Street redistributed -- to itself. ...
The slick Wall Street gambling resulted in placing billions of dollars on high-risk subprime mortgages that were then bundled and sold off, deceptively, to others. Thanks to lax or nonexistent regulatory agencies and lawmakers sleeping at the switch, some of whom remain unwilling to acknowledge their own bad deeds, clever Wall Street gamblers were free to make billions, legally, by betting that the mortgages would fail. And did they ever! Again, Wall Street pocketed our losses as profit. Where are my pistol-packing Second Amendment friends now?
Today, as I write this, it is legal for canny Wall Street operators to take out insurance policies on elderly people they arent related to, betting when they will die. Would you be comfortable with a politician or Wall Street as your life insurance beneficiary? This is beyond sick. Its depraved.
Finally, lets recall that Wall Street executives paid themselves billions of dollars in bonuses that they wouldnt have had without the money taxpayers loaned them.
Enough!
Remember the commercial When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen ? Well, when Wall Street speaks, members of Congress start to move their lips. But what about us? Who speaks for us?
Wall Street greed adversely and profoundly affects the security of this nation. Its ruined the incomes and lives of millions of American families. Its an evil. Wall Street still doesnt get it. They like what they did. Theyre proud of it. They profit from it. They want to do more of it.
Whats worse, they are now betting that the average American wont get it.
Fat chance!
Donna Brazile is a political commentator on CNN, ABC and NPR; contributing columnist to Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill; and former campaign manager for Al Gore.
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