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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHillary's Wall Street Dilemma: Wall Street Offers Clinton a Thorny Embrace
As its relationship with Democrats hits a historic low, Wall Street sees a solution on the horizon: Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Mrs. Clinton was the industry’s home state senator, and the financial sector was the second-largest giver to her presidential campaign in 2008. In her post-State Department life, she has been showered with lucrative speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, J. P. Morgan and other financial firms. In her talks, she says it is unproductive to vilify the industry, and she avoids the kind of language that puts off financial executives, as when President Obama referred to “fat cat” bankers in 2009.
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“I think there’s a potential window for Democrats to come back, but if it is one wing of the party pushing the populist line — anti-big banks, punishing people whether or not they had anything to do with the crisis — they’ll lock this crowd into a Republican alternative,” said Bill Daley, a former chief of staff to Mr. Obama and commerce secretary under President Bill Clinton who is now a hedge fund executive.
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Few political families are closer to Wall Street than the Clintons. Their family foundation has raised millions from financiers and the foundations of big banks, and recently held its annual briefing for donors in the auditorium of Goldman Sachs’s headquarters in Manhattan. Major financial firms are stocked with Clinton alumni.
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In 2016, said Michael Lux, a political consultant who worked in the Clinton White House, “People are going to be in a surly mood, a populist mood. To have a Democrat too close to Wall Street, raising too much money from them, having a ‘We’re all in this together’ message is a big mistake.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/us/08wallst.html?_r=0
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merrily
(45,251 posts)Obama referred to "fat cat" bankers in 2009, but he had received good money from Wall Street as well. And his Secretary of Treasury at the time was Geithner. And among his financial advisors was Larry Summer, Clinton's point man on Gramm, Leach, Blilely (aka repeal of Glass Steagall).
So, at that time, I wonder how worried Wall Street was about being referred to as fat cats. (I think they might even be proud of being fat cats.)
We need to stop being swept away by what politicians say.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)She needs best friends like them so she can climb out of poverty
bigtree
(85,996 posts). . . claiming some right-wing affinity with Clinton.
Still, the article really doesn't make a good case that Hillary is some friend of Wall Street. The authors of this article paint a picture of a frosty and distrustful relationship with a lot unknown about how a new Clinton candidacy will relate with that community.
from the article:
She was early to call for tougher regulation of financial derivatives and private-equity markets, and in a 2007 speech called for major federal intervention in the market for subprime loans, arguing that “we need to acknowledge that Wall Street has played a significant role in our current problems, and in particular the housing crisis.”
Several people who advised Mrs. Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign said the speech angered some of her Wall Street donors, who complained about what they viewed as her increasing antagonism to the industry. Mrs. Clinton has also called for eliminating the carried interest tax loophole.
“If you look at her positions, in my view, she was very aggressive on ensuring that Wall Street was better regulated and her argument about all these proposals is that this is going to be better for all of us,” said Neera Tanden, who was Mrs. Clinton’s policy director during the 2008 campaign.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Nick Merrill, declined to describe her positions on a variety of current regulatory and Wall Street issues but said in an email: “Reducing inequality and increasing upward mobility has been an uninterrupted pursuit of hers through every job she’s held, and it continues to this day in her work at the Clinton Foundation.”
That doesn't sound like an 'embrace' to me.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Few political families are closer to Wall Street than the Clintons. Their family foundation has raised millions from financiers and the foundations of big banks, and recently held its annual briefing for donors in the auditorium of Goldman Sachs’s headquarters in Manhattan. Major financial firms are stocked with Clinton alumni.
And the Clintons often interact with the titans of finance on the Manhattan charity circuit and during their vacations in the Hamptons. Last month, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton sat at a table with Hamilton E. James, president of the Blackstone Group, and mingled with the billionaire David H. Koch at a benefit for the Wildlife Conservation Society.
. . . .
And some on the left say Mrs. Clinton’s less combative approach to issues of taxation, Wall Street regulation and growth — “We’re all in this mess together,” as one person who had attended several of Mrs. Clinton’s paid speeches described her message — was out of step with the current political climate.
In 2016, said Michael Lux, a political consultant who worked in the Clinton White House, “People are going to be in a surly mood, a populist mood. To have a Democrat too close to Wall Street, raising too much money from them, having a ‘We’re all in this together’ message is a big mistake.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/us/08wallst.html?_r=1
Clinton's daughter is married to a Wall Street broker I believe.
On July 31, 2010, Clinton and investment banker Marc Mezvinsky[57] were married in an interfaith ceremony in Rhinebeck, New York.[58]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Clinton
Hillary Clinton, of course, hasn't done anything illegal. But some of the bankers and others who are her friends may have. Many Democrats, many Americans who lost their homes in the banking crisis or nearly lost their homes in the banking crisis, think they did.
Hillary is just too gentle with the bankers for my taste. She is a lawyer. Has she never spoken to some of the homeowners who were foreclosed? Doesn't she know what happened? I'm amazed. If she is a lawyer, she should know fraud when she sees it.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Either she doesn't know or she doesn't give a fuck. Which is worse? NO HILLARY!
cali
(114,904 posts)corporate yes. right wing? who did they endorse in 2000, 2004, 2008. 2012?
bigtree
(85,996 posts). . . I'm not surprised you buy into it.
Just ignore the fact that there has been profusion of stories claiming Hillary has some affinity with the right that comes directly from the republican message machine.
let me repeat this:
She was early to call for tougher regulation of financial derivatives and private-equity markets, and in a 2007 speech called for major federal intervention in the market for subprime loans, arguing that “we need to acknowledge that Wall Street has played a significant role in our current problems, and in particular the housing crisis.”
Several people who advised Mrs. Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign said the speech angered some of her Wall Street donors, who complained about what they viewed as her increasing antagonism to the industry. Mrs. Clinton has also called for eliminating the carried interest tax loophole.
“If you look at her positions, in my view, she was very aggressive on ensuring that Wall Street was better regulated and her argument about all these proposals is that this is going to be better for all of us,” said Neera Tanden, who was Mrs. Clinton’s policy director during the 2008 campaign.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Nick Merrill, declined to describe her positions on a variety of current regulatory and Wall Street issues but said in an email: “Reducing inequality and increasing upward mobility has been an uninterrupted pursuit of hers through every job she’s held, and it continues to this day in her work at the Clinton Foundation.”
That doesn't sound 'embraceable' to me.
