Why Senate Dems Led by Liz Warren Are In Revolt Against Obama's Wall Street Nominee
http://www.alternet.org/economy/why-senate-democrats-led-liz-warren-are-revolt-against-obamas-wall-street-nomineeThe behavior of the Obama admin when it comes to financial reform has been one of his biggest weak points. The latest unfortunate act is his nomination of Antonio Weiss, a former mergers and acquisition banker for Lazard Bank, for undersecretary of domestic finance at the Treasury. Weiss immediately drew fire from progressives pointing to his role in crafting tax inversions that helped corporations save money by parking funds overseas.
There was a time when Weiss's nomination would be uncontroversial – bankers have dominated Treasury and economic posts in the government for a generation. But with the arrival of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a chief critic of Wall Street's domination of the government, there is a revolt brewing against Weiss that threatens to derail his path to the Treasury.
Weiss's History As Wall Street Democrat
Warren has made a name for herself as a sharp and trenchant critic of Wall Street, and she put out the first salvo against Weiss by pointing to him overseeing mergers such as Burger King's acquisition of Tim Horton's, which involved the company moving its headquarters to Canada to save up to $117 million in American taxes.
The Burger King-Horton deal was one of many deals that Weiss negotiated while he was at Lazard, which bills itself as “the world's leading independent financial advisory and asset management firm.”
= new reply since forum marked as read
We won't have a REAL government till money gets reinstalled in the back seat where it belongs.
Be afraid Wall Street, be very very afraid...
12/20/14
Big banks are unnerved by Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) rise in Democratic circles, which is raising the prospect of her running for the White House.
Supporters who have launched campaigns to push her into the race as a rival to Hillary Clinton launched a protest in Warren’s name outside Citigroup's Manhattan offices on Thursday, which only added to the industry’s anxiety.
...Banking lobbyists interpret her actions as a bid for influence in the Senate, and also believe it could be a sign she is re-thinking her repeated statements that she will not run for the White House in 2016.
“The prospect of a Warren presidential candidacy increases the 'headline risk' concerns of large financial institutions,” said one banking lobbyist.
Equally jarring to Wall Street is the possibility that Warren could force Clinton to the left to appease progressives. Income inequality has emerged as the number one issue on the left, and it is seen as a touchstone issue for Warren.
“Her message could play well with voters and could force Hillary to follow suit,” a second banking lobbyist said.
...“The banking industry shouldn't be ‘unnerved’ by the prospect of a President Elizabeth Warren, they should be terrified by it and the Americans who would cheer her on as she ripped their moneyed fangs out of the political process,” said DFA spokesman T. Neil Sroka.
Should Warren decide to run for president, it's unclear how much her big bank bashing will resonate. During her 2012 senatorial campaign against then-Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), she was criticized for saying that she helped contribute to the start of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
She also drew fire for a gaffe during a 2012 Senate campaign speech when she argued that businesses succeeded because of the government's help.
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own,” she said during the remarks.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/227727-wall-street-braces-for-warren-candidacy
Run, Liz, Run!!!!!!!!
Have you taken any jobs to make a political statement?
I suspect the honest answer would be, "no" ... you, like most, took the best job offered to you, and you did whatever was called on you to accomplish the job. And, you did the same in any subsequent jobs.
ETA: Goldman Sachs has a documented history of paying bonuses to it's (former) staff that took/take positions in government. Below is a list of its former employees that joined government service ... all of which, to the best of my research, were in place with the passage of the most significant Banking Regulation since Glass Steagall.
If these former employees were as motivated by their former employer's bonus money as you wish to assert, do you really think there would have been a Dodd Frank Act.
I know ...I know ... but for the bankers in the administration, Frank Dodd would have had more teeth.
No, I think you are projecting what YOU would do, if you found yourself in such a position ... YOU would be (or could see yourself) selling out your call for the bonus money. So, you project that on others.
