Monday, November 07, 2011

Who Are They Protesting, and Who Should They Be Protesting?

From the Washington Post:
President Obama has called people who work on Wall Street “fat-cat bankers,” and his reelection campaign has sought to harness public frustration with Wall Street. Financial executives retort that the president’s pursuit of financial regulations is punitive and that new rules may be “holding us back.”

But both sides face an inconvenient fact: During Obama’s tenure, Wall Street has roared back, even as the broader economy has struggled.

The largest banks are larger than they were when Obama took office and are nearing the level of profits they were making before the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, according to government data.

Wall Street firms — independent companies and the securities-trading arms of banks — are doing even better. They earned more in the first 21 / 2 years of the Obama administration than they did during the eight years of the George W. Bush administration, industry data show.
The Instapundit doesn't refer to him as President Goldman Sachs for nothing, you know.

My point is always this: you can't fault corporations for seeking government assistance. You fault the government for selling out to them. My solution is to cut government power so that the corporation has nothing it can seek from government.

The Occupy (insert city here) crowd are as misguided as they are clueless.

1 comment:

mmazenko said...

Corporations will always seek "tax breaks," thus, there is always something corporations can seek from government. They will seek to tax break under the guise of "creating jobs," even as they cut jobs. Which has been happening -- and will happen to a much greater extent under a party that warns against tax the "job creators."