Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post from Creamer-Wall Street Hopes to Use Repubs to Re-Purchase Congre
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:28:40 -0400 (EDT)
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Wall Street Hopes to Use Republicans to Re-Purchase  Congress 

For many years  the “titans” of Wall Street could pretty much have their 
way with Congress.  They – and their huge campaign  contributions – had 
convinced the Republicans, and many of the Democrats – that  what was good for 
Wall Street, was good for the country.   
Then came the financial collapse in September, 2008, and the sudden  
realization that the emperor of Wall Street didn’t have any clothes.  Turned out 
that the policies that  allowed reckless Wall Street traders to run wild – 
and gave a tiny number of  Wall Streeters the ability to claim a bigger and 
bigger share of our national  income --weren’t actually so smart for the rest 
of us.  
Democrats in Congress and the Obama Administration turned on Wall Street  
and – from Wall Street’s point of view – had the “audacity” to pass 
legislation  that reined in the recklessness that had cost eight million Americans 
their  jobs. 
Many among the Wall Street types – who actually think of themselves as  the 
“masters of the universe” – were shocked.  They – and much of the 
conventional  wisdom in Washington – assumed that the Wall Street  reform bill 
would be watered down into thin gruel by the massive army of  lobbyists they 
sent to do battle on the Hill.  Wall Street spent almost a half-billion  
dollars lobbying to stop Wall Street reform.  But the bill actually got tougher 
and  tougher as the battle went on.   
That was because Progressives held political ground so high on the issue  
that even the most “moderate” members of Congress were terrified to stand up 
for  the Wall Street elite. 
But this November, the Wall Street Empire plans to strike back. According  
to Politico: 
“The vilification of bankers, what  one bank lobbyist called the ’show 
trials’ of congressional hearings and  especially the outcome of financial 
regulatory reform has prompted an all-out  effort to wrest Congress from 
Democratic control, several financial industry  insiders told Politico.” 
Karen Klugh, spokeswoman for the American Financial Services Association,  
told Politico: “Our target ratio for  the 2010 cycle is 80-20 Republicans…” 
  She said this ratio, “reflects our  deep concerns with the work of the 
111th Congress.” You  betcha. 
And the amount Wall Street is directly investing in campaigns is almost  
certainly just the tip of the iceberg. It is likely dwarfed by the massive  
secret contributions they have made to the various Republican attack  groups.  
And you can bet they are  encouraging their partners in the huge 
outsourcing deals - on which they make  billions - to pony up as well through secret 
contributions to the Chamber of  Commerce that can spend unlimited amounts to 
distort the records of their  Democratic targets.  
Many of those contributions, as ThinkProgress has documented, come from  
foreign corporations that profit from outsourcing of American  jobs. 
The thing that is especially galling about Wall Street’s approach to  
politics is that it so brazenly plays upon the fears of the very people who are  
often the biggest victims of their greed.  
It is no small irony that the  very people whose recklessness caused so 
many everyday working class families to  lose their jobs – who have 
systematically skimmed off a larger and larger  portion of our national product and 
left smaller and smaller pieces of the pie  for everyday Americans – are now 
stoking the anger caused by their own actions  and directing it toward 
Democrats who have brought them to  account. 
In the Tea Party fantasy world everyday Americans are oppressed by  
bureaucrats with eyeshades who go to work on the Washington Metro.  They are 
abetted by crunchy academics  who spend their days dreaming up “social engineering”
 schemes in their offices  at Yale or Harvard.  And their  oppressive 
regime is supported by liberal news anchors and the nihilistic  denizens of 
Hollywood who spend their nights in hot tubs  surrounded by Playboy Bunnies.  
That  is the Tea Party version of class warfare; everyday Americans versus 
these  “elites.” 
This is a very convenient mythology for Wall Street.  It ignores the 
existence of the real  “elites” in America.  They aren’t the bureaucrats who go 
to  work on the Metro but rather the men and women who go to work in  
chauffeur-driven limousines, jet around the country in Gulfstream G-Vs, and make  
more on the first day of the year, before lunch, than a minimum wage worker  
makes all year long.   
The gang on Wall Street wants normal Americans to forget that they – and  
the top one percent of the population – control 34.6% of net assets, compared 
to  only 15% for the bottom 80%. 
They want you to ignore that 42% of the financial wealth is controlled by  
the top 1% of the population, compared to only 7% controlled by the bottom 
80%  -- or that 62% of the business equity that controls corporations is in 
the hands  of the top 1% compared to only 7% for the bottom 80%. 
Remember all of the reckless speculation in financial securities that  sunk 
the economy? Well 61% of financial securities are owned by the top 1% --  
and just 2% by the bottom 80%. 
And when it comes to income, the share going to the top 1% had grown from  
12.8% in 1982 to 21.3% in 2006 while the percent going to the bottom 80% 
shrunk  from 48.1% to 38.6%. 
When you look at numbers like that, in broad strokes it’s pretty obvious  
why the economy sunk into recession.  The greed of the top 1% sucked the 
buying power out of the rest of the  population who were needed as customers to 
keep levels of demand high enough so  that investors found it profitable to 
expand employment, create jobs and  generate more consumers to demand more 
goods and services. Their greed killed  the goose that laid the golden egg. 
Of course the latest example of the consequences of Wall Street’s  reckless 
greed is the mortgage foreclosure documentation disaster.  Seems that they 
were in such a hurry to  make more and more on their exotic mortgage-backed 
securities that they simply  neglected to properly document the changes in 
ownership for the mortgages they  packaged up and sold on financial markets.  
Why would the brilliant graduates of some to the finest universities in  
America make such an obvious  mistake?  You have to assume it’s  because they 
figured that they would make their millions and pass the risk of  their 
actions on the “the market” at large rather than take the time and expense  to 
do it right. 
Now that their actions have come to light they may once again threaten  the 
stability of the financial system. 
And let’s remember that when you fall behind in your credit card  payments, 
these same guys are the first to invoke every provision in the fine  print 
of your credit card agreement so they can charge you a fortune in  fees.  
But when it comes to  transferring titles of mortgages correctly, turns out 
they couldn’t be  bothered.  One more example of how  Wall Street thinks it’s 
exempt from the rules that apply to the rest of  us. 
Now, Wall Street is trying to harness the anger of ordinary people – who  
are furious because of the economic disaster that Wall Street itself created –
  to allow them to use the Republicans as a vessel to take back the control 
of  Congress. 
It’s up to us to stop them.  The plain fact is that there are more of us 
than there are of them.  But if we don’t vote, we don’t  count.  Time for 
Progressives to get  out of a defensive crouch and march – along with everyone 
we know – to the  polls. As the MTV s slogan says: Vote again in 2010. 
In most jurisdictions early voting has already begun.  The time to vote is 
now.  
I know a guy who trades on Wall Street, call him George, who is  absolutely 
disdainful of ordinary Americans.  He thinks that anyone who can’t get  
rich, like he is, must be a chump.  He’s happy to exploit anyone and anything 
to make money for  himself. 
Don’t let George make us all into chumps.  Don’t let Wall Street use the 
anger  caused by the economic disaster that they themselves caused, to elect  
Republicans and take back control of Congress. 
Robert Creamer is  a long-time political organizer and strategist, and 
author of the recent  book:  Stand Up Straight: How  Progressives Can Win, 
available on _Amazon.com._ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213241439&sr=8-1
)  
I 

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