Robert Reich: .....Getting Wall Street Out of Washington:

[amborin]

The Importance of Getting Wall Street out of Washington and Washington out of Wall Street

"Washington’s relationship with Wall Street is growing more schizophrenic by the day. On the one hand, Congress is trying to show how tough it can be on the financial sector by enacting a law ostensibly designed to prevent another near-meltdown and taxpayer-supported bail-out. As the mid-term election looms, a staggering number of Americans remain unemployed or underemployed.....
..............On the other hand, both parties are going to Wall Street seeking campaign donations to fund critically important television advertising in the months ahead. After all, the Street is where the money is, and TV ads demand huge amounts of it. In recent years, the financial industry has become the second-biggest source of campaign contributions in America – just behind the healthcare industry.
Even as Congress debates legislation to tame it, Wall Street is conducting a bidding war between the parties for its continued beneficence. More than 60 per cent of the $34m given by the financial industry to fund the 2010 elections has so far gone to Democrats,......It is hard to bite the hands that feed you, especially when you are competing for food.

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But the American public has no independent means of judging how tough the bill really is.......The dependence of both parties on the financial industry for political support inevitably feeds suspicions that the bill is not nearly tough enough. Why......are so-called “customized” derivatives exempted from the exchanges? Does this not create a big loophole? Why does the bill not limit the size of banks so none can again become “too big to fail”? Why is the Glass-Steagall Act – which once separated commercial from investment banking – not being fully restored? Why does the bill not separate investment banking from the private banking and wealth management activities that got Goldman into trouble?

It does not help that in recent months both parties have held at least three-dozen fundraising events with Wall Street bankers and their lobbyists. ........
Tight connections between Washington and Wall Street are nothing new, of course, especially when it comes to Goldman. Hank Paulson ran the bank before becoming George W. Bush’s Treasury secretary. Robert Rubin followed the same trajectory under Bill Clinton, then returned to Wall Street to head Citigroup’s executive committee. Dick Gephardt, the former Democratic House leader, lobbies for Goldman. Some 250 former members of Congress are now lobbying on behalf of the financial industry. President Barack Obama himself received nearly $15m from Wall Street during his 2008 campaign, of which almost $1m came from Goldman employees and their families.

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http://robertreich.org/post/548818745/the-importance-of-getting-wall-street-out-of

[blindpig]

1. Good luck with that.

Quite impossible, money is power.

It is much more feasible and desirable to get Wall Street out of the solar system.

[amborin]

2. yep, a pipe dream