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ProSense

(116,464 posts)
Fri Apr 13, 2012, 09:06 AM Apr 2012

Obama’s new Wall Street foes

Obama’s new Wall Street foes

Former allies are turning on the president now that he wants to close gaping tax loopholes for the 1 percent

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

<...>

What’s more, according to the Times “… these CEO’s might seem like pikers. Top hedge fund managers collectively earned $14.4 billion last year.” No wonder some of them are fighting to kill a provision in the recent Dodd-Frank reform law that would require disclosing the ratio of CEO pay to the median pay of their employees. One never wishes to upset the help, you know. It can lead to unrest.

That’s Wall Street — the metaphorical bestiary of the financial universe. But there’s nothing metaphorical about the earnings of hedge fund tigers, private equity lions, and the top dogs at those big banks that were bailed out by tax dollars after they helped chase our economy off a cliff.

So what do these big moneyed nabobs have to complain about? Why are they whining about reform? And why are they funneling cash to super PACs aimed at bringing down Barack Obama, who many of them supported four years ago?

Because, writes Alec MacGillis in The New Republic — the president wants to raise their taxes. That’s right — while ordinary Americans are taxed at a top rate of 35 percent on their income, Congress allows hedge fund and private equity tycoons to pay only pay 15 percent of their compensation. The president wants them to pay more; still at a rate below what you might pay, and for that he’s being accused of – hold onto your combat helmets – “class warfare.” One Wall Street Midas, once an Obama fan, now his foe, told MacGillis that by making the rich a primary target, Obama is “(expletive deleted) on people who are successful.”

And can you believe this? Two years ago, when President Obama first tried to close that gaping loophole in our tax code, Stephen Schwarzman, who runs the Blackstone Group, the world’s largest private equity fund, compared the President’s action to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.

- more -

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/12/obamas_new_wall_street_foes/singleton/


SEC Begins Big Dig Into Hedge Fund Data
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002543512

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Obama’s new Wall Street foes (Original Post) ProSense Apr 2012 OP
Kick! n/t ProSense Apr 2012 #1
I have to agree with Schwarzman... DCKit Apr 2012 #2
I'm ProSense Apr 2012 #3
Schawazman's comparison is. nt DCKit Apr 2012 #4
Ah, thanks. n/t ProSense Apr 2012 #5
 

DCKit

(18,541 posts)
2. I have to agree with Schwarzman...
Fri Apr 13, 2012, 09:53 AM
Apr 2012

Hitler's reasons for invading Poland were also based on propaganda, so it is just the same.

ProSense

(116,464 posts)
3. I'm
Fri Apr 13, 2012, 10:01 AM
Apr 2012

missing something, including the sarcasm.

The reason for closing the loophole is "based on propaganda"?

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