Wall Street increases donations to GOP; other companies up Dem donations

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT/DealBook: G.O.P. Attracts More of Wall Street Firms’ Donations

On Monday, Goldman Sachs’s Hank Paulson, a longtime Republican, is expected to be sworn in as the next Treasury Secretary of the United States. His successor, Lloyd Blankfein, has already taken over as Goldman’s chief executive, putting a Democrat in charge of the world’s largest securities firm. Given the strong and shifting ties between Wall Street and Washington — not to mention the upcoming midterm elections in Congress — it seems a good time to ask: What are the political leanings of the major financial firms?

To gauge this, DealBook looked at the contributions by the financial firms’ political action committees, both in the latest election cycle and the one of 2004. The data, which include donations to individual candidates but excludes contributions to other political action committees, party organizations and the groups known as 527’s, come from the Federal Election Commission, as compiled and posted to the Web by PoliticalMoneyLine.com.

Of the companies we examined — Goldman, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers — all have donated more money to Republicans than Democrats in the latest election cycle, a result that will probably surprise no one.

But there was another, more counterintuitive, trend: The data suggest that most of the bulge-bracket firms are betting even more heavily on Republicans in this election cycle compared with 2004. This shift to the right comes even as many political pundits say they expect Democratic lawmakers to fare better in the upcoming elections than they have in a decade.

All but two of the firms in our analysis have increased the allocation of their contributions to Republican candidates so far in the 2006 election cycle compared with 2004, suggesting that the major investment banks, at least in the aggregate, are not pushing for a bluer Congress this November....A recent report in The Wall Street Journal found that political contributions from other major companies, including those in industries that traditionally have been G.O.P. stalwarts, like oil and tobacco, have been shifting more of their giving to Democrats....

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=4834

[larrysh]

1. Wish we could make them all STOP (EOM)

[leveymg]

2. Time wounds all heals.

The next decade or two isn't going to be kind to the U.S. financial services industry, no matter who they throw money at. Investments aren't going to be as predominantly in dollar denominated assets, anyway, and one can expect big investors to increasingly move their funds off-shore.

Screw you, Goldman, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, et al. You've dug your own grave by bankrolling this process, now hop in, and watch it all fall ontop of you.