Bank executive: Today's meeting between President and bankers is "PR stunt"

[mcablue]

Time Magazine (12-13-09): "Beating on Wall Street makes political sense these days. The public is furious that big banks and Wall Street firms are once again making pots of money while Main Street suffers through 10% unemployment. With year-end bonuses soon to be handed out to financial executives, Obama and the White House need to be seen to be on the side of the little guy.

So expect a healthy dose of political posturing before, during and after the President's meeting with top bankers Monday. It's a p.r. stunt," says an executive at one of the banks that will be getting a dressing-down at the White House meeting. Executives from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are expected to be among those in attendance.

Even Administration officials privately admit that politics played a role in calling the meeting, and President Obama's harsh words for bankers on Sunday's 60 Minutes program reinforced the notion. During an interview on the CBS show the President said he didn't run for office "to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," adding that "people on Wall Street still don't get it."


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1947411,00.html#ixzz0ZgVMh0Qq"

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. Jeez...half the people here scream for the guy to use "the bully pulpit"

And when he does they scream "PR stunt!!!!"

It's getting a little unbelievable.

[graywarrior]

2. This place is officially insane

I hardly read any of the threads they're so out of whack.

[rudy23]

3. Maybe it's b/c past actions have shown there will be little "bullying" at this meeting

He bullied Goldman Sachs so hard that he let them run our Treasury Department! He must've really bullied them into doing that.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. I find your premises

flawed.

:shrug:

[rudy23]

14. Past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior.

There are statistics upon statistics that show this to be true.

[alcibiades_mystery]

17. Feel free to present your statistical argument whenever

Oh wait. I know! Google is my friend, right?

:rofl:

[Zodiak]

4. If you noticed, those are different people

It's the bankers that are calling Obama's move a PR stunt, not those that want him to get tough on the bankers.

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. Point taken...but look at the other replies on this thread

Our own tribe of wackadoos seems to agree with the bank executive!

[Zodiak]

13. You trudge on dangerous territory referring to other DUers as "wackadoos"

But yes, there are a number of DUers who are concerned that this is a PR stunt. I'm sure the bank exec by saying this is trying to play up to those fears. He could be telling the truth, as well.....we just do not know at this point.

I do not blame those that do not trust Obama regarding Wall Street, though. There is plenty of evidence that he has taken to treating them with kid gloves. Observing such a thing and then predicting future behavior based on past performance far from qualifies a person as a "wackadoo".

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. Well

I figured if it's OK to call other DUers "cheerleaders" and "warmongers" and the like, "wackadoo" would fit quite nicely in the new era of leniency.

As for the "kid gloves," I keep hearing about them, but I haven't been convinced.

[Zodiak]

31. Once again, other people using names does not permit you to engage in it, as well

You are responsible only for your own behavior.

As you can see, there are those that are ready and prepared to agree with you to help to throw around those same names. You can see what a self-sustaining thing it is when DUers decide that name-calling is to replace intelligent discourse.

As far as you not being convinced about the kid gloves with Wall Street, Tiabbi's article broke it down in fairly vitriolic terms, Krugman analyzed it in not-so-vitriolic terms, Max Kaiser has gone over it time and again, and a host of others. Obama's white house has been very kind to the bankers compared to main street; he even publicly lamented it recently in an interview.

But then again, people who insist on name-calling in the service of a political position ostensibly have their minds already made-up. That is one of the pitfalls of engaging in such behavior...it makes an agenda kinda hard not to notice.

[alcibiades_mystery]

34. Oh

Once again, other people using names does not permit you to engage in it, as well

Never said it did.

I've read those articles and found them unconvincing on key points.

[Hekate]

22. "Wackadoo" works for me. Only I spell it "whackadoo."

:evilgrin:

My ilk have been called cheerleaders, pompom girls, Kool-aid drinkers, locksteppers, and a host of other pejoratives. It's not nice around here any more, is it?

Hekate

[Zodiak]

28. Your ilk being called names is immaterial to your behavior

If you were upset about such things, then why promulgate it yourself?

I see nothing but vitriol and bad blood coming from the use of such terms on both sides.

[treestar]

38. So we are to just let them walk all over us

Call us names while we don't.

Funny now if the President is polite and doesn't just arrest all these bankers or yell at them, he's a corporatist or on their side or a friend of bankers or whatever.

[KansDem]

23. You're right! They should be called "wackaDUs"

Or, more precisely, "wackaDUers"...;)

[treestar]

37. And yet bank executives always lie!

[ima_sinnic]

42. you mean---you don't?

you think Obama really "gave the bankers a dressing down"??!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

21. No, they're not.

One goofball over in GD was demanding that Obama do this last week, now he's upset he's doing it this week.

[chimpymustgo]

5. I didn't think Obama was going to be able to keep a straight face during that interview. It's all

an act - and I thought his feigned outrage was clearly just that.

They're drinking champagne and eating caviar at the White House. And passing checks.

[FrenchieCat]

12. Hey, I Know!

Start a movement!
you can be the head of the propaganda unit......
put your cliches on signs,
and walk around with a revolutionary Tea Party outfit....

[chimpymustgo]

15. I'll leave to movement -replete with cliches - to you. I'd just like to see healthcare reform, jobs

and get our servicemen and women the fuck out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Oh yeah - and for Obama to quit making pretty speeches lying to us.

[FrenchieCat]

27. You are a terrible judge of character....

as for what you'd like to see,
it is happening right before your very eyes,
but the contempt that you have for this President,
are keeping you eyes shut tight.

Far as I'm concerned,
you'd fit right in with the baggers....
cause the one lying is the one making up shit up about this caviar and champagne nonsense....
and that ain't President Obama.

[chimpymustgo]

40. How typical and small of you to make the argument personal - and not about the considerable ISSUES

many of us are talking about.

What a pathetic, one-note song.

[Arkana]

39. You're right--he shouldn't talk to us at all. Fuck that Obummer jerkhole.

[Scarsdale Vibe]

24. You must be quite familiar with feigned outrage.

[dionysus]

29. wow, you thought was so clever you're recycling it...

:rofl:

[Teaser]

6. who cares?

I don't.

[Vinnie From Indy]

8. Until we see dozens of Wall Street fat cats beinig perp walked, it is all theater

It is quite an amazing thing that there have not been more folks going to jail for the crimes of Wall Street over the last decade.

As with all things, it is usually a better guide to judge folks based on their actions and not their words.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Who, exactly, should be doing the perp walk?

:shrug:

[Vinnie From Indy]

19. Good question!

I find it inconceivable that based on the scale of the financial disaster there would not be more than a few folks on Wall Street guilty of some criminal activity.

[alcibiades_mystery]

35. Oh

You find it inconceivable.

OK, then.

[Vinnie From Indy]

36. Good! Then we understand each other right?

If I feel it, it must correct. :)

[Scarsdale Vibe]

26. Subprime mortgages were legal, as were CDOs and Credit Default Swaps.

I'm sure there was some malfeasance somewhere that may have contributed .0001% to the financial collapse, but it was mostly perverse incentives, horrible risk management, and financial services being offered that nobody understood, but were "proven" safe by fatally flawed mathematical models. A more robust regulatory framework could have mitigated much of the damage, but the government (especially with Republican political appointees) had neither the power nor the motivation to do what needed to be done.

[Raine]

41. Yeah and that's something

we'll never see. :mad:

[Undercurrent]

9. Good lord...

Basing a dig at Obama on a banker's spin.

First it was msm blather, followed by Repug talking points, now bankers.

[Hekate]

25. I know. A lot of DUers fail to consider the source when bashing our Prez. What next? FR?

:argh:

[dionysus]

30. here's the rule; if it bashes obama, use it. next they'll be quoting karl rove with a straight

face.

oh man how pathetic it is...

:rofl:

[ima_sinnic]

43. oh yeah, that's right--I remember he last time Obama "got tough" with the bankers,

And the bankers laughed all the way to the bank.

But that's all right with you.

[phleshdef]

16. So NOW people are taking the words of a wall street banker as credible.

[Lord Helmet]

20. the faux outrage doesn't fuel itself ya know

[dionysus]

32. if only we could bottle and sell it... a fortune could be made...

[mkultra]

33. OBAMAZ A BANKER LOVER!!@!