If Wall Street has contributed four times as much to Romney as Obama, why wouldn’t they tank the market in the next three weeks in an effort to get their boy elected? He’s one of them. They have the super computers. They have the motive. They have poor earnings as an excuse. The market fell 205 points today. If they knocked another 10% off the market in the next three weeks, that might be enough to push Romney past Obama in the seven states that are in play.
Wall Street Showers Romney Campaign With Donations, Abandons Obama
In 2008 Obama had the backing of voters and Wall Street. Four years later, bankers are voting for Romney—with their checkbooks.
by Luke Kerr-Dineen |
By any measure, Wall Street has received a pretty sweet deal from Washington since the 2008 meltdown. Government rescue and bailout efforts halted the sickening market declines, defrosted the credit markets, and saved the largest banks. With a few exceptions, the Obama administration has tended to the financial industry with kid gloves. In fact, during the frenzied 2008 campaign, Wall Streeters generally favored Obama–Biden over McCain–Palin by a large margin. But Wall Street’s biggest investment firms have fallen decidedly out of love with the president since its flittering affair in 2008.
An article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal examines how Goldman Sachs, one of the Obama campaign’s biggest supporters in 2008, has broken with the incumbent.
In 2008 employees of the leading investment bank donated a little more than $1 million to Obama. That was more than four times the sum they gave to John McCain, and it made Goldman, in effect, the second-largest donor to the Obama campaign. But so far in the 2012 cycle, theJournal reports, Goldman employees have chipped in a paltry $136,000 to the incumbent, and have donated nearly $900,000 to the Romney campaign.
Another notable exception is JPMorgan Chase & Co. Employees of the megabank contributed $808,799 to the Obama campaign. So far this cycle, however, they’ve donated $663,219 to the Romney campaign. CEO Jamie Dimon may have once been tight with President Obama. But his employees are much tighter with Romney now. Among corporations, only the employees of Goldman Sachs and Bank of America have given more to Romney, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Daily Beast looked at some of the biggest players back in August, and in all it amounts to a major trend.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, through October 1 the securities and investment industry overall gave about $4 million to the president in this cycle. (By contrast, in 2008 the industry gave Obama $15.8 million.) Through October 1, the same industry has given more than $16 million to Mitt Romney’s campaign.
What accounts for the shift? Several factors.
Wall Streeters are angry. They’re angry in large measure because their bonuses have fallen sharply since the 2008 financial crisis, and because their business models no longer work as they did during the boom years. Investment banks have been forced to reduce the amount of leverage they use, and that has impacted the firms’ profits. Compensation is expected to be down this year,, which makes Wall Streeters grumpy.
Since the financial system nearly bankrupted the country, Wall Street firms have also been subject to more regulation. And that ticks bankers off too. Dodd-Frank—which in some cases force banks to set aside capital to offset possible losses—remains grossly unpopular on Wall Street. The Volcker Rule, one of the more controversial measures of the Dodd-Frank bill that went into effect over the summer, prohibits investment banks from running internal hedge funds and conducting proprietary trading. And as the Journal notes, this has harmed a once-lucrative part of Goldman’s business. In July JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon called the rule “unnecessary” in his testimony to the Senate Banking Committee.
Part of the support of Wall Street for Romney can be chalked up to what Romney stands for, and who he is.
There are also inclinations that Wall Street is just sick of being the target of the president’s occasional attacks. Obama’s references to “fat-cat bankers” apparently rattled Goldman execs. Hedge-fund manager Leon Cooperman accused the president of waging “class warfare” in an open letter published last year (PDF). Some conservatives point to Obama’s pandering to the Occupy Wall Street crowd as evidence for his dislike of the industry. Perhaps the most famous instance of this came in a 2011 speech, where the he told protestors: “you are the reason I ran for office.” And Obama has consistently argued for higher taxes on high-earning Americans—like investment bankers.
Of course, it’s not just about what Obama has said and done. Part of the support of Wall Street for Romney can be chalked up to what Romney stands for, and who he is. Romney has pledged to do away with what he calls the “excessive regulations” that Obama has enacted. He’s pledged to keep the Bush tax cuts intact, and to enact new ones. And while he spent most of his professional career in Massachusetts, Romney, as a private-equity titan, was very much a part of the large Wall Street ecosystem.
Thanks to early voting, individual citizens can cast their preferences for president long before the polls open in November. Campaign donations allow Wall Streeters to do the same. And this year they’re voting for Romney.
ImNotARobot says:
I hope so! When the price of silver and gold go down, BTFD! (Buy The F’ing Dip)
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19th October 2012 at 4:57 pm
FT says:
re: Obama’s so-called attacks on Wall Street and “support” of Occupy: just lip service, nothing more. Actions haven’t matched the words and never will.
With Geitner and Holder still around, who can think for one second that Obama is going to “rein in the excesses of Wall Street”?
A slap on the wrist in the “mortgage settlement” that guaranteed immunity from prosecution for a $700 billion plus heist (and a fine of roughly 3 percent of the profits), Corzine walking around free and immune from prosecution, and a Dodd-Frank bill practically written by the banks (and therefore toothless). What exactly is there to be mad about?
“He’s going to get tough on Wall Street in a 2nd term”. Yeah, right. He was also going to let the Patriot Act expire and close Gitmo too. Words whisper, actions scream.
Article is bunk. One set of owners, two candidates. They don’t care which figurehead wins.
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19th October 2012 at 5:57 pm
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
If you are in stocks/equities – get OUT. Just sit in cash for several weeks. The DOW is pretty much back to where it was at the 2008 crash.
If Obama, may peace be upon him, wins, the market will TANK as the big boys have zero confidence in him and want him to have an EPIC FAIL. Note the insiders going for the exits right now.
If Romney wins, confidence will return, as well as $1 trillion dollars in overseas earnings and we might get a reprieve. The WS Insiders will leap back into the markets, the Dow/ S & P will go beserk, gold/silver will dive.
Or we might just all go splat on the fiscal cliff no matter who wins.
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19th October 2012 at 5:58 pm
FT says:
“Or we might just all go splat on the fiscal cliff no matter who wins.”
This.
If anything I would think this article is a subversive attempt to help Obama by the writer.
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19th October 2012 at 6:02 pm
Pirate Laddie says:
WS to BHO: “Yeah, but what have you done for me lately?”
Bottom line is that the oligarchs, roughly represented by the financial sector and related vampire cockroaches, really don’t cotton to a figurehead like Obama. They much prefer someone who knows the rules of skinning the marks — that would be good ol’ Mitt. Fold in the sour relations between Obama and the Zionists & you’ve got a market freefall on your hands.
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19th October 2012 at 6:33 pm
Davel says:
Jim: Do you think the corporations are all cooking their books?
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19th October 2012 at 6:37 pm
Stucky says:
When it comes to piling on horseshit ………. Wall Stret is NO match for the BLS.
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19th October 2012 at 6:59 pm
Stan says:
I doubt it. The day of the election, nov 6, the Dow will be 13,555.
Things will remain steady till after Obama is re-elected. Wall Street loves Obama. He spends!
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19th October 2012 at 7:37 pm
Administrator says:
DaveL
I don’t believe all corporations are cooking their books. Financial companies are able to fake their earnings to a much larger extent than a manufacturer or retailer.
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19th October 2012 at 8:06 pm
Eddie says:
Interesting thought question, this.
I guess I expect Obama to be able to have enough influence with those in his cabinet and his Fed Chairman to keep the market up until after the election. He is the President, and Romney is just a retired rich guy right now.
The President, although he appears to be a wiling tool of the banks, could fuck them up good if he grew a pair, and decided to turn on them. He will be President for months regardless of who wins.
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19th October 2012 at 8:16 pm
Colma Rising says:
IS WALL STREET GOING TO TANK THE MARKET IN THE NEXT THREE WEEKS TO HELP ROMNEY WIN?
Fuuuuuuuuck no. Here’s why, and the logic is sound:
Wall street hates poor people who keep their savings mostly liquid.
As a net saver and wage earner, all that a crash would do is help me.
I’m poor.
Therefor Wall Street would never purposefully love and help me.
Never.
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19th October 2012 at 10:01 pm
Ron says:
I guess it depends who they want as the next president.Who well work with the banks and make them the most money.This economy dosent seem like a money maker to me.I want some change.The Rich white guy,who has worked for a living.
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19th October 2012 at 10:18 pm
TeresaE says:
The wheels are coming off the bus no matter what.
All the “indicators” are broken, bogus, baffled; anyone that believes the underlying economy is strong enough to support these market numbers is delusional.
The fiscal cliff looms AND the profit margins based on the blood of the laid off, shut down, off shored, is coming to an end. Not to mention that O’s public spending binge is winding down. And that is only a few of our domestic headwinds.
If Europe explodes (and it is barely hanging on to normalcy at this point) it will take our banks with it – if only temporarily – and the banks will do what they did in ’08. They will cut credit and recall small biz notes and effectively shut the entire country down as the reality of our credit fueled lives rears its head, again.
The market is oversold, the fundamentals week, the bullshit piled in drifts from sea to shining sea and the debts – public, private, not counted – have reached the level of un-sustainability.
In my opinion the market may intentionally go lower before November, but in the end it won’t fucking matter anyway.
I hope I’m wrong. I so hope I’m wrong.
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19th October 2012 at 11:00 am
AWD says:
I wonder if Romney will do anything with the deficit. We already know what Obama is going to do.
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19th October 2012 at 11:05 am
Muck About says:
@Colma: That’s for that “No” vote on a tank job.. You posted that just before a 200+ point DOW drop. Everything got caught in the down draft, even all my highly defensive stocks (except for SH and PSQ which held things up pretty good.
My MRO says intermediate term weakness – still a long term bull….. That could change, of course, but I’m willing to be that Monday, Bendover Bennie will do something stupid and the hard investments will benefit by the middle of the week. They tend to get sucked into these downdrafts as everyone tries to get out the door at the same time. Then bargain hunters and those in the know go in and scoop up the golds and silvers and they recover quicker than the general markets.
Seen it over and over. Keep your powder dry.
My current positions: TBF (a bunch), PSLV, PHYS, PRPFX, PSQ, SH and c-a-s-h……TBF and TBX will benefit whatever Bennie does.
MA
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19th October 2012 at 11:22 am
ron says:
I watched a movie,2016.At the end the thinking about the debt and what Obama seems to be doing is scary.Check it out. Knothing like having a president who dosent like the usa.
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19th October 2012 at 1:36 pm
Colma Rising says:
Count Muckula:
I had a feeling that I should look at this thread.
A little more dollar strength was what Friday was, and I expect it to receive a little more when Europe eats the bag of shit it’s been begging to…. Then it’s sell sh for a load of tbf/tbx.
I’m moving to a new trade platform tonight. >>>The ad to the right>>>>
Fuck Citi/ING.
If Chuckles’ bank folds with my loot, at least I can call him a douchebag and give him the finger. Until then, I think my spec fund…. as tiny as it is, will be parked ther>>>ad to the right>>>>
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19th October 2012 at 4:11 pm
AKAnon says:
Is it not true that the Insiders have been selling like hotcakes? If so, what is their personal exposure to deliberately “taking a dive”? Which would then lead to a buying opportunity at corrected prices, right? If this helps push “your (new) guy” into the WH, what’s not to like? I’m not very market savvy, nor am I an evil, devious fuck, so deliberately screwing your own industry is not something I would come up with. But I can understand the attraction to the sociopaths on Wallstreet.
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19th October 2012 at 4:30 pm