Wall Street Brokers Hold Political Rally to Save Status Quo

Naa, naa, na-nanya, fat cat banksters . . .

They just don't get it do they?

Much of the failures of our economic system are the direct result of activities of banks and broker dealers over the past ten years. When the mother of all cluster trades failed, middle america bailed them out.

Then they take all of the bail out money as personal compensation and claim they earned it.

The "wealth" which they claimed as been generated due to their efforts - for the most part - no longer exists for the clients they served. That and we are facing continued uncertainty as the one main driver of the economy - employment - is still far too low for our good.

Meanwhile, they have jobs, still experiencing life as it once was and care not a wit that unemployment is over 10% and many, many people are in such trouble that they may never recover.

No sympathy. At all. Looking forward to the continued modern day tar and feathering of the old time banking industry. And I'm done trying to explain this to them.

A lot of these Wall St idiots are liberal democrats who supported Obama. They made a bargain with the socialist devil when they took the bail out money. I have little sympathy for these fools.

Who is opposing any regulation and actually promoting the rule of a failed status quo, republicans!

Wait what?! You'd be surprised at the political affiliation of many Wall Street bankers. Believe me, if a Republican was in the White House, you wouldn't be hearing of as many ideas to penalize the banking industry as you have already heard from Obama.

In Brooklyn, we "tax" these folks.

I think it's time for me and my friends to put some extra flavoring in some food.

Thanks for the warning.

Waiter, I'll pass on the soup!

we're also bartenders. love them gurls.

They are worried because their fucking jobs are being outsourced to India. It is cold out there today

make no mistake, the bonuses the executives make is the booty for outsourcing regular peoples jobs.

when the CEO of Citibank makes 30 million dollars its directly related to the 1000 people they fired in the US to move their jobs overseas. Its sickening how rampant this is. Its sickening the rich feel the poor should suck it up while they're gutting our country for a fast buck.

http://slashdot.org/story/09/08/22/1825208/IBM-Other-Multinationals-Detaching-From-the-US

"If you're brilliant, work really hard, and earn a world-class doctorate from a US university, IBM has a job for you at one of its US research sites — as a 'complementary worker' (as this 1996 piece defined the then-emerging term). But be prepared to ship out to India or China after you've soaked up knowledge for 13 months as a 'long-term supplemental worker.' Newsweek sketches some of the bigger picture, reporting that IBM, HP, Accenture, and others are finding it profitable to detach from the United States (even patenting the process). 'IBM is one of the multinationals that propelled America to the apex of its power, and it is now emblematic of the process of creative destruction pushing America to a new, less dominant, and less comfortable position.'"

Your comments about the rich benefitting unfairly from being born in the USA applies to all Americans, unfortunately. Sorry - the average American isn't entitled to being fat, stupid, lazy AND having a high paying job just because their American. Nor is the average Indian or Chinese destined to be poor because they were born in the wrong country.

whats your point?

americans are fat and lazy? Is that why we can't have healthcare? is thats why our ancestors worked hard, so that we can sacrifice their progress and compete like people in the 3rd world.

thats the choice. does america want to be 'socialist' like scandanavia..where wealth is spread around and people have healthcare, and a stable life or do we want to keep transferring the wealth to the rich and live like like a developing nation... Thats my point. Whats your point?

I would probably stop wasting my breath if I were you. It's pretty doubtful that you will convince anyone here that socialism and closed borders is the sure route to prosperity for the USA and it's not the forum for that discussion either.

The rich are just so smart, they deserve their money.

First they arrange to be born in the USA. Then they arrange to be born to wealthy people. Then they arrange for society to protect their property, while millions of people are using theirs jobs and homes. While thousands of others are losing their LIVES fighting wars so they can make more money.

Yeah, the rich deserve their money. They got money cause they're smarter than everyone else, right, its not like the system is favoring them.

course not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN6nNJvbw3k

If you dont want these scumbags to make money STOP PUTTING YOUR MONEY INTO YOUR BROKERAGE ACCOUNTS/401K/IRA. They can't make money if they dont have money to lose.

lol You'd think it would be that simple but its not. You have the option in moving your money into whatever funds you'd like in all of the plans you described, but the onus is on YOU to figure out where your investment would best serve you. That goes double for 401k.

McHale says that if anyone from the resentful rabble spent a week doing his job, that person would feel like "like a tired cat."

I love this. The disconnect from reality on Wall Street is amazing. He actually thinks no one else could do his job. It must be sooo super confusing and serious that we wouldn't even understand.

Attention Wall Street: Working full days on the phone, in meetings and in front of a computer is NOT working hard. Try visiting America to see what working hard really is.

I believe he works hard and is tired at the end of the week. But whether he works one hour or 100, he completely misses the point.

i love that cat picture

put some coke next to the cat, so we know is bankers we are talking about here, it would also update the iconic image.

I liked it the first 50 times.

Many Wall Street bankers financially supported and voted for Obama. Stop the game playing. Neither Obama nor Wall Street is interested in reform of the financial industry. It's all a charade.

Last night in SOTU, Obama talked about putting a fine on banks. Hey genius, who do you think will end up paying that fine? In the end, it will be the bank customer that assumes the cost.

He said a tax on large banks. There are a vast number of small and midsize banks and credit unions that customers can move their money to if they want to avoid paying it.

The free market does not guarantee social progress, only more money for the few on top.

8 years of sacking America's public money by republicans, and a failed capitalistic system are proof of the weaknesses of this lie of progress through values of rapacity.

Of course the bankers will try to stop decency and social consciousness, it all goes against their selfish values.

A trillion dollar federal budget that has huge entitlement programs and social programs and calls for more regulation is hardly a free market.

You're contending with state influence.

And what is your alternative? How dare a few at the top make money!

Do you by any chance own Apple products? Use Google?

Actually, I can't tell if you're being snarky. So, nevermind.

Calls for more regulation blah blah blah.

The lack of regulation led to this mess. Aight. Ya know, the trillions of dollars of liabilities on Banks Balance Sheets that weren't captured by the Regulatory Capital Requirements because of artful accounting and lobbying, which when went bad, took the entire US Economy with it. (Lehman was levered 60:1 ; you don't think regulation should've stepped in) And those same lobbyists are continuing to try to keep Derivatives from being regulated. So yes, you are a tool. You are doing the bidding of corporate banks when you put forth these purely empty points. We have 4 banks which have about 60% of the nations deposits. That's not cool. And that's not a free market. It's an oligopoly.

If you're gonna screed, use some specifics. Otherwise, you just sound like a right wing tool.

For example: "huge entitlement programs and social programs." Ok, provide examples and tell me why they're so bad.

Like, here's me being specific, you said," How dare a few at the top make money!" Ok, well, when $13Billion of compensation for Goldman comes by way of a Bailout of AIG, where Goldman was compensated 100 cents on the dollar for bad bets, then I'm going to complain, since they're not actually "making" that money. The TARP Inspector General faulted Geitner for not negotiating when bailing out AIG since the FED was the only entity able to bail out AIG and the banks for which AIG was a pass through entity (Goldman et. al.)

Banks are supposed to make money by efficiently allocating capital to the most productive commercial endeavours. If they do that well, let them be compensated well. When they make their fortunes on proprietary trading (which is how Goldman made the bulk of it's net income in FY 2009, notwithstanding the AIG payoff), then they are gambling, and there is a loser on the other side of the trade. If banks want to make money that way, fabulous scrooge McDuck money that way, fine by me, but when they're using Fed Taxpayer funds and/or if the funds they are using are insured by the Fed Taxpayers, then that's f--ked up and wrong and deserving of our criticism.

AND

It's the worst recession in thirty years, maybe since the Great Depression. So f-ck them. The Bronx has the highest percentage of people who struggle to find enough food to eat to survive in the US. I'll save my sympathy for those people.

tl;dr

Well I read most of it, but I'm not going to write a dissertation on Gothamist.

(Lehman was levered 60:1 ; you don't think regulation should've stepped in)

What enabled 60:1? Wasn't it the easy money from the Fed?

And weren't the 1% interest rates driven by political causes? The drive from Clinton and Bush to put minorities into homes; Fannie; Freddie; Ginnie.

For example: "huge entitlement programs and social programs." Ok, provide examples and tell me why they're so bad.

In regards to the rest you wrote...yes I was being snarky. We're in agreement.

Thanks for bringing up specifics.

Lehman, for example, was able to lever 60:1 NOT directly because of "easy money" from the Feds. The low interest rates didn't help. The money came from private sources. Lehman was able to lever 60:1 and avoid regulatory capital regulations because of gimmicks. Like, treating Commercial Mortgage Securities as if they were as safe as Cash (or 80% safe as cash, I forget the exact regulations) is a massive loophole (which the Bank lobbyists lobbied for, and continue to lobby for to maintain). And because of such loopholes, the banks were able to borrow even more, using the shit mortgages as security. That's why everyone is apeshit crazy at the Bond rating agencies, b/c, they rated this shit as AAA, which allowed banks to borrow even more, and the Rating Agencies are Paid by the Banks who's products they rate, which is a massive conflict of interest.

I don't think the federal government can be successful with any social program, so I'm not going to waste time here debating that with you.

Wait, people still think this is a free-market system and a true capitalist society? Really?

We haven't been functioning under a capitalistic system. If we had those bankers would be out of a job and feeling the financial pressures many of us are feeling. They've managed to rig the system in their favor.

what you mean is that, taxpayers money is financing LOSES of corporations by keeping the big suits in their jobs and their bonuses, while the fall of the free market is taken by the workers through massive unemployment: Socialism for the RICH and capitalism for the POOR.

And to think that last week's Supreme Court decision in the case Citizens United vs. FEC overturned over a century of precedent and opened the floodgates for unlimited amounts of corporate money to flow into our political system. Shockingly, the court's decision may even allow foreign corporations and large multinationals to manipulate our elections.

Corporate power runs deep in this country, so deep they get away with abuses of ALL sorts, and those that dare to oppose this power are victims of all sorts of manipulations and opposition, their most visible hand being many congressmen. Awareness is the first step to resist this evil.

Mr. Burns: Here we go with the fat-cat bashing.

Monopoly Guy: Well, what do you expect? These yokels are pure Baltic Avenue.

Is this a joke?

When bankers work overtime, company-paid limos wheel them home.

When most of us work overtime, we pay for our own taxi or subway ride.

That's the difference. Bankers feel entitled to job perks. Most of us feel blessed for just having a job.

I wouldnt call them Limos, just car service. A lot of these people tend to work in places where the trains run very infrequently where it would take several hours for them to get home, so I can understand why they offer that as a perk. For the sake of appearances they HAVE cut down on them the past year or two.

And when your making high six figures, why not? Its a small expense when looking at their balance sheets.

1. I work next to Goldman. There is a line of black limos parked there all day long. They block is even zoned as a Taxi waiting area.

2. They tend to live far away? Huh? So?

They make big cash and not by "creating value," but by gambling with US Taxpayers dollars. They can handle the criticism.

Which one the new or the old building? The people at Goldman have to learn some discretion. No wonder they're everybody's favorite whipping boy. They constantly bring these things upon themselves, but once your hooked on a perk, its pretty difficult to say no.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that they're straight up gambling, and certainly not with Taxpayer dollars as they paid the TARP back pretty quickly. With gambling your taking a chance on the odds, what they're doing is hedging & managing their risks, which they've been doing very well throughout this recession. I can't blame them for being successful, but they should tone down on the flaunting. The media has to be blamed as well as a lot of whats happening is being taken out of context.

what do they create? tangibly what value do they add to society to justify the millions they make?

Investment services for corporate clients, merger consultations, securities, asset management, underwriting, prop trading & securities, etc etc etc. Its an investment bank and thats what they do. They are also the intermediaries of the economy, the deal makers. They create and manage wealth, not just for themselves, but for their clients. So in a sense the money they make can be justified, but its hard to take the high road about it. It is greed in a sense, but companies do need and use their services.

This nation's prosperity is based on its economic power, and they're just another cog in machine.

I appreciate your answer, but do you see how when you get away from mergers. ipo's. initial bond sales, at some point they're a simply siphoning off the top of people creating actual goods and not adding anything of value.

The current market to me to be far away from the long term ownership principals that used to be the basis of the stock market. People trade on volume, the trade on graphs, on momentum, they have computer programs that automatically trade based on all sorts of rules that have nothing to do with the individual company, nothing to do with being a shareholder, and the people in the middle, profiting from aren't making a damn thing.

Why should I respect that? Why as society should that man be rewarded with 20 million dollars a year when someone working to cure cancer is getting by on 5 figures?

It aint right, and no matter what Wall street thinks, its not entitled to the way things are. Soon enough people are going to wake up to that that fact.

I'll agree with you there. The computer models they have nowadays generate millions, all arising from the fact that, mathematically, the trends in the market can be predicted. (although, not all the time) The Financial and Law industries take so much talent that could be going to other, greater things that its sad. Thankfully we tax the hell out of their earnings (though sometimes I feel as if its not taxed enough.)

But you want to tax them just enough for them to stay in NYC, but not too much so they'll leave to find a more competitive market.

Take the subway and LIRR or MNRR like everyone else does with a long commute.

tend to live I mean...

Gothamist, Next time tell us the day BEFORE the rally. That way we can go long on tar and feather futures!