WATCH: HuffPost's Roy Sekoff On Massive Bank Bonuses: White House Continues To Coddle Wall St

HuffPost Editor Roy Sekoff appeared on MSNBC's The Ed Show tonight to discuss new financial reform legislation in Congress as well as the fate of the House health care reform bill as it enters the Senate.

Sekoff agreed with Schultz that the White House is still not being tough enough with Wall Street:

The bottom line is that we gave trillions of dollars, what amounts to trillions of dollars, to Wall Street and asked very little in return and the White House is still coddling them. It was just the other day when Tim Geithner said we weren't going to let them go back to business as usual. Well, as you point out, there's been a 60 percent increase in bonuses - it's not business as usual, it's better than ever for them.

Chris Dodd is, however, doing the right thing in "swinging for the fences" with his financial reform legislation, Sekoff said, because the Democrats gave too much away in the beginning of the health care debate and ended up with a weaker bill than they wanted.

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Comments

[kkrimmer]

Wealth Gap Is Increasing, Study Shows

The rich really are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, a new University of Michigan study shows. Rising inequality isn't new. The gap between rich and poor started growing before Ronald Reagan took office, and it continued to widen through the Clinton years.

But what happened under Bush is something entirely unprecedented: For the first time in our history, so much growth is being siphoned off to a small, wealthy minority that most Americans are failing to gain ground even during a time of economic growth -- and they know it. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070807171936.htm

(if you've not seen Moore's film on Capitalism you should, it's not favoring Dems or Reps, it's shining a light on the darkness of both).

[kkrimmer]

When are Americans going to have the courage to stand up to the govt? It would take massive strikes, everyone staying home, closing as many businesses as possible. But Americans are too comfortable, or I should say not uncomfortable enough to take action. We can get scrwed over and over and over and over and still take it. It's been going on forever... in my lifetime it started with the S&L disaster in the 80s (cost $450Billion = $700Billion today). Who made out? The banks and wall st.

[Agent420]

The beginning of the end for the people was when corporations were formed and the last nail in the coffin was when corps. got made into legal persons.

[canadiansoccermom]

You are right. Can it be reversed?

[Bernique]

That legal anomaly is about to be overturned by our wise and benevolent Supreme Court, Agent. (with sarcasm)

[quantumspin]

Democrats coddle the banks and the Street and corporate money and power just as the GOP does, so this is not a 'which party?' issue. It is a systemic problem----both parties are bought and give their fealty to where the money comes from, NOT the voters, not the Constitution.

My view is that Congress is a board of directors of corporate, banking, and Street power, the president (White House) is the CEO, and Americans are just viewed as low level employees with no power---worse than when stockholders try to change things.

My view also is that we no longer have representative government as posited by the Constitution. We have a corporate and banking run state, which is a boutique nation for the elite, and a rough, locked down virtual police state for the rest of us. (if you are unemployed and owe IRS, they will STILL levy and seize your property and account---but Treasury hands trillions to the banks with no penalties)

Switching from Dem to GOP is not going to solve this dire problem.

[ISOLEP]

All we the people did was CHANGE SEATS ON THE TITANIC

[Dreamwalker420]

I would only add that Wall Street got ALL the lifeboats.

[Agent420]

Good post.

We need an nation wide strike.

[myarmsaregreen]

More Big Banks brought to you by the goobermint. The same crowd that has made a ponzi scheme and bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, created the housing bubble and continues to cozy up to the Wall Street thieves.

Hey, lets let em create a health care system!!

rothflmao.

[conservative-mindset]

I'm a conservative who believes strongly in the free-market system but things in America have GOT to change. I'm sick and tired of these large corporations and Wall Street execs buying our representatives, that's not what we elected them for. Wall Street was out of control under Bush and it's just the same old same old under Obama. Things have got to change. What audacity for these Wall Street execs to hand out bilions in bonuses with our hard earned tax paying dollar. the days of TOO BIG TO FAIL must end.

I was late on a Credit Card payment by one day and B OF A raised my APR from 14% to 30%... if that's not extortion I don't know what is.

[holeybuybull]

I think that's called usury, and it's legal thanks to our "elected representatives".

[lastep]

it's not republican versus democrat..­..........­.........i­t is masters of the universe against the masses. They get who they want elected by fooling us with mass media. They control us into thinking what they want us to think with propaganda so subtle we cannot see it.

[HenryGuo]

What people need are food, clothes, houses, cars, and entertainment. What these Wall Street big guys do is far above people’s need. Many of them are contributing nothing valuable to the society except making tons of money.
(henryguo2­[e-mail]­t)

[Carl Caroli]

Every one of our politicians owes their election to the campaign contributions of Wall St., the banks, the insurance companies, the energy companies, the drug companies, ..... Until we break that dependence, once elected, these politicians will never bite the hands that feed them. It's that simple.

[rmonroe]

How do we do that? They make the rules, and they like it that way.

[Tierra]

I'm going to need a 5 million dollar bail out and a 2 million dollar golden parachute....and fairly soon.

Funny.....somehow I think I'm TOO BIG TO FAIL.

[Tierra]

I am outraged.

First by Wall Street gambling and Bankster theft.

Second, and more so, by the complete unwillingness of the Obama Administration to correct the course.

Throw the Bums Out? Ain't going to happen, because they are all bums.

Campaign finance reform NOW.

[Harvee Wallbanger]

60% increase! This is outrageous! After what these scalliwags did to the economy, they should all get a 60% decrease.

[CarloP]

But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

By the way - what is Obama doing for the poor of all colours. Sad really - the poor gave him their coins and he exchanged it for the dollars of Wall St.

[hglindquist]

The Obama administration is not going curb the financial services sector's excesses. They front for them.

It should be clear by now that we do not have a political party that represents the interest of labor ... and "labor" is NOT synonymous with "union" as in "labor union" ... IMHO.

History is the story of political/economic structures (and belief systems to support those structures) that siphon off the wealth created by labor by an elite: slavery, feudalism, fascism. As an aside, Hitler's contribution was to convince a whole ehnic group that they were "the elite" and could live off the labor of "lesser peoples."

The current elite -- the financial services sector's gurus -- siphon the wealth through forward-leaning instruments of debt. They use our money to create these instruments at obscene multiples called leverage, thereby tightening the stranglehold on future earnings. If they had to suffer the consequences of their actions in creating an unsustainable debt-hold into the future, they might not do it ... but there is the point that the individual guru (banker) can get his/her money up front in pay and bonuses, no matter what the future to the "bank" ... and then when we, the taxpayer/worker, turn around and bail the bank out for ripping us off ... well, it's absurd on the face of it, don't you think?

The Obama administration is the fox in the hen house ... clearly.

[flyers]

I thought the democrats would crack down on Wall Street, but it is the same old story: Politicans help the big guy while the little guy gets screwed. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!" The Who were right!