You know, the other day, when I remarked that Politico's story "Obama and Wall St.: Still Venus and Mars" was "another piece in a continuing series" of "Wall Street people whining about all those times White House higher-ups have ever-so-mildly allowed certain language to slip from their larynxes that makes the financial industry out to be some kind of villain for that time its over-leveraged, incompetent speculation led to the near-collapse of the entire economy and required taxpayers to shovel untold billions of dollars at too-big-to-fail banks so that they could survive," I wasn't kidding. And yesterday, The New Republic's Jonathan Chait was having the same thought:
It seems to me as if the hurt feelings of this tiny (albeit very rich) segment of society has received enormous attention in the media. After all, there are a lot of groups in this country at least as numerous as CEOs and with no less cause for grievance, and yet we hear about their wounded egos far less often.
I asked intrepid Reporter-Researcher James Downie to tabulate how many times Politico alone has run some version of the "business upset at Obama" story.
Then [sic] answer turns out to be, a lot of times.
A whole lot of times, actually. Going back to February of 2009, Downie found 28 separate articles in this vein -- 19 in 2010 alone. And because the TNR search was confined to reported pieces, this does not even include Roger Simon's hysterical "leave Britney alone" column on how sad it made him to see people fighting class warfare, just because wages are stagnant and upward mobility has slowed to a halt and income inequity is at historic highs.
Please click on over to see Chait and Downie's wonderful listicle. For my part, I'd like to take a moment to pay tribute to all of the people who complained about how sad the White House was making them over that time they nearly wrecked the economy in 2010, some of whom even saw fit to sign their names to their remarks.
(For best results, cue up this tune before continuing.)
Anonymous Banker
Anonymous Bank Lobbyist
Anonymous Top Business Lobbyist
Anonymous corporate lobbyist
Anonymous Corporate Representative
Anonymous Executive
Anonymous Executive At A Top Bank
Anonymous Financial Executive
Another Anonymous Financial Executive
Still Another Anonymous Financial Executive
Anonymous Financial Industry Lobbyist
Another Anonymous Financial Industry Lobbyist
Anonymous Lobbyist For A Giant Wall Street Bank
Anonymous Lobbyist For One Of The Top Five Wall Street Banks
Anonymous official At A Large Bank
Anonymous Senior Banker Who Is Deeply Plugged Into Washington
Anonymous Senior Executive At A Wall Street Bank
Another Anonymous Senior Executive At A Wall Street Bank
Or Maybe This Is Just The Same Anonymous Senior Executive At A Wall Street Bank, Who Knows?
Anonymous Senior Industry Official
Anonymous Senior Private Equity Executive
Anonymous Senior Wall Street Lobbyist
Anonymous Source Familiar With Discussions
Anonymous Sources At AHIP
Anonymous Sources At Goldman Sachs
Anonymous Wall Street Executive
Another Anonymous Wall Street Executive
Anonymous Wall Street Lobbyist
Robert Daleo, CEO, Thomson Reuters
Tom Donohue, President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Tita Freeman, spokesperson, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Jeffrey Garten, Dean of the Yale School of Management, "Body Language" Analysis Hobbyist
Brad Hintz, former Lehman CFO, analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein
Jeffrey Immelt, chairman/CEO, General Electric
Insiders Familiar With Internal Discussions
Bruce Josten, lobbyist, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Karen Klugh, spokeswoman, American Financial Services Administration
Nancy McLemon, president, Organization for International Investment
Bill Miller, senior vice president for Political Affairs & Federation Relations, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Roger Nicholson, Senior Vice President, International Coal Group
Other Executives
Other Industry Officials
Other Major Corporate Titans
Martin Regalia, chief economist, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Joanna Schneider, executive director for external affairs, Business Roundtable
Ivan Seidenberg, Chief Executive, Verizon Communications (ALSO)
Scott Shay, chairman, Signature Bank
Several Financial Industry Insiders
Some Corporate Leaders
Some On Wall Street
Some More On Wall Street
Some Other People On Wall Street
Wall Street Executives
More Wall Street Executives
Even Better Wall Street executives
The Rest Of The Wall Street Executives
Wall Street Officials
Wall Street's Top Political Players
Christopher Whalen, investment banker, author and cofounder of Institutional Risk Analytics
Mort Zuckerman, billionaire complainer
They came, they saw, they whined -- and in an amazingly profitable year, at that! God only knows how bad things will get if things actually start going badly for Wall Street.
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