Krugman: Egos and Immorality

After reading this op-ed by Paul Krugman, the fuzzy picture is clearing up.  I cannot believe the way people from Wall Street to K Street along with inside the beltway types have turning into pretzels to support Romney.  We are getting smoke and mirrors out of those folks not real facts.  No wonder they don't want anyone to go after Romney on Bain Capital or the deck of cards could come crumbling down.  Romney has lied about jobs he created and is a vulture capitalist not a venture capitalist.  If you want jobs sent overseas and businesses raided for money and then shut down, then call Mitt Romney.

Actually, before I get to that, let me take a moment to debunk a fairy tale that we’ve been hearing a lot from Wall Street and its reliable defenders — a tale in which the incredible damage runaway finance inflicted on the U.S. economy gets flushed down the memory hole, and financiers instead become the heroes who saved America.  

Once upon a time, this fairy tale tells us, America was a land of lazy managers and slacker workers. Productivity languished, and American industry was fading away in the face of foreign competition. 

Then square-jawed, tough-minded buyout kings like Mitt Romney and the fictional Gordon Gekko came to the rescue, imposing financial and work discipline. Sure, some people didn’t like it, and, sure, they made a lot of money for themselves along the way. But the result was a great economic revival, whose benefits trickled down to everyone. 

You can see why Wall Street likes this story. But none of it — except the bit about the Gekkos and the Romneys making lots of money — is true. 

The cracks are starting to show in the Romney ship as more and more people begin to take a hard look at his story which turns out is more about being the son of the privileged then becoming successful from hard work.  He dodged the draft with the help of the Mormon Church to go to France and avoid the military while he was a vocal supporter of the draft.  That should tell you all you need to know about the character of Mitt Romney or should I say lack of character.  He touts him and his family as this perfect family but not him or one of his kids has served in the military or wanted for anything in their life.  He went to a private school for the privileged which is probably why he doesn't care about classroom size for those who cannot afford a private school.  More on his education agenda next week.  Suffice it to say I don't agree with much of his education platform as he short changes public schools.

When Obama dared to criticize Wall Street for their practices, many of them threw him under the bus including Mayor Booker of Newark, New Jersey, who some conservatives touted.  Will they read Krugman's article and admit the reason the Mayor got mad at Obama going after Bain?  He is a puppet for Wall Street it seems.  Today it is bad form for so-called conservatives to tell the truth when it comes to Obama or especially Romney.  They have turned Romney into something he is not as his handlers try to  make him look conservative and a successful businessman.  Guess being a MA liberal and a vulture capitalist  doesn't fir their narrative even though it is closer to the truth.  What is sacrificing a little truth when you are trying to buy the Presidency?

Personally I would like to see some of these arrogant Wall Street white guys have to face the music for what they have done to the people of  this Country with their selfishness and greed that has led to our tanked economy.  Some people will never recover while the fat cats of Wall Street get their million dollar bonuses when they should be in the unemployment line.  The fact that Romney has off shore accounts and pays only 15% income taxes make him the poster boy for Wall Street because they don't want to pay their fair share as they want to be like Romney.  They are attempting to buy this election and it is going to be up to the American people to get the truth out about Mitt Romney because you cannot expect the conservative media to tell the truth who are in bed with him.

Finally Krugman is saying what a lot of people I know have been saying about Wall Street.  Guess they expect us to have amnesia about their culpability in the financial crises while many of them got richer while the rest of us were shafted.  This article is very good and explains how out of touch the wealthy from Wall Street have become with ordinary Americans who are not millionaires or billionaires.  We have elite now from both parties I wouldn't give you two cents for right now.

Op-Ed Columnist 

Egos and Immorality

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 24, 2012 

In the wake of a devastating financial crisis, President Obama has enacted some modest and obviously needed regulation; he has proposed closing a few outrageous tax loopholes; and he has suggested that Mitt Romney’s history of buying and selling companies, often firing workers and gutting their pensions along the way, doesn’t make him the right man to run America’s economy.   

Wall Street has responded — predictably, I suppose — by whining and throwing temper tantrums. And it has, in a way, been funny to see how childish and thin-skinned the Masters of the Universe turn out to be. Remember when Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group compared a proposal to limit his tax breaks to Hitler’s invasion of Poland? Remember when Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase characterized any discussion of income inequality as an attack on the very notion of success?

But here’s the thing: If Wall Streeters are spoiled brats, they are spoiled brats with immense power and wealth at their disposal. And what they’re trying to do with that power and wealth right now is buy themselves not just policies that serve their interests, but immunity from criticism.   

(snip)

For the alleged productivity surge never actually happened. In fact, overall business productivity in America grew faster in the postwar generation, an era in which banks were tightly regulated and private equity barely existed, than it has since our political system decided that greed was good.  

What about international competition? We now think of America as a nation doomed to perpetual trade deficits, but it was not always thus. From the 1950s through the 1970s, we generally had more or less balanced trade, exporting about as much as we imported. The big trade deficits only started in the Reagan years, that is, during the era of runaway finance.

And what about that trickle-down? It never took place. There have been significant productivity gains these past three decades, although not on the scale that Wall Street’s self-serving legend would have you believe. However, only a small part of those gains got passed on to American workers. 

So, no, financial wheeling and dealing did not do wonders for the American economy, and there are real questions about why, exactly, the wheeler-dealers have made so much money while generating such dubious results. 

Those are, however, questions that the wheeler-dealers don’t want asked — and not, I think, just because they want to defend their tax breaks and other privileges. It’s also an ego thing. 

Vast wealth isn’t enough; they want deference, too, and they’re doing their best to buy it. It has been amazing to read about erstwhile Democrats on Wall Street going all in for Mitt Romney, not because they believe that he has good policy ideas, but because they’re taking President Obama’s very mild criticism of financial excesses as a personal insult.

And it has been especially sad to see some Democratic politicians with ties to Wall Street, like Newark’s mayor, Cory Booker, dutifully rise to the defense of their friends’ surprisingly fragile egos. 

As I said at the beginning, in a way Wall Street’s self-centered, self-absorbed behavior has been kind of funny. But while this behavior may be funny, it is also deeply immoral. 

Think about where we are right now, in the fifth year of a slump brought on by irresponsible bankers. The bankers themselves have been bailed out, but the rest of the nation continues to suffer terribly, with long-term unemployment still at levels not seen since the Great Depression, with a whole cohort of young Americans graduating into an abysmal job market. 

And in the midst of this national nightmare, all too many members of the economic elite seem mainly concerned with the way the president apparently hurt their feelings. That isn’t funny. It’s shameful. 

 Read More from Paul Krugman at the New York Times  

If this articles doesn't make your blood boil at the elites on Wall Street, then you are swallowing what the Wall Street and K Street elites want you to swallow about Romney.  When the Country is in the fifth year of a slump brought on by the irresponsible bankers, how can it all be Obama's fault?  If Romney is elected we will have a President whose aim is to take care of his Wall Street buddies not Main Street IMHO!