Wall Street bigwigs complain Obama not letting them rule America by oligarchic fiat

By Michael J.W. Stickings

If it weren't so goddamn annoying (and harmful), it'd be amusing listening to mega-rich bankers complain about President Obama.

As if he's done nothing to help them -- remember that bailout despised by both left and right?

But this is the sort of ridiculous thing you get from these ungrateful jackasses, raking in billions as they have their jackboots planted firmly on the necks of Americans, crushing them into debt-fueled submission. Here's the latest weeping, via Politico (which of course plays right along):

On the mental list of slights and outrages that just about every major figure on Wall Street is believed to keep on President Barack Obama, add this one: When he met recently with a group of CEOs at Blair House, there was no representative from any of the six biggest banks in America.

Not one!

"If they don't hate us anymore, why weren't any of us there?" a senior executive at one of the Big Six banks said recently in trying to explain his hostility toward the president.

"It's not so much just this one thing," he said. "Who cares about one event? It's just the pattern where they tell you things are going to change, that they appreciate what we do, that capital markets are important, but then the actions are different and they continue to want to score political points on us."

Still, the executive understands that it makes political sense for the White House to stiff-arm Wall Street, if not bash it with a massive sledge hammer.

After all, polls suggest most Americans believe Obama has handled the titans of Wall Street with an exceedingly light touch. He supported the deeply unpopular $700-billion bank bailout, pushed a financial reform package that stopped short of breaking up the biggest behemoths and, just this month, signed off on tax cuts for the wealthiest and continued low rates on capital gains and dividends.

And, of course, big-time bonuses at bailed-out banks are back, even as average Americans continue to get tossed out of their homes, corporate America has turned in its most profitable quarter in history and the stock market is at a two-year high.

First, are these bankers really that thin-skinned? Apparently so, and it's pretty pathetic. (Not one! Boo-fucking-hoo.)

Second, it's not just what the polls are saying, Obama has been soft on Wall Street, refusing to hold the big investment banks responsible for the havoc they wreaked on the economy -- and on the lives they destroyed.

Third, at this time of ongoing economic uncertainty (and, for many, crisis, if not disaster), the banks and those who run them are doing exceptionally well. These bankers complain when the president doesn't invite them to a meeting (like this is high school or something), but it's not like they have to worry about putting food on the table, paying the bills, and caring for their children.

Seriously, what the fuck? When has Obama ever said, or suggested, or implied, or hinted, that capital market aren't important? He hasn't even really played the anti-Wall Street populist card. Remember, it was the GOP, backed by the Tea Party, that went all populist this year, albeit from a right-wing, anti-tax, anti-government perspective. It was Republicans who went after the "elite," including positioning themselves against the bank bailout, while Democrats largely defended their record, which included the bank bailout. And yet it's Obama who has to take the brunt of Wall Street criticism?

Look, we all know what's going on here. Wall Street wants a one-way street. It wants government handouts to rescue it from the ocean of its own massive failure but doesn't want to give anything in return. It wants the president on his knees begging its forgiveness even as he's handing them billions of dollars and a presidential pardon. It wants not only to take no responsibility for its actions, not only to be left alone to make masses of cash in an unregulated market, but to be heralded as the repository of superhuman excellence. Socrates said there would never be justice unless philosophers ruled as kings. Wall Street doesn't really care about justice, but apparently it wants America to be ruled by banker-kings, or at least by politicians who do what bankers want, the puppets of the puppeteers of the world of high finance.

And, of course, Wall Street is fundamentally Republican. So it doesn't really matter what Obama does, he'll never get the bankers' vote of confidence and support. He could sign an executive order tripling the bonuses of Wall Street executives and they'd still slam him for not giving them enough.

Ungrateful? Ridiculous? That's a nice way to put it. It's all pretty despicable.