Fool Me Twice

Andrew Ross Sorkin of the NYT on the planned meeting of bankers and Obama:

President Obama didn’t exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street’s top brass on Monday.

He was, of course, referring to the three conspicuously absent attendees who were being piped in by telephone: Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; John J. Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; and Richard D. Parsons, chairman of Citigroup.

Their excuse? “Inclement weather,” according to the White House....

That awkward moment on speakerphone in the White House, for better or worse, spoke volumes about how the balance of power between Wall Street and Washington has shifted again, back in Wall Street’s favor.

Now that Citigroup has given back its bailout money — and Wells Fargo announced late on Monday that it would, too — whatever leverage Washington had over the financial services industry seems to be quickly eroding.

Executive compensation, leverage limits and lending standards were all issues that Washington said it planned to change — and when the taxpayers were the shareholders of these firms, it probably could have done so. But now the White House has been left in the position of extending invitations, rather than exercising its clout. And in the figurative and literal sense, it is getting stood up.

Those who attended the meeting — Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan flew down on a private jet and didn’t take any heat for it — seemed to talk a good game, but even President Obama acknowledged they might have been just toying with him.

“The problem is there’s a big gap between what I’m hearing here in the White House and the activities of lobbyists on behalf of these institutions or associations of which they’re a member up on Capitol Hill,” he said after the discussion....

The meeting was always just going to be political theater. Wall Street bankers were supposed to play their part on the public stage in Washington, and submit to a scolding from the president about bonuses and the need to start lending more to help get the economy moving.

President Obama’s “60 Minutes” interview Sunday night eviscerating Wall Street laid down the not-so-welcome mat. “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers,” he said.

Inside the Obama administration, there were bruised feelings about the need for a conference call to have a meeting.

“It was pretty nervy,” one staff member told me.

Really, this is all so pathetic. I'm not angry at the bankers. They do what bankers do these days. Which is mostly make tons of money for themselves and their friends, with other people's money. Oh, and also 'invest in the economy and provide the capital for it to grow.' Can't forget that. 

It is Obama who is so pathetic here. Does he really expect to give them everything they want, until their pockets are stuffed with money, and then have them turn around and sacrifice themselves for the economy?

He is acting like such an innocent idealist here, when he's supposed to be such a sophisticated Niebuhrian realist, who knows how sinful and evil people can be in the real world!

I don't believe it for a minute. It's all, as Sorkin put it, 'political theatre,' to make his liberal base think he's trying hard 'on behalf of the people' and 'there's just nothing more he can do', because there is such a 'big gap' between their words and their actions.

The 'big gap' is between Obama's words and actions. And it's been there since the day he was elected.

On second thought, maybe it's us who believed Obama in the first place who are pathetic.  We got seduced by a political con-artist, I'm beginning to think. 

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.