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Wall Street historian: Not since 1920s has Washington had this much Wall St influence

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Joe

Member
Bankers celebrate dawn of Trump era
A populist candidate who railed against shady financial interests on the trail is putting together an administration that looks like an investment banker's dream.
“You would have to go back to the 1920s to see so much Wall Street influence coming to Washington,” said Charles Geisst, a Wall Street historian at Manhattan College. “It’s the most dramatic turnaround one could imagine. That’s the truly astonishing part.”
The Dodd-Frank financial reform law that bedeviled the industry for years and cost banks untold billions could soon get burned to the ground. Bank stocks are soaring. Trump is going around Manhattan promising to lower rich people’s taxes.
Bank stocks are up by around 10 percent since Trump’s win, according to the KBW Bank Index, as investors contemplate an agenda tailormade for the industry including deregulation and potentially higher interest rates sparked by significant deficit spending.
“There is a joke going around here that if I’d have known how good Trump was going to be for Wall Street, I’d have campaigned for him,” said one Goldman Sachs executive who declined to be identified by name speaking about the incoming president. “What people are reacting to is this incredible cultural shift. People thought it might be 10 or 15 years until regulators stopped demanding heads and now all of a sudden you can envision it happening overnight.”
“I do think that Republicans will pick at it piece by piece and by the time they are done it will be largely weakened,” said Ian Katz, director at Capital Alpha Partners. “It may take a while, you can’t just flip a switch and do all this stuff. But eventually they can do it.”
He will now be able to install a new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as senior leadership positions at the Federal Reserve, possibly including the head of supervision.

Changes at the Fed, including the possible exit of Chair Janet Yellen and Vice Chair Stanley Fischer in a year, could wind up being the biggest boon to Wall Street if Trump can fill their slots with candidates less inclined to hold banks to high capital requirements and otherwise rein in their activities.
 

LakeEarth

Member
And not since the 1920's have the Republicans controlled all levels of the US government.

Hmm, what else of historical significance happened in the 20's? Hmm.... hmm...
 

Ithil

Member
I'm impressed by how many people will fail to notice they elected the complete opposite of what they thought they did.
 

guek

Banned
Hmm, what else of historical significance happened in the 20's? Hmm.... hmm...

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jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
stay diversified, stay employed

watch your parents retirement accounts closely

hope for the best
 

Joe

Member
This is what really bothers me: if you want to flood the US govt with Wall Street influence and deregulate the financial industry - fine. That's great, you are free to do that in this country if the elections and politics of the politicians line up. I don't agree with it at all, but it's still totally well within the realm of realistic possibilities. But don't fucking run an entire campaign on literally the complete opposite of these actions.

Trump didn't just tap into anger and uncertainty, he tapped in and manipulated.
 
Any guesses as to where all the extra wall street money will be funneled to? Other than the pockets of wealthy people of course, I'm thinking of specific industries.
 
That's not something to be proud or happy about, especially considering what happened.


Its been made abundantly clear in 1929 and 2008 that Wall Street can't be trusted to run their own ship.
 

Dram

Member
So when the economy crashes people will vote for a Democrat to be President, but when things don't get better fast enough, they'll go back to voting for a Republican?
 

Ron Mexico

Member
Burning Dodd-Frank to the ground isn't necessarily a bad thing at all. It's repealing Dodd Frank without having a backup plan that would be an unmitigated nightmare.

If you loosen regulations, you also have to break apart the investment houses from the banks (which Trump did campaign on).

I'm just not sure I'd be celebrating in the streets on Wall St.....yet. I don't have a lot of faith in a Trump administration actually following through on the promise of something like Glass-Steagall but if it does, watch those same bank stocks. It'll be a hell of a ride.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
But I thought that Hillary was Wall St. candidate!?

She was. Trump just ran a campaign semi on the back of fake populist rhetoric.

We left the actual pro consumer populist in the primaries.

Trump was right to be scared of running against him.
 

Savitar

Member
Everything gets deregulated and businesses get more influence and power to do what they want. I mean shit that's basically what Republicans always want and we all know Trumps history with his own business not to mention the stuff he did when he ran it, you can bet he'll do things that will continue benefiting him or anyone that kneels before him should they continue to pay him back later on.
 

kirblar

Member
So when the economy crashes people will vote for a Democrat to be President, but when things don't get better fast enough, they'll go back to voting for a Republican?
This has been the problem. Clinton and Obama both didn't make big enough changes when they had control.
 
But I thought that Hillary was Wall St. candidate!?

Both are....just Trump is worse, much worse. He wants to deregulate everything on top of looking out for their interests at the expense of that of the general population.

Trump is an elite old white man billionaire after all. The rust belt are a bunch of idiots. They fell right into his trap.

The only one who would have helped save them would have been Bernie.

Clinton would have kept status quo.

Trump will make their lives much worse in an accelerating fashion.
 

adj_noun

Member
A populist candidate who railed against shady financial interests on the trail is putting together an administration that looks like an investment banker's dream.

“You would have to go back to the 1920s to see so much Wall Street influence coming to Washington,” said Charles Geisst, a Wall Street historian at Manhattan College. “It’s the most dramatic turnaround one could imagine. That’s the truly astonishing part.”
.
 

Einhander

Member
Wall Street influence didn't just begin prior to Trump winning. This has been going on for a while now. Neither party is innocent here. It's a widespread problem within the government. I'm not trying to say "both parties are the same" either, but that simply blaming Trump or Republicans isn't the answer. I don't think it has to do with the two major political parties, but really, the entire government catering to massive corporations. With all that said, the Trump administration won't be alleviating the corporate influence, and will most likely intensify the corporate influence, compared to the Obama administration. I think Bernie would have had the best shot at fighting this issue, given that he's been bringing attention to it for decades. For starters, Citizens United needs to abolished, and Trump did say that he wants it removed, but we know how fickle he is on his platform (i.e. he has no idea what he's doing).
 

Ron Mexico

Member
There remains at least some hope among financial reformers that Trump will rediscover some of his anti-Wall Street zeal once he takes office. The GOP nominee intermittently criticized the banking industry during his campaign and spoke of a desire to reinstate the Glass-Steagall law separating retail and investment banking.

Taken directly from the article. If he follows through (and of course there are doubts) the banks Warren and co. rallied against are singing a much different tune.

Look, I know it's easy to rail on Trump. I feel like saying over and over I didn't vote for him. But as a veteran of the industry-- you want this. Dodd Frank made it impossible for the smaller guys to compete and directly contributed to "Too Big To Fail". But gutting Dodd Frank isn't enough. If that's all that happens (something I fear is all too real of a possibility), we're fucked.

Regulation and deregulation aren't good or bad by themselves. It's the knock on effects that really drive the positives or negatives.
 

jelly

Member
The government and people will pick up the pieces when it goes tits up as usual.

Wasn't there a crash in the 80s too?
 
Wasn't it Bill Clinton who relaxed bank restrictions that would have prevented the 2008 recession? Democrats are not without their share of the blame.

Both the Republican and Democratic establishments have been highly supportive of Wall Street and the big banks. They are just more subtle about it. Trump is the stereotypical caricature of a brazen comic book corporate villain (i.e., lex luther style).

Looks like we are heading back to the 80s.
 
I heard about this crap some places before in history just can't remember what.

Candidate runs on a message that the common folk wants, but does a 180 once they get into power. Not about the realities of the situation after coming into power; no the candidate knew that he/she was lying from the start. They never believed in going against the top from the start.

Has Trump ever said anything bad about Wall Street before his campaign?
 
And not since the 1920's have the Republicans controlled all levels of the US government.

Hmm, what else of historical significance happened in the 20's? Hmm.... hmm...
This isn't the first time since then that Republicans had full control and the party 100 years ago wouldn't even consider themselves Republicans by 2016 standards
 
A wolf in sheep's clothing if I've ever seen one. It is legitimately terrifying how much he can (and probably will) screw up everything for the working/middle class.

He will now be able to install a new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as senior leadership positions at the Federal Reserve, possibly including the head of supervision.

Is there anything stopping Obama from appointing these people before he leaves office?
 

wildfire

Banned
But I thought that Hillary was Wall St. candidate!?

She still is. Trump is unpredictable and obviously unpopular with the rich. Wealthy people are just as prone to perception biases like we are and they favor consistency a lot more than the average American.
 

Alavard

Member
She still is. Trump is unpredictable and obviously unpopular with the rich. Wealthy people are just as prone to perception biases like we are and they favor consistency a lot more than the average American.

Trump was the candidate that proposed a moratorium of any new regulation on the banking sector, though.
 
When shit hits the fan, it's going to be hard to resist pointing fingers at trump voters and directly blaming them. That may be exactly what they deserve, but we've still got to treat eachother like humans.
 
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