David Weidner says that J.P. Morgan’s Dimon will be the Obama camp’s first choice for the next Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. Does America really need another Wall Street C.E.O. as Treasury Secretary? What more does it take than the Paulson experience to help voters see the consequences of putting a Wall Street elite in charge of the nation’s money?
Paulson wanted carte blanche power to throw $700 billion wherever he pleased on Wall Street. His demand was a stunning display of egotism and lack of respect for America’s political heritage. Furthermore, Paulson showed indifference to America’s geographical dispersion of interests. For Paulson, Manhattan Island is the center of the universe. How would it be any different if Barack Obama were to nominate the J.P. Morgan’s Dimon as the next Treasury Secretary?
It doesn’t take a doctoral degree to understand that the former Comptroller General of the United States, David Walker, would be more accountable to the tax-paying public than Wall Street’s Jamie Dimon. The Wall Street culture does something to elites. It makes them believe that as long as Wall Street is prosperous, the sun will shine on America. How can Obama claim to be a populist and a heartfelt advocate for hardworking Americans if he does not understand the risks of putting the Manhattan Island culture in charge of the Treasury? (After all, the Treasury Secretary makes a lot of key appointments.) Such a move by Obama could turn his administration into Bush III. Dimon types got America into the mess we’re in. Walker, by contrast, has a fine record of supporting policies that would have helped save us from our current grief.
Americans need to find alternatives to Wall Street: Alternatives to its people and its investment vehicles. We need to shrink the money river that flows through New York, and disperse the waters across the fifty states. With proper new legislation Wall Street elites would be blocked from using FED money to leverage their positions massively. It’s time to stop financial elites from using FED money to grow their own expandable money supply. That’s what Wall Street has done for years, always hoping to prevent the public from understanding the devious nature of its sector rotation games.
No wonder that Goldman Sachs makes so many billions from its proprietary trading activities! It has mastered the art of musical chairs. It leverages its collateral with FED loans, then plays off inflationary trends and retirement money flows to create new capital for itself at the expense of the general public. If the public understood what has happened, they would become the most incensed electorate ever to exist on the earth.
If the public awakens to the hazards of smoking Wall Street’s dope, it may be possible to cut Manhattan Island back to size. Maybe the tail can be stopped from wagging the dog. If cigarette smoking with its horrific health care costs should become a smaller part of the gross domestic product, then the financial sector should no longer boast of capturing 40% of the nation’s corporate profits.
If Americans had enough stomach to fight WWII, we ought to have enough fortitude to fight a ballot box battle to win back financial sanity. The challenge, then, is to create alternatives to Wall Street. We need investment venues where Mom and Pop investors can obtain a fair and dependable share of the rewards of productivity growth and business efficiency.