Gyroscopic Investing

A new report from the conservative Government Accountability Institute (GAI) finds that President Barack Obama’s and Attorney General Eric Holder’s failure to criminally charge any top Wall Street bankers is likely a result of cronyism inside the Department of Justice and political donations made to Obama’s campaign.

http://tinyurl.com/clkcqf7

Whoa!

I hope they didn't spend too much money coming up with that conclusion.  I wouldn't have thought that establishing something so obvious would be worth the time it would take to put together a formal "report."

Top Romney contributors (from http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contr ... =N00000286):

Goldman Sachs $636,080
JPMorgan Chase & Co $502,874
Morgan Stanley $476,300
Bank of America $465,850
Credit Suisse Group $421,310
Citigroup Inc $345,265
Barclays $322,400
Kirkland & Ellis $295,042
Wells Fargo $276,700
Deloitte LLP $250,510
PricewaterhouseCoopers $246,700
UBS AG $240,000
HIG Capital $219,495
Blackstone Group $213,800
Bain Capital $164,000
Elliott Management $162,825
General Electric $150,000
Marriott International $137,827
Bain & Co $137,300
Ernst & Young $134,425

Top Obama contributors (from http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contr ... =N00009638):

Microsoft Corp $418,845
University of California $411,386
Dla Piper $314,977
Google Inc $303,225
Harvard University $276,824
Sidley Austin LLP $269,681
US Government $256,099
Comcast Corp $216,156
Stanford University $212,850
Time Warner $191,834
Skadden, Arps et al $181,253
Kaiser Permanente $174,692
US Dept of State $164,617
Columbia University $163,148
National Amusements Inc $154,517
Wells Fargo $147,707
University of Chicago $145,307
Morgan & Morgan $140,395
IBM Corp $131,161
Jones Day $127,756

Which one is the "wall street" candidate this year, in 2012?

Interestingly enough, when you go back to 2008, a different picture emerges:

Top Obama contributors from 2008 (from http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contr ... =N00009638):

University of California $1,648,685
Goldman Sachs $1,013,091
Harvard University $878,164
Microsoft Corp $852,167
Google Inc $814,540
JPMorgan Chase & Co $808,799
Citigroup Inc $736,771
Time Warner $624,618
Sidley Austin LLP $600,298
Stanford University $595,716
National Amusements Inc $563,798
WilmerHale LLP $550,668
Columbia University $547,852
Skadden, Arps et al $543,539
UBS AG $532,674
IBM Corp $532,372
General Electric $529,855
US Government $513,308
Morgan Stanley $512,232
Latham & Watkins $503,295

It's almost as if some powerful Wall Street companies can buy the president!  Who would have thought that such a thing was even possible, in this day and age?!?!?  (sarcasm)

Would this be a good place to discuss the merits of Black Liberation Theology? Just askin!

Reub wrote: Would this be a good place to discuss the merits of Black Liberation Theology? Just askin!

I'm trying to keep this conversation politically neutral by pointing out that almost every president in recent history has accepted contributions from Wall Street banks.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the combination of big banks and big oil has been behind almost every president since Eisenhower.  Both industries need the force of the military to protect their petro-dollar interests.

I'm not sure how those numbers are derived. I think that it simply is the aggregate of the employees who work at those companies and disclose their employers as part of the contribution process when they make a donation.

So saying that Google supports Obama really is saying that more Google employees support Obama because that's what they listed on their contribution disclosure. Same for Goldman, etc.

Of course it's always possible the company gave each employee $2500 each to "donate" to the selected candidate as kind of a straw-man contribution. But I find it hard to believe these large companies would be so blatant. It would be discovered very quickly and is likely illegal.

But let's face it, both of these candidates are not going to be doing any favors for the little guy. Which is why I'm so big on protecting yourself and not relying on the government to do things for your benefit, because they probably won't.

Storm wrote:

Reub wrote: Would this be a good place to discuss the merits of Black Liberation Theology? Just askin!

I'm trying to keep this conversation politically neutral by pointing out that almost every president in recent history has accepted contributions from Wall Street banks.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the combination of big banks and big oil has been behind almost every president since Eisenhower.  Both industries need the force of the military to protect their petro-dollar interests.

I think that there is little difference among major party candidates.

They all participate in the same general group hypocrisy.

For example, there might have been a time when some Republicans were for lower spending levels than Democrats, but those days are long past. 

From my perspective, the prudent statesmen have been replaced by narcissistic statists.

IMHO pretty much the only substantive difference between Romney and Obama is the pool of politically-acceptable justices they have to choose from when selecting federal judges, especially the all-important SCOTUS appointments.