Thursday, April 22, 2010

Blankfein: This suit against Goldman will hurt the country

FT
In the conversations with private equity executives and others, Mr Blankfein left clients with the impression that he was eager to fight the charges in court. The SEC has requested a jury trial. “He was very aggressive,” said one person called by Mr Blankfein on Wednesday. “He feels that the government is out to kill them, that they are under attack and the whole thing is totally political.” Mr Blankfein said the SEC action “hurts America”, this person said.

The NY Post has this editorial:
President Obama comes to town today to deliver what the White House is billing as a landmark speech at Cooper Union to push stringent new federal regulation of Wall Street in the name of "financial oversight."

This will play well on Main Street.

But in New York, Wall Street is Main Street - the centerpiece of the city's economy.

So the president and his fellow Democrats need to proceed with great care.

Clearly, the party sees this one as a political winner: Yesterday, it launched a major fund-raising appeal based on Obama's "Wall Street reform" plan, warning against a return to the days when "big banks feasted [and] just about everybody else suffered."

But that kind of rhetorical overkill is a dagger to the heart of an industry that is the heart of New York's economic well-being.

Wall Street makes billions and billions each quarter, yet a little rhetoric is a dagger to its heart?

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