‘Wall Street is not going to play as dominant a role in the economy as regulations reduce ‘some of the massive leveraging and the massive risk-taking that had become so common,’ President Barack Obama says. The changes in the role of Wall Street and the huge profits that came from that risk-taking could mean other adjustments as well, Obama said.’ Oh, it’s the New York Times Magazine, but this is the AP writing about it. So it actually came out over the weekend. I was right. What he said was — now, folks, this is just crucial. Do you remember, during the campaign — setting up this next Obama quote — when Michelle (My Belle) Obama went to Zanesville, Ohio, and she told the women in the audience, don’t go to Wall Street, don’t become lawyers, don’t become hedge fund managers, or whatever Wall Street term. Stay here, stay in the community. Become a nurse. Help people.
Now, this is a quote that got some attention. To me, it was worth a lot ’cause I think these people inadvertently slip up and tell us what they really think and therefore what their policies are really going to be. I think another time she was honest was when she said it was the first time she was proud of her country, because her husband was nominated to be president. Well, that tells me she’s been angry. I think Michelle (My Belle) is an angry woman. I think Barack himself is angry, and they spent their whole lives in anger, and that anger has been fueled by people like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. All that stuff mattered to me. So there’s Michelle (My Belle) telling people in Zanesville, Ohio, where the unemployment rate was sky-high, don’t leave here, stay and become nurses, work for other people. Let’s jump forward to the New York Times Magazine interview this weekend. Barack Obama says Wall Street will play a less dominant role in the economy because he doesn’t like the leveraging and the risk-taking that’s become so common. And here’s what he said.
‘The changes in the role of Wall Street and the huge profits that came from that risk-taking could mean other adjustments as well.’ Quote, Obama: ‘That means that more talent, more resources will be going to other sectors of the economy. I actually think that’s healthy. We don’t want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader. We want some of them to go into engineering, and we want some of them to be going into computer design.’ So when you couple these things together, here is Barack Obama saying, I’m going to make sure Wall Street plays a less dominant role. What he’s saying is the private sector is going to play a less dominant role. I’m going to cut ’em off. I’m going to chop off some heads. I’m going to downsize Wall Street. They’ve done it with pay caps, caps on bonuses and so forth and so on, and now he’s going to try, by hook or by crook, to get people who go to Ivy League schools and elsewhere not to take their degrees and go to Wall Street but rather computer science or engineering.
Now, you don’t have to read between the lines here. This is exactly what it appears to be: A command and control economy. Obama said he wishes he could put a button and fix that. Well, he’s just pushed a button here. He’s pushed a button, he’s gonna cut Wall Street down to size. ‘The Obama administration is trying to restore more regulations on the financial sector to avoid some of the risk-taking that helped cause the current economic problems. ‘Wall Street will remain a big, important part of our economy, just as it was in the ’70s and the ’80s,’ he said. ‘It just won’t be half of our economy.” Is Wall Street half of our economy? Who’s got that stat? Even if — just speaking hypothetically here, accepting his point — even if Wall Street’s half the economy, it’s good news that he’s gonna whack half the economy? The government’s going to be the dominant player. The government is occupying and directing the private sector. The government is right now occupying Chrysler; they’re going to occupy General Motors. No predictions needed because this is happening. Next he’s going to occupy Wall Street. Wall Street got so big because so many individuals wanted in. Individuals using what? Liberty and freedom. There was no conspiracy to explain why Wall Street got big. People wanted to go there. It turns out now too many to please Obama.
‘Obama said he expects that government efforts to fix the economy will cause long-term changes.’ No kidding. ”What I think will change, what I think was an aberration, was a situation where corporate profits in the financial sector were such a heavy part of our overall profitability over the last decade,’ he said.’ Now, remember, these were publicly traded companies we’re talking about. Individuals invested in publicly traded companies, which created these profits, and people became very prosperous. You know, profits are the mother’s milk of politics. Without profits, you don’t have a whole lot of donations to people like Barack Obama. This is one way people make money, in the stock market, and he doesn’t like it.
‘Obama said he’s confident that people will regain trust and confidence in the financial system, but he believes it will take time. ‘I think it’s important to understand that some of that wealth was illusory in the first place,’ he said.’ Some of the wealth was illusory. Really? So according to Obama, you didn’t really lose anything when your 401(k) was cut in half. You haven’t lost anything because the value of your 401(k) was illusory, it was artificial, it wasn’t real. So you really haven’t lost anything. If you have a stock portfolio that’s down 40%, you really haven’t lost anything, because you really never were up 40% because what you’ve lost, you never had, it was illusory, it was on paper only. Now, if we’re going to apply this as a way of assigning value to things, then how in the hell can we say the US government has any value when it’s trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars in debt?
You want to talk about illusory value, Social Security. Illusory value, Medicare; illusory value, the war on poverty, illusory value? The wealth on Wall Street was real! It was made by individual citizens investing either as members of a group, mutual fund or what have you, or individually in securities and equities. It was real. Otherwise, the losses wouldn’t bother anybody. This is striking to listen to this. The wealth was illusory. Well, if the wealth was illusory, Mr. Obama, why are you so against it? What bothers you about people’s wealth if it’s really not wealth, if it’s really just illusory? This is what I talked about at CPAC. This is Barack Obama remaking America in his image. This is Barack Obama taking this country, restructuring it in a way he thinks is fair, returning the nation’s wealth to its, quote, unquote, rightful owners.