For all of Wall Street's public whining about quotes from Senator Warren

[DFW]

One thing they can make heads or tails of is numbers.

Where were they in 2008? Where are they now?

Their portfolios, the Dow/NASDAQ, their precious bonuses, their ranks of hired and fired?

The old saying has held true with a vengeance under Obama: If you want to live like a Republican, vote for a Democrat.

Yes, I'm sure the old siren songs of "tax relief" and "dismantling of overburdening regulations" still appeal to many, but the fact remains that Wall Street's denizens have it a LOT better today than they did at the end of the Cheney (dba Bush Lite) administration. Whether they are as good at history as they are at numbers remains to be seen.

[Populist_Prole]

1. You're right, but that doesn't weigh in to their thinking.

In a rare move, they're thinking long term: A populist/progressive government would surely shift the tide of policy influence toward the working class' favor. The plutocrats would be opposed to this on purely philosophical grounds even though they'll always be the top one percent of incomes.

[DFW]

2. Even to plutocrats, the numbers don't lie

When the working class is better off, ultimately, so are they. The only people who consume are consumers. The more of them there are (i.e. working class with jobs), the better off are the companies who make stuff and whose survival depends on how much of it they can sell.

What Republicans don't seem to get is that the Wall Street exec concerned with sales volume and the union boss concerned about the size and welfare of his membership are natural allies, not antagonists. In Germany, almost all companies have an "Aufsichtsrat," or "supervisory council," where half the members are reps from the company's workers.

[bluesbassman]

4. Wall Street, and by extension the rest of the 1%, have become obsessed with profit.

Of course there has always been and always will be an element of greed in that demographic, but in years past the symbiotic relationship between the working class and the 1% was acknowledged. In our current economic climate it not only is not being acknowledged, it is being systematically attacked and dismantled in the quest for greater immediate profits.

Unless this phenomenon is reversed, there will come a tipping point where the system can no longer function and the collapse will be horrific. It will take true visionaries in both commerce and government to correct the course we're on.

[DFW]

5. Still, no turnover, no profit. No profit, no fat bonus, and that's what they care about most.

I agree they have no sentimental sympathy with the working class, but even a cattle rancher knows that if he can't feed his cows, he gets no milk. And their own wallets, the one thing that concerns them most in all the world, are a lot fatter now than they were in 2008. No matter what they might WANT to believe, they have no choice but to believe THAT.

[bluesbassman]

7. And that my friend is the most disturbing part of the equation.

Whatever the other deficiencies are in their psychological make up, they are good at number crunching and the current record level of profit surely does not escape them. But to what do they attribute these profits? The fact that a robust middle class is disappearing at a staggering rate must register somewhere on their radar, yet they continue to operate in a manner that perpetuates this downward spiral in spite of it's ultimate result.

[DFW]

8. The numbers will catch up to them. They always do. There is one new factor, too

All major industrial countries at this point have inter-related economies. Therefore the currency situation plays a big role. The euro has swung between $1.30 and $1.55 for most of the last ten years. But now it is down below $1.10. American manufacturers had a (relatively) cheap dollar that let them blow off products of decent quality to the big EU market. But now, with less than 10% separating the two currencies, it's the Europeans that are trying like mad to sell to the USA, and it's our manufacturers that are dealing with involuntary sticker shock to the EU for their dollar-priced products. That means they are more dependent than ever on the American domestic market. They now have a very vested interest in keeping that market prosperous, or else their precious sales-based bonuses, as well as their companies' stocks, will take a Bush-style tumble again.

[nxylas]

3. "Purely philosophical" makes them sound nobler than they actually are

It feeds into their image of themselves as rational beings motivated by the bottom line, rather than psychopaths with an outsize sense of entitlement.

[glowing]

6. I think many of them are breed sociopaths...

They literally marry and socialize with theirselves nearly exclusively. So they are out of touch. And it takes a someone with lack of empathy or emotion to set the world on fire and laugh about it. Otherwise, how much money and pain do you have to unleash on the world?

[Depaysement]

9. Their whining is only about one thing

Prop trading. And it is a big whine, a ton of money.

They are not really that concerned with the rest.

[RiverLover]

10. Quotes

Yep, that's all they're worried about.

[tecelote]

11. Democrats plant. Republicans harvest.

[djean111]

12. As others have said, I think they are looking forward to a Wall Street Hillary, and do not

want the waters muddied with Warren-style economic populism. Currently, the game plan seems to be to point to social and civil statements (gains are fast disappearing, even under Obama!) and take attention away from economic issues completely, or just give lip service, or imply that we must make a choice, that of course if we have social and civil fairness, we cannot also expect economic fairness. I see that crap right here at DU.

I am assuming that Hillary will start spouting Warren and Sanders messaging, and will try mightily to look as if she is serious, but then, if elected, we will be told to eat our goddamn peas (with chained CPI, will peas be replaced with canned hominy? Yuk.) and to remember that campaign rhetoric is of course a pack of lies, and to remember who pays Hillary's political expenses.

Remember, Wall Street now pretty much only looks to the next fucking quarter.

[L0oniX]

13. It's them or us.