... is to be found in this article published at the National Review website:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286704/repo-men-kevin-d-williamson
NR is basically a Libertarian/Right-leaning publication, but once in a while, they get it right, lol. (I was a long-time subscriber back in the day when WFB was doing Firing Line).
Here's an excerpt:
Wall Street can do math, and the math looks like this: Wall Street + Washington = Wild Profitability. Free enterprise? Entrepreneurship? Starting a business making and selling stuff behind some grimy little storefront? You’d have to be a fool. Better to invest in political favors. As Schweizer points out, until fairly recently the Blackstone Group, the world’s largest private-equity manager, had spent only about $250,000 a year on lobbying, which to me sounds like one part-time K-Streeter and a lot of lunches. After a friendly encounter with Senator Schumer, the firm saw the scales fall from its eyes and began to spend millions of dollars a year on lobbying — and hired Senator Schumer’s former staff counsel, along with dozens of other Democratic staffers, to do its lobbying. (Senate Republicans will get their chance, don’t you worry, as soon as they’re back in the majority.) You’d think that the Blackstone Group, along with the rest of Wall Street, would be happy with its investment. But the pinstripes gang is suffering from a collective case of buyers’ remorse: Sure, the insurance guys got the keys handed to them with Obamacare, and the structured-finance guys still are sitting securely behind their fortifications of impenetrable complexity and staggering leverage, and the investment banks got to underwrite a lot of “Build America Bonds” and nonsensical stimulus financing. But they want more — that is their nature. And they’re sizing up a cozy little investment in Mitt Romney, a fact that should give Republicans pause.
The conclusion: Forget it. No hope. No change.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286704/repo-men-kevin-d-williamson
NR is basically a Libertarian/Right-leaning publication, but once in a while, they get it right, lol. (I was a long-time subscriber back in the day when WFB was doing Firing Line).
Here's an excerpt:
Wall Street can do math, and the math looks like this: Wall Street + Washington = Wild Profitability. Free enterprise? Entrepreneurship? Starting a business making and selling stuff behind some grimy little storefront? You’d have to be a fool. Better to invest in political favors. As Schweizer points out, until fairly recently the Blackstone Group, the world’s largest private-equity manager, had spent only about $250,000 a year on lobbying, which to me sounds like one part-time K-Streeter and a lot of lunches. After a friendly encounter with Senator Schumer, the firm saw the scales fall from its eyes and began to spend millions of dollars a year on lobbying — and hired Senator Schumer’s former staff counsel, along with dozens of other Democratic staffers, to do its lobbying. (Senate Republicans will get their chance, don’t you worry, as soon as they’re back in the majority.) You’d think that the Blackstone Group, along with the rest of Wall Street, would be happy with its investment. But the pinstripes gang is suffering from a collective case of buyers’ remorse: Sure, the insurance guys got the keys handed to them with Obamacare, and the structured-finance guys still are sitting securely behind their fortifications of impenetrable complexity and staggering leverage, and the investment banks got to underwrite a lot of “Build America Bonds” and nonsensical stimulus financing. But they want more — that is their nature. And they’re sizing up a cozy little investment in Mitt Romney, a fact that should give Republicans pause.
The conclusion: Forget it. No hope. No change.
