https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/business/in-private-conversation-wall-street-is-more-critical-of-protesters.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25&pagewanted=all
In Private, Wall St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters as Unsophisticated
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By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and ERIC DASH
Published: October 14, 2011
Publicly, bankers say they understand the anger at Wall Street — but
believe they are misunderstood by the protesters camped on their
doorstep.
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A police officer guarded the Wall Street bull amid the continuing
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“Anybody who dismisses them publicly is putting a bull's-eye on their
back,” said one hedge fund manager of the protesters.
But when they speak privately, it is often a different story.
“Most people view it as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock
’n’ roll,” said one top hedge fund manager.
“It’s not a middle-class uprising,” adds another veteran bank
executive. “It’s fringe groups. It’s people who have the time to do
this.”
As the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations have grown and spread to
other cities, an open question is: Do the bankers get it? Their
different worldview speaks volumes about the wide chasms that have
opened over who is to blame for the continuing economic malaise and
what is best for the country.
Some on Wall Street viewed the protesters with disdain, and a degree
of caution, as hundreds marched through the financial district on
Friday. Others say they feel their pain, but are befuddled about what
they are supposed to do to ease it. A few even feel personally
attacked, and say the Occupy Wall Street protesters who have been in
Zuccotti Park for weeks are just bitter about their own economic fate
and looking for an easy target. If anything, they say, people should
show some gratitude.
“Who do you think pays the taxes?” said one longtime money manager.
“Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country
and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs
outsourced, keep attacking financial services. This is just
disgruntled people.”
He added that he was disappointed that members of Congress from New
York, especially Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Kirsten
Gillibrand, had not come out swinging for an industry that donates
heavily to their campaigns. “They need to understand who their
constituency is,” he said.
Generally, bankers dismiss the protesters as gullible and
unsophisticated. Not many are willing to say this out loud, for fear
of drawing public ire — or the masses to their doorsteps. “Anybody who
dismisses them publicly is putting a bull’s-eye on their back,” the
hedge fund manager said.
John Paulson, the hedge fund titan who made billions in the financial
crisis by betting against the subprime mortgage market, has been the
exception. His Upper East Side home was picketed by demonstrators
earlier this week, but Mr. Paulson offered a full-throated defense of
the Street, even going so far as to defend the tiny sliver of top
earners attacked by the Occupy Wall Street protesters — whose signs
refer to themselves as “the other 99 percent.”
“The top 1 percent of New Yorkers pay over 40 percent of all income
taxes, providing huge benefits to everyone in our city and state,” he
said in a statement. “Paulson & Company and its employees have paid
hundreds of millions in New York City and New York State taxes in
recent years and have created over 100 high-paying jobs in New York
City since its formation.”
The messages coming from the protesters are by no means in accord.
They have myriad grievances, though many see Wall Street as the most
powerful symbol of the income inequality and “economic injustice” they
are railing against. There is ample indignation over banks being
bailed out while their customers are being foreclosed upon, and over
banks handing out hefty bonus checks and severance packages so soon
after the crisis erupted.
Similarly, executives keep getting generous payouts when they leave.
Just last week, Bank of America disclosed it was paying a total of $11
million in severance to two executives forced out in a management
reshuffle, Sallie Krawcheck and Joe Price, even as the company said it
would begin laying off roughly 30,000 employees over the next few years.
“Wall Street continues to underestimate the degree of anger among
citizens and voters,” said Douglas J. Elliott, a former investment
banker who is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution. For the most
part, bankers say that they see the protests as a reaction to the high
unemployment and slow growth that has plagued the American economy
since the recession and the financial crisis of 2008. Despite all the
placards and chants plainly indicating otherwise, some bankers suggest
that deep down, the protesters are not really all that mad at them.
“I don’t think we see ourselves as the target,” said Steve Bartlett,
president of the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents the
nation’s biggest banks and insurers in Washington. “I think they’re
protesting about the economy. What’s lost is that the financial
services sector has to be well capitalized and well financed for the
economy to recover.”
Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Company, typifies
the conflicting messages coming from Wall Street. In a conference call
with reporters after third-quarter earnings were announced Thursday,
he struck a sympathetic note. “I do vaguely remember the First
Amendment that it is legal to demonstrate and it is completely fine,”
he said. “You should listen and not just have a knee-jerk reaction.”
But in a later conference call with analysts, Mr. Dimon’s remarks were
more offhand when asked about the protests and the negative perception
of his industry. “Most of our clients like us,” he said. Besides,
changing the industry’s image now is a tall order, he told the
analysts, before adding, “If you have any great ideas on the phone you
guys can write them up and send them to me. We’ll take them into
consideration.” Without a coherent message, the crowds will ultimately
thin out, Wall Street types insist — especially when the weather turns
colder. They see the protesters as an entertaining sideshow, little
more than flash mobs of slackers, seeking to lock arms with Kanye West
or get a whiff of the antiestablishment politics that defined their
parents’ generation.
“There is a view that it will be a lot of sound and fury signifying
nothing,” said one financial industry official.
Most bankers were far more concerned this week about the business
impact of the new Volcker Rule restrictions on speculative trading
than they were about the demonstrations, this official added.
A smaller group of bank executives are taking the protests more
seriously. They see them as a sign of the growing economic divide in
this country — and are even monitoring the latest developments on
Twitter. While peaceful so far, the demonstrations at Bank of America,
Chase and Wells Fargo branches from San Francisco to Peoria are eerily
similar to those routinely seen at Citibank outposts in Athens, Hong
Kong, and in other overseas markets. Some believe it could be years
before the swarms of protesters end their marches on bank branches.
A few outspoken members of the financial industry have broken ranks
with their more skeptical brethren to say they understand a bit of the
outrage of the Occupy Wall Street crowd.
“When I tell people I went down to research the protests, they’re
shocked, they literally laugh,” said Michael Mayo, a veteran bank
analyst at Crédit Agricole Securities. “It’s just not a location they
frequent.”
Citigroup’s chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, even said he would be
happy to talk with the protesters any time they wanted to drop by. Mr.
Pandit, onstage Wednesday at a Fortune magazine conference, said that
the protesters’ “sentiments were completely understandable.”
“I would also corroborate that trust has been broken between financial
institutions and the citizens of the U.S., and that it’s Wall Street’s
job to reach out to Main Street and rebuild that trust,” Mr. Pandit
said. The protesters should hold Citi and others “accountable for
practicing responsible finance,” he said, “and keep asking us about
how we’re doing.”
A version of this article appeared in print on October 15, 2011, on
page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: In Private, Wall
St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters as Unsophisticated._______________________________________________
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