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To Save the Capitalist System Reflections on Orin Kramer's understanding of Barack Obama's duty to America December 2009 By Paul Street Here are 50 fascinating words from a leading member of the U.S. financial aristocracy and political class, captured and reproduced in a front-page article in the New York Times on October 20: "There is some failure in the finance industry to appreciate the level of public antagonism towards whatever Wall Street symbolizes. But in order to save the capitalist system, the administration has to be responsive to the public mood, and that is a nuance which can get lost on Wall Street." The speaker of these words was Orin Kramer, a partner in a leading Wall Street investment firm. Kramer served as a co-chair of a Democratic Party fundraising dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York. The dinner was held for 200 donors, each of whom paid the legal maximum of $30,400 a couple. The dinner was attended and addressed by no less a Democrat than President Obama. Kramer, 64, "helps manage" the hedge fund Boston Provident, LP. A graduate of Yale and Columbia Law who once worked as a staffer in the Jimmy Carter administration, he is what the liberal weekly New York Observer last year called "an undisputed leader among [the] ancient, wealthy, largely Manhattan-based species of political fundraiser." He is "well known in government and donor circles for his gruff, sardonic manner" and was "the most established of Barack Obama's early supporters in the mega-bundler community" (Jason Horowitz, "Orin Kramer: King of the Obamasaurs," August 5, 2008, www .observer.com). Kramer's words were in response to Times reporter David Kirkpatrick's query as to why Wall Street financial giants like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup were sending only six representatives (with a total contribution of "just" $91,200) to the posh gathering (D. Kirkpatrick, "Financial Giants Donating Little to Obama Party," October 20, 2009). According to a Wall Street lobbyist interviewed by Kirkpatrick, the low attendance reflected top Wall Streeters' "growing disenchantment with Mr. Obama over the angry language emanating from the White House over million-dollar bonuses and anti-regulatory lobbying." Dr. Daniel E. Fass, another co-chair of the fundraiser, lives "surrounded by financiers" in Greenwich, Connecticut. He told the Times that, "The investment community feels very put-upon. They feel there is no reason why they shouldn't earn $1 million to $200 million a year and they don't want to be held responsible for the global financial meltdown" (Kirkpatrick, "Financial Giants"). This attitude struck Kramer as short-sighted. The profit system's smarter defenders grasp the need to demonstrate openness to the worries and anger of the populace, he told Kirpatrick. To keep the business order intact, Kramer was saying, Obama needed to occasionally rebuke (and perhaps even mildly half-"regulate") the nation's financial overlords. full: http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/23263 ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
