An open letter to President Obama concerning Wall Street’s utter disregard for Main Street.
From Mark Finelli: 9.11 Survivor, Marine infrantryman in Iraq, occasional FOX/MSNBC/CNN/Newsweek contributor.
President Obama,
I do not expect you to be an Andrew Jackson or a Teddy Roosevelt caliber president, but you can at least try.
I apologize for channeling Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski here, but, this is how I truly feel, Mr. President:
I did not run down 61 flights of the South Tower on 9.11, join the Marine Corps, deploy to Iraq, see my friends die, and come back to a country whose President allows his country’s citizens to get financially raped.
I did not vote for you. I was at the Biltmore in Phoenix on election night, right there with the whole Republican world. Your defeat of Senator McCain was like a ton of bricks falling on my chest. However, as a good Marine, I pledged (on Facebook) to support you in any way I could.
I remember saying to myself, “well, we are going to throw up the white flag to the jihadists, but at least the President-Elect is “crazy” enough, enough of an outsider, to go after the banks.
I was wrong on both counts. You have demonstrated a deftness (in action, not words, which anyone of substance prefers) of perpetuating this great struggle against the jihadists that is shockingly strong-especially in lieu of candidate Obama, who, I kid you not, I thought was going to pick Joan Baez for Secretary of Defense. Before the right vilifies me for crediting President Obama for sound foreign policy, attempt to find one non-rhetorical difference between the post-Rumsfeld foreign policy schematic (a la Gates, Petreaus, etc) of the Bush administration and this one. I cannot, and that’s a good thing.
However, now is the time to declare war on the “banks.” Thus far, like your predecessor, President Bush, you have made it very clear that the banks don’t have to buy the cow (reform) in order to get the milk (bailouts/continued riskless “risk taking”, etc). Where the hell is the quid-pro-quo, Mr. President? Within hours of your inauguration, you could have been the new financial sheriff in town. Whisky Tango Foxtrot, sir? Perhaps this has been a strategic delay? I hope so. If not, now is the time.
You are supposed to be the little guy who stands up for the little guy. You are not a second generation President whose lineage goes back to the Mayflower and royal blood.
Let’s use two systems that have treated us well here in America-Check and Balances and Division of Labor. Pretty Basic.
Make the banks banks-institutions that take deposits and provide liquidity to persons and businesses. Make the investment banks investment banks-institutions that build our economies businesses through the debt and equity markets, and, while you are at it, divorce the investment banks from institutional and private investment advisory services, and certainly divorce investment banks from rating securities as “buys” and “sells.” Why on earth would an investment bank conclude a company that they receive investment banking fees from is a “sell?” Does this make any sense? It’s like Michael Jordan doing a Nike commercial about NOT buying Air Jordan’s. Sounds silly, huh?
No financial rating agency should be within an investment bank, and the traditional stand-alone rating agencies like Moody’s and the accounting firms should have a carrot other than making the companies they rate happy-another aspect of American finance that is completely counterintuitive to rational thought.
Absolutely, there is a place for hedge funds and derivatives trading. These institutions provide massive efficiencies to the markets as stand-alone businesses. Banks, especially banks whose deposits are F.D.I.C. insured, should be banned from propriety trading. In other words, the hedge funds should be hedge funds, not the banks who mortgage your house. Hedge funds are exciting. Derivatives trading is exciting. Mortgages are not, as they should be. If I am a bank CEO, my attention will easily be drawn towards trading than dreary old mortgage lending. Let’s not commingle mortgages on such a high level with proprietary trading again. No wonder why the average Joe has such a hard time financing his personal or business ventures-the focus on Main Street is on Wall Street! Of course the bank CEOs aren’t focused on Main Street!
What do you think, Chief (as in-Commander-in….)?
Capitalism does not mean capitalizing on a competitor by running up to them on the street, punching him or her in the face and stealing their wallet. This is exactly what the banks have done to the American people. Why has the consumer protection agency been placed within the Federal Reserve? So, the same group of individuals who not only turned a blind eye to pending financial meltdown and bailed out the failed “banks” with no strings attached is now charged with consumer advocacy? While we’re at it, let’s make it mandatory for unfit parents to watch daycare centers full of other people’s kids. Really? Again, a modicum of check and balances here, please.
This is your Herbert Hoover moment or your Teddy Roosevelt moment. You can go down in history as a president who turned a blind eye to the business of an exalted few who destroyed the lives of many, or you can stand up to for the majority of the electorate and ensured fair, truly competitive business practices evolve. Being the President who stood up to the banks and saved capitalism is far better than any other historic footnote you could muster. Too big to fail/morally hazard government subsidized risk taking-nothing will change unless the banks are made smaller. Change nothing, and the Goldman-Sachs’s truly have a monopoly not only on finance but financial information-monopolies have no place in a capitalistic society. The post-Glass-Steagal world, in reality, is the direct antithesis of capitalism. If a business is so large that it becomes so entwined within the government that business failure equals government failure, is that not the text book definition of communism? By failing to regulate the size of the banks, you are creating less capitalism, not more.
As the country’s leader, you should be advising America that financial reform will not happen overnight. But in the meantime, you should encourage the electorate to not maintain a deposit account at any “bank” that engages in proprietary trading. Remember your grass roots effort that began your ascent to the White House? Time to get grass roots again and hit the banks where it hurts, and then you can fix the banks at will.
Surprising to me, I have followed the advice of Arianna Huffington, closed my Citi account, and I now do all my banking through Navy Federal Credit Union.
War does make strange bedfellows.
You should be urging every single American to do as I and Ms. Huffington have.
When people like you, highly intelligent people, who swore to stick up for the little guy, do not-that’s when the Sarah Palins come knocking down your door-if anyone in the big cities is wondering why Sarah has such appeal, this is exactly why (and this is coming from a self-imposed exile from NYC).
Sir, you can do better than this.
I remain, Semper Fidelis,
PS-why isn’t the Federal Reserve subject to a Congressional audit?
Posted by markfinelli 
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