GOP presidential candidate drop out Tim Pawlenty, who until recently was considered a top VP running mate candidate for Mitt Romney, has shown his true colors, and has become the head of the Financial Services Roundtable, a U.S. bank lobbying group that represents JP Morgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo & Co , among other financial companies, the group said on Thursday. This is also known as the TBTF consortium. From Reuters: "Pawlenty, who dropped out of the White House race early and quickly backed Mitt Romney for the nomination, takes over as president and chief executive office of the industry group on Nov. 1, it said in a statement. As the industry's top lobbyist, he will play a major role in the industry's efforts to make new Dodd-Frank rules, which Congress passed in 2010 in response to the 2007-2009 financial crisis, more favorable for Wall Street as regulators implement the law. The measure - a response to the crisis fueled by risky financial swaps trading at some firms that required multibillion-dollar tax payer bailouts - has yet to be fully enacted. "Few industries have more impact on the entire economy - and on the lives of average Americans - than financial services. I realize there is still work to be done to continue to earn customers' confidence," Pawlenty said in the statement. "Our members will best accomplish that goal by responsibly investing every day in our communities and job creators," he added."
None of this hopefully comes as a surprise. After all Pawlenty's primary donor group [7]was Wall Street:
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However, when compared to Chuck Schumer [9], we doubt that had Tim Pawlenty told the Chairman to "get to work" he would have gotten quite the same spirited response.
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Perhaps instead of engaging in meaningless "he said, she said" theater, the US political system can finally reply to one simple question: just whose interests does it represent?
It certainly is not "the people's"