On one hand, none other than the company whose very future depends on the continuity of the financial status quo (that would be Bloomberg whose 200,000 Bloomberg terminals are the cashflow lifeblood of the company and for which another financial crash would mean a huge hit to the bottom line as millions of financial workers are again laid off) has a cover story, as well as a cover, depicting Elizabeth Warren as Wall Street's bogeyman [13].
[14]
On the other hand, we now learn that Warren is also warning that Obama's pet trade project, the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which is supposed to counter the ascendence of China in global trade, has been warning [15]about the potential damage of the trade deal and has been arguing that the deal would cost American jobs (for more on the topic, see "Free Trade Is Plutocratic Propaganda [16]").
And Obama is not happy: according to the NYT [17], Obama called Warren "absolutely wrong" in his criticism of the TPP [17].
“The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else,” Mr. Obama told Matt Bai of Yahoo News in an interview conducted on Friday at Nike’s headquarters near Beaverton, Ore. “And, you know, she’s got a voice that she wants to get out there, and I understand that. And on most issues, she and I deeply agree. On this one, though, her arguments don’t stand the test of fact and scrutiny.”
Ms. Warren, a former Harvard law professor, has become an outspoken leader of those Democrats who argue that the agreement would cost American jobs.
But neither the fate of the TPP, nor what happens with global trade (spoiler alert: it continues to collapse in a world in which central banks micromanage everything and in which there is a global race to the currency bottom), nor the increasingly hostile relationship between the president and the potential Democratic presidential candidate (not to mention a big part of his liberal base) is what we would like to focus here, but the following quite amusing excerpt from the NYT piece:
[Obama] seemed most irritated at Ms. Warren’s suggestion that the trade pact could be used as a vehicle to undercut the financial overhaul that Mr. Obama signed in 2010 in response to the Wall Street excesses that led to the recession.
The punchline:
“She’s absolutely wrong,” Mr. Obama said in the interview. “Think about the logic of that, right? The notion that I had this massive fight with Wall Street to make sure that we don’t repeat what happened in 2007, 2008, and then I sign a provision that would unravel it?” He added, “I’d have to be pretty stupid.”
One simply does not know how to respond here, because when Obama talks of a "massive fight" with Wall Street, is he referring to:
- the tens of billions in handouts handed to each and every bank, unleashing the age of socialized losses and privatized profits?
- the condification of the Too Big To Fail concept?
- presiding over a Department of "Justice" that openly admitted [18]it would not prosecute certain bankers over fears of systemic collapse consequences, thus mathin up TBTF with Too Big To Prosecute?
- the implementation of Barney Frank which was supposed to rein in banks and instead had Citigroup lawyers and lobbysists write the language [19]write the language in the Derivatives Swaps Out provision of the Omnibus bill as a result of $70.3 trillion in total Citigroup derivatives [20], which the bank knows will one day require another taxpayer bailout?
[21]
Needless to say we are very confused just which "unraveling" of Obama's "massive fight" with Wall Street the president is refering to.
As for Obama "having to be pretty stupid", we'll let readers decide that one.
