There have been dozens of books, hundreds of op-eds, and tens of thousands of blog posts written about what a mess our country's financial system has become. Last month the President addressed Wall Street bankers on Wall Street. Not a single banker came. But they have sent checks. Here's the list of contributions (through the end of 2008) to the top recipients of bankster largesse in American history:
In his brief career as a U.S. Senator and a presidential candidate, it appears that Barack Obama was given more money from the FIRE Sector (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) than anyone else in the history of the legislative branch.
The three all-time winners were all senators who ran for president:
Barack Obama- $42,268,166
John McCain- $33,339,458
Hillary Clinton- $29,800,366
Close behind them were three more Senators who are also former presidential candidates, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Chris Dodd. Wall Street isn't taking any chances.
Howie Klein, the author of the above observations, goes on to closely detail how much dirty money Democrats and Republicans alike on committees overseeing the banking and finance industries are raking in.
Klein's article links to an important article published yesterday at Salon.com by Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald discusses this week's Bill Moyers Journal episode, that devoted its first half hour to an interview with Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, and former International Monetary Fund chief economist, Simon Johnson.
Greenwald dissects the Moyers interview. Essentially, not only are we continuing to reward those who brought our country to within 48 hours of financial collapse a year ago, we're letting them write the script to what our Democratic Party-controlled U.S. Congress will claim to be the solution.
President Obama has surrounded himself with banksters. I still can't tell the bankers from the robbers eight months into his administration.
Some seem to feel that we're doomed, financially. Others are fighting back. Here's Alan Grayson, being interviewed on a radio program last week:
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