Obama suddenly changes his tune on fat cat bankers

published 11 February 2010

President Barack Obama’s roar against bankers seems to have turned into a squeak. The man who in January threatened to tax “obscene” bonuses, and in December decried the activities of banking “fat cats”, said yesterday he didn’t begrudge the million-dollar pay-outs made to two of Wall Street’s most powerful men because, after all, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that”. Of course, it all depends who you are talking to. Obama’s latest comments were made to BusinessWeek magazine – a go-to source for the world’s financial movers and shakers, including some of the fat cats who fund the Democrats. Mainstream for the financial world, but not required reading for the average Joe. Obama was asked about JP Morgan chairman Jamie Dimon ($16.1m plus a $1m salary) and Goldman’s boss Lloyd Blankfein ($9m). "I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen," the President said. "I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system." Of course, Obama is right about the baseball stars. Alex "A-Rod-" Rodriguez, for instance, was paid $33m last year. But his comments are a staggering contrast to his earlier rhetoric. "If these folks want a fight, it's a fight I'm ready to have," Obama vowed in January as he promised to steal the bankers’ candy. He was a man who didn’t run for office only to end up "helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street", he told CBS’s 60 Minutes in December. Surely Obama cannot have imagined his remarks to Bloomberg BusinessWeek would escape repetition in other, more mainstream media? But if this was a calculated risk, a sop to the people he has to keep sweet, his timing is unfortunate. As the Huffington Post points out today, at last week’s first Tea Party Convention (a spontaneous grass-roots movement, and not, we’re assured, a campaign covertly orchestrated by Republican forces) the star speaker, one Sarah Palin, was considerably more on-message. "While people on Main Street look for jobs, people on Wall Street - they're collecting billions and billions in your bailout bonuses,” the former governor of Alaska thundered. “Where are the consequences? They helped to get us into this worst economic situation since the Great Depression. Where are the consequences?"