"No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered-not gambling in stocks, but service rendered."
Amen.
Just recycling TR isnt the same as applying his policies. Even Eskow admits that, writing: "the Obama Justice Department sits idly by the SEC continues to let major corporations pay slap-on-the-wrist fines for executive criminality- fines that are often paid by the same shareholders they deceived -- while "neither admitting nor denying wrongdoing."
Yves Smith of the Naked Capitalism blog goes further:
"Wow, I have to hand it to Obama's spinmeisters. They've managed to find a way to resurrect his old hopium branding by calling it something completely different that still has many of the old associations.
And we have a twofer in Obama's launch of his new branding as True Son of Teddy Roosevelt. "The second element of this finesse is that Obama is using the Rooseveltian imagery to claim he will pass legislation to get tough on Big Finance miscreants. That posture, is of course meant to underscore the idea that you just can't get the perps with the present, weak set of laws."
The Financial Times reported him saying" "financial institutions whose business model is built on breaking the law, cheating consumers or making risky bets that could damage the entire economy".
I'll be calling for legislation that makes [anti-fraud] penalties count -- so that firms don't see punishment for breaking the law as just the price of doing business."
Sounds good, except there are laws and rules on the books right now that could be deployed!
Trying to get new "anti-business" legislation through the Republican Congress is sure to be a non-starter and only intended to give him a new club to attack his adversaries with, rather crack down on Wall Street fraud.
Writes Smith, "No, it has plenty of tools, starting with Sarbanes Oxley. As we've discussed at length in earlier posts, Sarbox was designed to eliminate the CEO and top brass "know nothing" excuse. And the language for civil and criminal charges is parallel, so a prosecutor could file criminal charges, and if successful, could then open up a related criminal case. Sarbox required that top executives (which means at least the CEO and CFO) certify the adequacy of internal controls, and for a big financial firm, that has to include risk controls and position valuation. The fact that the Administration didn't attempt to go after, for instance, AIG on Sarbox is inexcusable. ".
We can go on and on detailing the many ways the President, reborn as Teddy Roosevelt, was anything but a rough rider charging up Wall Street hill.
Writing on Huff Post, Jim Sleeper, a former journalist turned Yale professor, compared Obama's speech to suggestions in an earlier article in the NY Times by Drew Westen, a critic telling him what he should be saying
"Here are some of the lines that Westen suggested in his
essay last summer. Following them are the ones Obama delivered this week".
Westen last summer on what Obama should say :
"Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness..."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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