As usual Barack Obama misread the mood of the public and his constant hammering of banking pay ended up backfiring, as people got fatigued from it all and the business community in general started to see Obama’s anti-business beliefs.
In a complete turnaround from attacking banking bonuses and executive pay, Obama said this in response to a question during an interview
responding to the $17 million JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon received and how main street America may perceive it, that “an extraordinary amount of money” but “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”
“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen. I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.”
It sounds like someone took a poll or private survey and discovered this tactic wasn’t working and was largely driven by the media friends surrounding Obama who are anti-business and free markets to the core.
We see Obama reeling under the weight of rejection of his controversial and socialist policies across the board, and that is probably what a lot of this is about, as the connection with the anti-business leanings of Obama was emerging, which gave him even more political problems.
Part of this could be in response to banks responding with compensation for their people mostly in stock, which may have triggered or been promised by Obama that he would then ease up on his anti-business tirade. But I seriously doubt that’s the major motivating factor.
Most Americans really aren’t that bothered by compensation for bankers, they’re concerned about their own circumstances as well as the tax money used to bail out the large banks. The compensation issue was further down the list, and not as important as the media attempted to make it.
Obama has been losing support and friends fast, and he can’t afford to have the business community completely turn against, which is what I suspect is behind all of this.
Sure he gets to do a little bragging that he indeed reined in the pay by pressuring banks to pay their key executive largely in stock, but the talk is already from companies like Goldman Sachs that it isn’t going to continue to be that way in 2010. So they’re already drawing the line and saying last year was an anomaly highly unlikely to be repeated for the top-producing people at the financial firms.
For Obama, I think he went way to far in the way he denounced the bankers, and there is very little he can do now to convince business he is in their corner after his dismal performance.
