This & That...

Wall Street has abandoned Obama.  Stung by the president’s criticism of the business community and the top 1% earners, Wall Street has responded by turning off the flow of money to the Obama Campaign in favor of Mitt Romney.  Thus far Wall Street has donated $40 million to the Romney Campaign while forking over only $5 million to Obama.  It’s still early but the trend is telling.

Independent and moderate voters have caught on to the Republican’s strategy of “obstructionism.”  A new Daily Kos/SEIU opinion poll shows that 51% of self described independents and 61% of moderates believe that Republicans are intentionally blocking efforts to jump start the economy to ensure that Obama is not re-elected.

Echoing the above poll results, former Republican Governor Florida Jeb Bush has weighed in on his party’s seeming unwillingness to compromise. He said both his father, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, believed in compromise and would have had a hard time fitting in with the current Republican Party.

Syria has turned into a civil war.  Sec. of State Clinton has publically called out Moscow for providing military helicopters which the Syrian government has used to target insurgents as well as innocent women and children.  The Soviets have denied the accusation.  China and Russia have both refused to authorize any UN intervention.  War hawks in congress are questioning the president’s reluctance to intervene unilaterally.  The American people have no stomach for another ground war and it is unlikely that we will see any US involvement in the middle of an election season.  Besides, there is no oil in Syria.  If there were we’d be looking at a whole lot more US involvement.

JPMorgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon will appear before congress today where he is expected to apologize for a $3 billion dollar trading loss.  The loss has been attributed to and investment (gambling) strategy that stretched the definition of “hedging” to its limits.  We don’t understand why Mr. Dimon needs to apologize for anything.  According to Republicans this is just another example of the free enterprise system at work…right?  Investments are made…risks are taken…some are winners…some are losers.  Republicans did everything in their power to quash efforts by the government to regulate banks in order to prevent “risky” investment strategies such as this from being implemented. So given their refusal to implement protections against this type of activity we don’t understand the entire hubbub.  “C’est la vie.”