Wall Street or Main Street: Which side is the senate on?

Viewpoints

January 30, 2010

Don McNay The Richmond Register Sat Jan 30, 2010, 08:41 PM EST

“Poor folks ain’t got a chance

Unless they organize.

Which side are you on boy?

Which side are you on?”

— Florence Reece (Peter Seeger)

Ben Bernanke’s re-appointment as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is in trouble. Liberal senators, such as Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and Barbara Boxer of California, are against him. Conservative senators, such as Richard Shelby of Alabama, oppose him too.

What do Boxer, Shelby and Feingold normally have in common? Nothing. You can’t find another contested issue where they line up on the same side.

Bernanke is different. It is not about Republicans and Democrats.

It is a vote on whether a senator is listening to Wall Street or Main Street.

The vote on Bernanke lets us see which side each senator is on.

Boxer was quoted in the New York Times, saying, “It is time for Main Street to have a champion at the Fed.”

It is time, indeed.

Main Street supporters know that Bernanke has to go. The Wall Street crowd wants to keep Ben in the worst way. He is completely their guy.

Just ask the people at Goldman Sachs or AIG.

My biggest disappointment in President Obama, a man I voted for, is that he has consistently sided with Wall Street over Main Street.

Obama has supported each and every bailout, appointed Timothy Geithner to run the Treasury and appointed Dr. Lawrence Summers to whisper in his ear at the White House.

Naturally, Obama is in favor of giving Bernanke another shot. That is what the Wall Street crowd is calling for.

I was vehemently opposed to Bernanke when he was first appointed by President George W. Bush. Outside of opposition by Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Bernanke’s Senate confirmation was a lovefest and his confirmation was a coronation.

Which led to him presiding over one of the great economic disasters in history.

Nothing in Bernanke’s background clued him in to Main Street. He has never met a payroll, never had to get a business loan and spent most of his life hanging in the faculty lounge at Princeton.

It’s one thing to write a thesis. It’s another to have to live with your decisions, like those of us on Main Street do.

They have a word for people who screw up on Main Street: bankrupt.

They have a word for people who screw up on Wall Street: bailout.

They have a word for people for screw up in Washington: re-appointment.

Thus, Wall Street and Washington is lining up to give Bernanke another shot.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the senate banking committee, responded to the opposition in an “inside the beltway” fashion.

The New York Times quotes Dodd as saying that a vote against Bernanke would send “the worst signal to the market right now” and could “lead us into an economic tailspin.”

What kind of economic tailspin? Like that one Bernanke led us into last year? Or the bigger one, the year before that?

Dodd, whose close ties to lobbyists and sweetheart loans from Countrywide is leading to his premature retirement, considered himself a champion of “working people.”

I guess Dodd defines “working people” as those who work for investment banks.

It makes sense to get rid of Bernanke.

You don’t rehire a football coach who keeps losing games. Bernanke’s term as Federal Reserve Chair is like watching the Cincinnati Bengals for the decade of 1990s. They started in last place and they stayed in last place.

At least the Bengals changed coaches. President Obama needs to do the same at the Federal Reserve.

I would love to see a Federal Reserve Chair who was not a product of the Wall Street-Washington alliance — someone from the heartland, who doesn’t do power lunches at the Four Seasons or hang at the Harvard faculty club.

Someone who had a real job at least at some point in his (or her) life.

If Warren Buffett was available, he would be my pick. If not Warren, then someone with the same kind of midwestern values and sensibilities.

Since the upset election of Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts, there has been a lot of talk about populist anger. Washington is just starting to “get” what those of us on Main Street have known for a long time. People are broke, frustrated and angry and want Washington to do something to help them.

The vote on Bernanke is a litmus test. Senators have a chance to show us whether they will continue to suck up to Wall Street or whether to find someone who is listening to the voice of Main Street.

We will be watching our senators and asking, “Whose side are you on?”

Don McNay of Richmond, an award-winning, syndicated financial columnist, author and Huffington Post Contributor, is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table. Read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com.

Text Only

Viewpoints

Europe’s economic tremors offer useful lesson for Kentucky
Americans paying even cursory attention to what’s happening on the other side of the Atlantic are about to get a stark reminder of an economic principle that too often gets pushed to the side – especially during troubling times: No government has ever taxed, spent or borrowed its way to prosperity.

May 27, 2012 1 Photo
Why would anyone not vote?
Should those of us who vote be disturbed that so few people voted in this past Tuesday’s election?
Only 17 percent of Madison County’s registered voters went to the polls. And, not everyone who’s eligible is registered to vote.

May 26, 2012 1 Photo
Republicans are making some noise
FRANKFORT — Last week’s news was mostly about Tuesday’s primary election but some Republicans who were not on the ballot also had interesting things to say.

May 26, 2012 1 Photo
Taking our Sunday night baths
There in the head of Blair Branch, when I was growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, we always took our weekly baths, even during cold weather, every Sunday night, whether we needed one or not.

May 24, 2012 1 Photo
Obama pursues higher tax rates
In the run-up to this weekend’s G-8 summit at Camp David, journalists have unfavorably compared European “austerity” with Barack Obama’s economic policies.
European spending cuts, the argument goes, have hurt people and are arousing political opposition, while Obama’s proposals to keep federal spending at 24 percent of gross domestic product indefinitely are likely to succeed.

May 21, 2012 1 Photo
Graduation day
It’s that time of year. What’s the old song? “I can still remember...” And I do. It’s what I talk about when I’m invited to be a graduation speaker and what I write about every year at this time.
It’s about all those painful memories.

May 18, 2012 1 Photo
Recent news could cause panic for Obama campaign
Is it panic time at Obama headquarters in Chicago? You might get that impression from watching events – and the polls – over the past few weeks.

May 17, 2012 1 Photo
EPA goes medieval on Kentucky coal
EPA goes medieval on KRoman legions? Horrific crucifixions? Sacking dissenters and making examples out of their deaths?
These may sound like some of the gruesome tactics used by military commanders of the ancient world, but according to Al Armendariz, who, until recently, was regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, it’s much more relevant to modern America than we’d care to believe.

May 13, 2012 1 Photo
Don’t just pick out a card
When Anna Jarvis launched the movement for a Mother’s Day observance in 1908, her intention was to have everyone write their mother a letter, putting some thought and sincerity into thanking and telling her what she had meant to them.
Unsurprisingly, the idea caught on quickly and became very popular. But, Jarvis was disappointed with the outcome.

May 12, 2012 1 Photo
Returning to a calmer situation
FRANKFORT – After a two-month absence, I’ve returned to Frankfort where things seem calmer than when I left.

May 11, 2012 1 Photo
More Viewpoints Headlines

Viewpoints

Search Results

Wall Street or Main Street: Which side is the senate on?

A recent health ranking listed Madison County as the 20th healthiest county in the state. It measured factors such as exercise, access to health care and smoking. Do you smoke cigarettes?

Site Map