There’s an ancient political adage that business supports Republicans. Of course anyone even remotely familiar with political campaign contributions knows this is amazingly untrue (and one of the most misreported items imaginable).
Friday’s Wall Street Journal had a piece in its Money and Investing section on Wall Street support for Hillary, “Buffett Goes to Bat for Clinton.” (Or go here if it’s gated.)
Yes, there is such a thing as Wall Street support for Democratic candidates. In fact, at the end of the day you’ll find the supposedly capitalist, free-market, businesses on Wall Street will pony up more money for the socialist party than the party that putatively supports the free market. If we had a functioning media (and savvier Republicans) this would be a widely known fact…
The story notes that Warren Buffett is a big supporter of Clinton and is working with other Wall Street tycoons to raise money for her. Now, if you have followed big money politics for a while you’ll recall that Buffett is usually described as a “registered Republican.” That’s just a bit of disinformation peddled by the Democrat-Media complex to mislead the voters. Buffett hasn’t been a “Republican” in decades.
When you talk about Wall Street support for liberals and socialists usually the first name that comes to mind is Goldman Sachs. It operates as a feeder school/halfway house/retirement home for Democrats and has for decades. It also keeps a few pet Republicans in “Break Glass In Case Of Emergency” cases.
However, the story also provides the names of other Wall Street sellouts. Ringleader is Blackstone Group President and COO Hamilton “Tony” James, who is apparently eager for a Hillary administration (he’s also a major supporter for Obama), as is one of his colleagues, Byron Wien.
Co-conspirators include: “Among those in attendance were Blair Effron, the co-founder of boutique advisory firm Centerview Partners; Byron Wien, a vice chairman at Blackstone; Dick Cashin, the founder of One Equity Partners; Cliff Robbins, CEO of Blue Harbour Group; Wesley Edens, the co-founder of Fortress Investment Group [a company supportive of Al Gore]; and Dermot Dunphy, a retired executive and former CEO of Sealed Air, according to people familiar with the matter. ”
Mark all of these gentleman and their companies on your boycott list. They do not mean this country well.
And Blackstone investors, shareholders and officers, please pay attention and discipline these destructive men.
So why would these businessmen be supportive of candidates and a party that does not mean them well?
It’s a complicated story and the motivations can vary — from pure greed to strategizing that you can use the government to increase your position and cripple your competitors to a desire to be “liked” to guilt of success. But make no mistake, these men are in it for the money and power, they couldn’t care less about the Constitution, free markets or other businesses beyond their parochial interests. Somehow they think that if they burn the house down they’ll still have some place to sleep and keep out of the weather.
You Kids Get Off My Lawn 