I’m doing a story about banks and their importance to the economy of the New York area. I interviewed a major figure in a New York investment bank this morning, and was struck by his comments. Here’s what he said on the record;
“The market is down three percent in the past two days. It doesn’t like these reforms, it’s clearly an attempted government takeover of our financial system. We’ll fight it in the courts if we have to. These are too draconian. We don’t see the President putting these regulations on auto companies, for example.”
Then came the off the record comment, which he asked me not to print in my paper (but said nothing about anonymously on a blog),
“We sent the market crashing. It’s the only tool we have to fight the government. The American people have become so used to creating the falso correleation between the economy and the Dow, all we need to do is sell the market, send it crashing and it’ll be enough to create a populist backlash against these reforms.”
He laughed.
“How are people going to feel about him when the Dow drops below 10,000? No matter what he does, we are in control. We can do a lot of psychological damage. The President is not going to know what hit him.”
is anyone else ready for a torch-wielding mob marching down Broad St.? Consider this an open thread.
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