Channelling populist anger to Wall Street
Business Times - 19 Jan 2010 Channelling populist anger to Wall Street Obama's US$90b bank tax aimed at pacifying angry Americans, undermining Republicans By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT THE opening session of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) hearings on Capitol Hill - during which bankers from America's top financial institutions faced tough questions about the role that the banks had played in the financial collapse - looks like the first scene in a populist drama being staged by the Obama administration and its allies in Congress. The main villains in this political production are all those infamous Wall Street companies that, after being bailed out by the American taxpayer, are now getting ready to reward their employees with record pay - around US$145 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. Moreover, this is happening at a time when many Americans are losing their jobs and most of them are continuing to experience economic pain. There is no doub...