President Carter Speaks Out on Wall Street

Meet the 44th President of the United States

President Carter announced today that he was declaring war on Wall Street.

In a meeting at the Oval Office attended by Treasury secretary W. Michael Blumenthal, Carter said "We should no longer allow banks to stray too far from their central mission of serving their customers.”

That's fine. Go right ahead and propose whatever laws and regulations you want. They won't get passed, now that corporate money can flood into the system almost entirely unrestrained, and he's lost his veto-proof majority in the Senate.

I forget who said it, a cable TV pundit I imagine, but somebody said a few months ago that if President Obama doesn't get health care reform passed he is going to go down in history as Jimmy Carter. The one-two punch Tuesday and today ensures it. It also means that financial reform is dead in the water.

So the big banks can breathe easy. I have no idea why the market tanked today. I hope it wasn't the jawboning on banks. Ain't happening.

© 2010 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.