Who Owns Whom? (Obama v. Wall Street)

American Spectator ^ | 11.19.10 | Shawn Macomber

[neverdem]

Bestselling investigative reporter Charles Gasparino's latest tome Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street commences not with a scene from the much-ballyhooed first one hundred days of the new Administration, but at a hush-hush 2007 pow-wow at Johnny's Half Shell in Washington, D.C. between then-Senator Barack Obama and executives from Wall Street's top firms -- Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns -- which went so swimmingly the only warm fuzzy it lacked was the ghost of Humphrey Bogart intoning, "Barry, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

From there the Fox Business Network senior correspondent and Daily Beast columnist lays out in gobstopping detail just how well both sides have since profited from this extended dalliance, combining fiery outsider indignation with hard-won insider knowledge, narrative prowess, and a true knack for the telling anecdote -- disgraced Bear Stearns hedge fund manager Warren Spector spending his days knocking on Florida doors as a volunteer Obama campaign worker and nights bedded down at luxury hotels while his preferred candidate ceaselessly derides Republicans as the party of Wall Street is but one among many doozies.

Bought and Paid For is, in short, required reading for anyone interested in the obscured behind the scenes machinations of the economic maelstrom we currently find ourselves mired in. Gasparino was recently kind enough to speak with TAS about his book.

TAS: What compelled you to write Bought and Paid For?

Charles Gasparino: The notion of Big Government and Big Wall Street colluding to do bad things is something I've covered for a long time. I've always been interested in the conflicts between public policy and finance. What I've seen over the years is this seemingly bizarre anomaly of how Wall Street, which is allegedly the...

[pingman]

Don’t know what to say other than:

“I’m shocked; SHOCKED!!”

[LZ_Bayonet]

The words Fascism and Corporatism come to mind, not Socialism.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Thanks for the post. I’m reading Gasparino’s prior book, “The Sellout” about the buildup to the mortgage crisis. I’ve read several, and this is so far the best. I’ll have to put that on my reading list.

[Spok]

Only the complicit MSM’s support makes this kind of outrageous, hypocritical duplicity feasible. The lies being perpetrated by this president and the MSM are bigger and more outlandish than anything fiction could manufacture.