Obama is full of Wall Street money

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Published time: October 20, 2011 16:04
Edited time: October 20, 2011 20:07

Barack Obama has remained mostly mum regarding Occupy Wall Street, but did tell reporters that he understands the frustration at “how our financial system works.” Bank industry bigwigs, however, have donated more to Obama than any GOP candidate.

Because the current commander-in-chief can raise money on behalf of both his own presidential campaign and the Democratic National committee, President Barack Obama has pulled in more donations from the financial and banking sector than any of Republican hopefuls vying to remove him from the White House, reveals a new report from the Washington Post.

According to The Post’s latest revelation, bank employees, hedge fund magnates and others in the finance sector have contributed more to Obama and the Democrats than any of the campaigns of the GOP candidates. Largely to thank, says The Post, is a number of Democratic financiers who aided Obama in his 2008 bid to reclaim the White House from the Republicans that still give money to Obama and the DNC today.

Between both his own campaign and DNC contributions, the president has been responsible for raking in around $15.6 million in contributions from the financial and banking sector. By comparison, Texas Governor Rick Perry, still considered to be in the top-tier of GOP candidates, has pulled in only $2 million from the same pool.

Speaking to RT only yesterday, trends analyst Gerald Celente said that the ties between the Obama administration and the financial sector are as clear as day, so the ongoing protests in Lower Manhattan that have spread across the world now have just as much of a reason to demonstrate in droves on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Wall Street is Washington; Washington is Wall Street,” Celetnte told RT. “Who is the chief of staff of President Obama? Oh, that’s Bill Daley. Wasn’t he the VP of JP Morgan Chase?” asked Celente.

In regards to the relationship between the two, Celente added, “It’s the same club, it’s just a different division.”

That isn’t to say, however, that Wall Street is the main supporter of Obama or necessarily in cahoots with the Democratic Party. While Obama’s campaign committee has raised around 5 percent of its revenue from the finance and banking sector, Romney has relied on them for around a quarter of his campaign funding.

The Post adds that even in the case of Bain Capital, a firm co-founded by GOP hopeful Mitt Romney, Obama has managed to pull in $76,000 from three of the company’s donors; his Republican rival, on the other hand, has collected only half of that from a dozen and a half Bain bigwigs.

Doctor Cornel West was arrested over the weekend on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington DC, where he said that the US government and big corporations need to be aware that our relationship is for secret in the eyes of the American public. Earlier this year he accused Obama of being “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.”