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Wednesday, December 04, 2019

Money befriends the friends of money. Big, Big money, ditto. Can you pronounce Mayor Pete's last name?

Tony Newmyer writing for WaPo, Nov.6:

The mayor of South Bend, Ind., the fourth-largest city in the 17th-largest state may be an unlikely candidate for Wall Street largesse. But Buttigieg leads his rivals in collecting contributions from the securities and investment industry, pulling in $935,000 through the first three quarters of this year, according to figures from the Center for Responsive Politics.

[...] For those inclined to criticize Buttigieg’s support from Wall Street, campaign spokesman Chris Meagher noted [...] "Pete will do what is right for our country, and is running to move our country forward by leading with bold ideas that the American people can unify around.”

“He is proud to have support from more than 600,000 people who have given everything from a couple of dollars online to the maximum contribution to his campaign,” Meagher said in an email. “And he will use those resources to beat Donald Trump in November 2020.” Buttigieg has defended his practice of attending high-dollar fundraisers on Wall Street and beyond by saying his campaign is "trying to reach everybody at every level.”

[...] Buttigieg’s list of donors reads in part like a who’s who of Wall Street heavy hitters. It includes: William Ackman, billionaire founder of Pershing Square Capital; Roger C. Altman, a former deputy treasury secretary and founder and senior chairman of the investment banking firm Evercore; Richard M. Cashin, founder of private equity firm One Equity Partners; Jonathan Gray, the billionaire president of Blackstone Group; billionaire hedge fund manager Marc Lasry, CEO of Avenue Capital Group; billionaire investor Daniel Ziff; Allen & Company investment banker Stanley S. Shuman; and Robert Wolf, a Wall Street fundraiser for Obama and founder of investment advisory firm 32 Advisors.

Warren has proposed a slate of legal and regulatory changes that threaten major financiers. She has called for breaking up the big banks; fundamentally remaking the private equity industry; and imposing a 2 percent wealth tax on households with more than $50 million, and a 6 percent tax on wealth above a billion dollars.

Buttigieg’s plans are fuzzier. Under a section on his campaign site labeled “Consumer Protections,” he calls for overhauling federal arbitration law to allow consumers to sue credit card companies in court; passing “strict regulations on predatory lenders;” and reviving the enforcement authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among others.

Trust "everybody at every level" Pete. At every level. You will not be disappointed with Pete anymore than with Biden. If you're worth enough, Pete will notice. Pete notices $935,000, and is the kind of everywhere and every level guy who'd take notice if it were from Wall Street, Indiana, instead of Wall Street, Big Apple. But Big Apple Wall Street is where big donors congregate (with Pete).

A question - who is running South Bend these days with its mayor busy dancing on a national stage? Who decides to shut down the zoo for the winter, with Mayor Pete on the road all the time?

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Little known fact: There is a Wall St. in South Bend, Indiana. It bisects Potawatomi Park. Few billionaires reside or work there to bolster Pete. Really - a Wall Street in Pete's town. No Bull.