Big Wall Street banks are so upset with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's call for them to be broken up that some have discussed withholding campaign donations to Senate Democrats in symbolic protest, sources familiar with the discussions said.
Representatives from Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have met to discuss ways to urge Democrats, including Warren and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, to soften their party's tone toward Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said this week.
Bank officials said the idea of withholding donations was not discussed at a meeting of the four banks in Washington but it has been raised in one-on-one conversations between representatives of some of them. However, there was no agreement on coordinating any action, and each bank is making its own decision, they said.
I happen to have found a video recording of that meeting:
Seriously, this is truly disgusting. They don't even try to hide it. They just put this out there as a blatant threat.
It would be nice if the Democrats would get incensed by such obvious strong-arm tactics and tell them to go fuck themselves. There are plenty of other places to find money and if they play their cards right they might even be able to leverage some of the populist anger for real to fight these bullyboy gangsters.
I won't hold my breath.
Oh, and by the way, someone should inform the press that the alleged Tea party populists don't seem to be stepping up on this one. All we hear from the Villagers is that they are just as populist and against big banks and bailouts as the left wing of the Democratic Party is. And yet, oddly, they don't seem to be pressuring their representatives on this the way they pressure them on stuff like immigration or abortion. In fact, there isn't even one Republican in congress who seems to give a damn. Why do you suppose that is?