MUST READ discussion of Clinton's 2013 courting of Wall Street: "Lament of the Plutocrats"

[Attorney in Texas]

Note: This article is from 2013, before all eyes were on Clinton's ties to Wall Street.

link; excerpt:

On a recent afternoon, executives at Goldman Sachs invited a few hundred major investors to the Conrad Hotel in lower Manhattan. The bankers and their guests filed into a large room and turned their eyes to Hillary Clinton.

Ordinarily these masters of the universe might have groaned at the idea of a politician taking the microphone. In the contentious years since the crash of 2008, they’ve grown wearily accustomed to being called names—labeled “ fat cats" by President Obama and worse by those on the left—and gotten used to being largely shunned by Tea Party Republicans for their association with the Washington establishment. And of course there are all those infuriating new rules and regulations, culminating this week with the imposition of the so-called Volcker Rule to make risky trades by big banks illegal.

But Clinton offered a message that the collected plutocrats found reassuring, according to accounts offered by several attendees, declaring that the banker-bashing so popular within both political parties was unproductive and indeed foolish. Striking a soothing note on the global financial crisis, she told the audience, in effect: We all got into this mess together, and we’re all going to have to work together to get out of it. What the bankers heard her to say was just what they would hope for from a prospective presidential candidate: Beating up the finance industry isn’t going to improve the economy—it needs to stop. And indeed Goldman’s Tim O’Neill, who heads the bank’s asset management business, introduced Clinton by saying how courageous she was for speaking at the bank. (Brave, perhaps, but also well-compensated: Clinton’s minimum fee for paid remarks is $200,000).

Certainly, Clinton offered the money men—and, yes, they are mostly men—at Goldman’s HQ a bit of a morale boost. “It was like, ‘Here’s someone who doesn’t want to vilify us but wants to get business back in the game,’” said an attendee. “Like, maybe here’s someone who can lead us out of the wilderness.”

...
The fundraisers who are starting to circle their preferred 2016 presidential hopefuls are doing so tentatively—just beginning the ritual dance between candidate and benefactor that will shape the financial race for the White House. With presidential contenders looking to collect north of a billion dollars, here are check-writers on the Republican side that could soon matter most.
...
if the Democratic nominee is local favorite Hillary Clinton—and the former New York senator has been shrewdly tending to would-be donors for much of the last year, whether in the form of speaking engagements like the one at Goldman this fall, or by glad-handing as she helps to raise $250 million for her family’s foundation...Lasry, fresh off a fundraising tour of duty on the Terry McAuliffe campaign for governor in Virginia, figures to be a critical component of an expected Clinton run...

The worry on Wall Street is about how far to the left Clinton might have to drift to appease what’s been proclaimed the “Warren wing of the Democratic Party”—the vocal populists buoyed by Elizabeth Warren’s tough critiques of Wall Street greed, as well as by the recent election of liberal Mayor Bill de Blasio on their New York home turf. According to people in Clinton’s extended circle, John Podesta—the former White House chief of staff under her husband who this week joined the Obama White House for a year-long stint—was poised to work with Hillary Clinton on her messaging on income inequality, a role he seems less likely to fill while he's in government. Still, some say fears that Clinton will end up alienating financial sector donors the way Obama has, even if she tacks left, are overblown. “Wall Street folks are so happy about {having Clinton run} that they won’t care what she says,” says one well-placed Democrat.

And if the banking class is delighted with Clinton lately, the feeling appears mutual. In Manhattan last week, Clinton sat down with the Carlyle Group’s David Rubenstein for their second question-and-answer session in the last two months. Unlike the first one, held for his private equity firm’s investor conference, this was a more public appearance, part of a program honoring the late diplomat Richard Holbrooke at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Clinton easily regaled the well-heeled crowd with stories from her past before Rubenstein ended their half-hour chat with a joke about her future: Would she be interested in joining a private equity firm?

“Is that an offer?” Clinton asked, laughing as the audience knowingly joined in. She may soon need many things from the titans of finance, but a job is probably not one of them.

[Wilms]

1. Well, this sheds a different light on Clinton saying "cut it out".

What the bankers heard her to say was just what they would hope for from a prospective presidential candidate: Beating up the finance industry isn’t going to improve the economy—it needs to stop.

I thought she was telling the banks to "cut it out". No. It seems she was saying that about critics of Wall Street.

[elias49]

2. It does seem that way.

[Attorney in Texas]

3. When Clinton said "cut it out" she was referring to people picking on the poor unappreciated banks

[peacebird]

6. Exactly!

[WillyT]

4. K & R !!!

[peacebird]

5. Funny way she has of telling them to "cut it out!" Sounds like 'there, there, i'll protect you!"

[Attorney in Texas]

7. Or 'there, there, i'll protect you from those pesky voters!" She's the affluenza mom for Wall Street

[peacebird]

9. Perfect! 'The Affluenza Mom for Wall$treet'! Describes her to a T

[Skwmom]

8. Looking at Warren's last moves, I for one am not expecting much. n/t

[Attorney in Texas]

10. I think she is remaining neutral until her voice is needed. If Sanders has the most voter chosen

delegates and DWS and her DNC want to file the result to Clinton based on un-democratically chosen delegates, expect to hear from Warren.