George Graham

Wall Street’s Boy

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Back in the 1700s, America was unfortunate enough to have Benedict Arnold. Now, the country has Kevin Yoder.

Benedict Arnold’s plot to surrender the fortress at West Point was thwarted. Kevin Yoder’s plot to give Wall Street the keys to America’s treasury was not.

The way I see it, this poor excuse for an American congressman betrayed the people he is supposed to represent.

According to the Huffington Post, it was Yoder who sneaked a toxic rider into that $1.1 trillion spending bill that Congress rammed through last week to avoid a government shutdown.

The rider was written – word for word – by Citigroup. As I’m sure you know,  Citigroup is one of hose too-big-to-fail banks that hold America hostage. They suborn the country’s interests to their insatiable greed.

These “big banks” use the American people’s pension funds and savings to gamble on risky stocks, and when they lose, they get bailed out by the government.

After the practice caused global economic collapse in 2008 – and plunged America into its worst recession since the Great Depression – Congress passed a law that included regulations forcing the banks to set up separate agencies for their gambling binges. They were obliged to risk their own money – not the public’s.

It’s this legislation that Yoder’s rider repeals.

Senator Elizabeth Warren and other progressives in Congress fought fiercely against repealing the regulations. But the leadership of both parties, including President Obama, bowed to Wall Street’s power (the financial industry donates hundreds of millions of dollars to political campaigns). And Yoder’s infamous rider survived.

Not surprisingly, I read in the Huffington Post article that Yoder’s most generous campaign contributors are in the financial industry.

The article quotes several critical comments from Yoder’s Kansas constituents, and his craven act could possibly spell the end of his political career. But as one of the comments on the article points out, he is assured of a lucrative job if he is voted out of office.

This swinging door between Washington DC and corporate America is one of the most glaring defects in the nation’s political system. It undermines any hope that “we the people” could expect honest representation from those we elect.

Click for the Huffington Post article.

About the author

gwgraeme

I am a Jamaican-born writer who has lived and worked in Canada and the United States. I live in Lakeland, Florida with my wife, Sandra, our three cats and two dogs. I like to play golf and enjoy our garden, even though it's a lot of work. Since retiring from newspaper reporting I've written a few books. I also write a monthly column for Jamaicans.com