Wall Street Donations to Obama Take a Tumble

By, Chris Rossini
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Compared to the 2008 election cycle, Wall Street is throwing a lot less money at Obama.

OpenSecrets is running the following chart that compares the two elections:

OpenSecrets points out that Goldman Sachs was Obama's 2nd highest contributor in 2008, while this time around it's 53rd.

They speculate that a main reason is Obama's signing of the Dodd-Frank Act, bringing more regulation to Wall Street. But as Bob Wenzel has pointed out:

"With this type of growth in regulation, it is going to suffocate many, many businesses. It will be particularly difficult for startups and small firms, who don't have the funds to to hire the personnel to  meet all the new regulations. Thus, in general, these new regulations will build an advantage for large firms. It creates a moat for them and snuffs out new competitors."

So it may appear that Washington is clamping down on Wall Street, but in truth, it's larger Wall Street firms clamping down on any new competition.

My own speculation is that Wall Street is looking to back the more apparent war monger. Obama is no peacenik for sure, but after Romney's foreign policy speech, and the Neocons circling him, he seems to be the man; the "Weaponized Keynesian" as Krugman called him.

A major war = major government spending = major profits for the financiers on Wall Street.