On Nov 4, 2007, at 8:27 AM, ulisse mangialaio wrote:
> I have a question. there was much talk of wall street being against
> the Iraq invasion, then we read that Alan Greenspan kind of
> encouraged it (not so much to get oil, but to get a firmer grip of
> its market, as David Harvey first, to my knowledge, suggested).
> ok, wall street is kind of pragmatically nihilist, that is pro-
> winners and against loosers. and still, if the Fed Chairman,
> especially such a partisan chairman as Greenspan, is the avatar of
> WS class consciousness, the one who knows better what is going to
> benefit capitalists as a class in the middle-longer term, i would
> argue that the iraq invasion has been more than simply 'tolerated'
> in a sort of wait-and-see attitude by wall street.
I don't think WS was ever against the Iraq invasion - they just didn't give it a lot of thought. As far as I can tell, on matters that don't directly affect the business, most finance types - and business types more broadly - defer to the politicians most of the time. If it doesn't affect the markets, eh, who cares? I suspect most of them thought the Iraq war would be short and sweet, and maybe deliver us cheap oil too. Now that it's a mess and oil is approaching $100, they probably wish the whole thing would go away. They're giving to Democrats this year, and probably think that Dems are more likely to get out and get it over with somehow, but they're also just getting behind what they see to be winners (and shorting the losers, Bush). Of course, WS does usually have more Dems than most other business sectors.
Greenspan is far more ideological and politically engaged than most WS people. They loved him because they got rich under him and he saved their ass when they got in trouble. I'm not sure he's an avatar of their class consciousness; you could say the same about Robert Rubin, really. Or Henry Paulson, who's a pragmatic conservative and not a true believer like Greenspan.
Doug