Fat Cats
August 2013
In 2009, President Obama used the term “fat cat bankers” in a taped broadcast. Unsurprisingly this was not his original phrase. The word was first used in the 1920s to describe rich political donors. The term has been attributed to Frank Kent, a writer for the Baltimore Sun whose essay “Fat Cats and Free Rides” appeared in the American Mercury. Kent wrote:
“A Fat Cat is a man of large means and no political experience who having reached middle age, and success in business … develops a yearning for some sort of public honor and is willing to pay for it. The machine has what it seeks, public honor, and he has the money the machine needs.”
But exactly who is the president referring too? Does he mean Jamie Dimon, Chairman of JP Morgan, the largest bank in the country, and avowed Democrat and political donor? Does Obama mean the heads of the five or six “too big to fail” banks protected by Dodd Frank? Does he mean supporter Warren Buffet who at times has either invested in big banks (Wells Fargo) or actually took a hand in trying to run one (Salomon Brothers). Of these two examples, Wells Fargo resisted the imposed bailout money and is highly solvent but the Buffet touch was not enough to save Salomon Brothers.
Perhaps he does not mean bankers at all. He could be referring to Penny Pritzker, heir to the vast Pritzker fortune and such an ardent support of the President’s that she was the awarded the Commerce Department. It should be noted that she has been very generous with her billions. How do we know this? Because of all of the buildings in Chicago adorning her name – lest anyone forget whose largesse built these monuments to her generosity. Before anyone grow concerned that Ms. Pritzker end up on food stamps it should be noted that she has kept back the vast majority of her wealth so that can continue to fly on private planes to her many homes. At least when she is in Commerce commanding the 50,000 employees who are supposed to help with business, she does not need to fly on the public dime. We do not know whether she has been given the waiver on the Affordable Care Act.
Perhaps these fat cats are Obama’s many billionaire Silicon Valley contributors? What about the CEOs of the big companies on the Job Council like Jeff Immelt, also a banker through GE. No, that is not it. Could it be his many millionaire and billionaire Hollywood supporters?
Barak Obama has been called a socialist many times. Yet the ultimate goal of Socialism is the transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. Like a magician who wants you to look at one hand when the other is doing the magic, Obama talks about fat cats when in fact his policies transfer wealth from the rest of us to the well connected, the politically astute, those with the money, the TRUE fat cats. Take Dodd Frank. Who are the banks that get selected as too big to fail? The six branch regional bank in your neighborhood? The new bank started by someone you might know and do business with? No. The Jamie Dimons and those with the Buffet stamp of approval.
In every society in the history of mankind from the nephew of the Pharaoh who got the Nile Grain rights to the lucky French Nobles who profited from the Mercantilist system to the well connected of today, where there is greater government, there will be fat cats who will manipulate the levers of that government to keep themselves in and the others out. If anyone is serious about eliminating fat cats it is those who advocate limited government. And it is not Barak Obama.