Make No Mistake, Wall Street Loves Hillary

    Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, and Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton. (AP / Mark Lennihan)

“Clinton’s campaign staff is working overtime … to show how well she relates to ordinary Americans,” writes Elizabeth Schulte at Jacobin. “But the people whose opinions really matter in the presidential election know better.”

“As one Wall Street lawyer put it,” Schulte continues, “ ‘If it turns out to be Jeb vs. Hillary, we would love that and either outcome would be fine’ ”:

Indeed, if Clinton talks today about economic inequality while she throws her crown into the ring, she has a long and loyal relationship with money and power. Among the top ten contributors to her 2008 campaign were employees from JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup, Morgan Stanley, and Lehman Brothers — institutions that can all benefit from a few friends in high places.

As secretary of state, she pressured governments to change policies and sign deals that would benefit US corporations like General Electric, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, and Boeing. She also promoted hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and contracts with US oil companies like Chevron in Poland, Bulgaria, and elsewhere.

But perhaps her most telling corporate relationship is with the union-busting retail giant Walmart. Clinton served on the company’s board of directors from 1986 to 1992, and the law firm she worked for, Rose Law Firm, represented the corporation.

During those years, Clinton sat quietly as Walmart waged a war on workers trying to unionize and fight for basic rights on the job. This fealty to Walmart never wavered. During her three trips to India as secretary of state, she tried to convince the government to reverse its law aimed at keeping out big-box retailers.

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— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.