Explaining Why Wall Street and the Wealthy Hate Obama

This week, I write about why the rich in America — many of whom backed Barack Obama in 2008 — have turned against the president this year. On the face of it, that’s surprising — after all, the recovery for the 1 percent has been much more robust than it has been for everyone else, partly thanks to government intervention.

My conclusion — spoiler alert! — is that there’s one really big reason for the hostility between the wealthy and the White House: Mr. Obama is breaking with the narrative about American capitalism that has prevailed in this country at least since Ronald Reagan. That is the idea that when the rich get richer, everyone else benefits, too. Instead, the president is suggesting that American capitalism isn’t delivering on its promise to the middle class — and that the rich should help fix that by paying taxes at a higher rate.

For me, one window into how alien this way of thinking is for many Americans came in a recent note by Brent G. Schutte, a market strategist at Harris Private Bank. Mr. Schutte compares inequality within the U.S. income distribution to inequality among players in Major League Baseball. (The gaps between top and bottom are comparable, which highlights an interesting but rarely remarked-upon fact about the winner-take-all economy: The disparity within the 1 percent, which all M.L.B. players occupy, is as great as the polarization between the 1 percent and everyone else.)

It is a heart-warming sentiment, in keeping with the heart-warming theme of unification during Mr. Obama’s first campaign. But it doesn’t match the reality of U.S. capitalism today, at least as the president sees it.

http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/explaining-why-wall-street-and-the-wealthy-hate-obama/

An explanation of why Wall Street and the rich are backing mitt to the extent they are. Witness his fund raising amounts.