Progressives often criticize Hillary Clinton for her cozy relationship with Wall Street. Their evidence: her top donors. How could she really mean what she says when she talks about reducing income equality by growing incomes for the middle class when her top five donors include four banks and a law firm?
I'm sympathetic to this argument, even though I don't want to be. Isn't Hillary her own person? Can't she take money with one hand and do her own thing with the other? And so what if people who are close to her used to work at banks and big financial firms? They were hired and rose to prominence in highly competitive companies presumably because they were smart, super-qualified people with a deep understanding of the way money works. And what does the mechanism of influence even look like? According to some progressives, it looks a lot like bribery.
One of the mechanisms of influence is the "golden parachute," wherein a bank like Goldman Sachs provides a huge bonus to a Wall Street executive not for staying with the firm, but for leaving the firm—temporarily—to serve in the political arena. This means that these giant investment banks are offering incentives, i.e., $$DOLLAS$$, for employees to infiltrate the top levels of our politicians' advisory groups. Because they get a boatload of money, those technically former employees (many return to their old posts once their stint in politics is up) have a vested interest in counseling politicians in ways that benefit big investment banks. Hillary Clinton has welcomed these people into her advisory circles.
The Intercept reports that a group of progressives have written a letter to Hillary, calling for her not to accept into her braintrust people who've been paid lots of money to represent the interests of the financial sector.
The progressive groups, which include Rootstrikers and MoveOn.org, call out Thomas Nides of Morgan Stanley and Robert Hormats of Goldman Sachs. Nides was an aide to Clinton when she was Secretary of State. Hormats is currently one of Clinton's economic advisers for her 2016 campaign. If you're wondering who's telling Clinton not to say "financial transaction tax," it's probably that guy. Both got PAID for leaving their respective firms for politics, as the Intercept notes:
Goldman Sachs paid out Hormats’ unvested restricted stock units, valued between $250,000 and $500,000. Morgan Stanley’s accelerated payout for Nides of restricted stock units was worth between $5 million and $25 million. Deferred compensation awards like these would have been forfeited, had the executives left their jobs for somewhere other than the government.
The Intercept goes on to say that Hillary's the only one of the Democratic candidates who hasn't come out in support of a piece of legislation called the Financial Services Conflict of Interest Act, which would end this golden parachute mechanism. Until she does, it's going to be hard for her to argue against progressives who write her off as a microphone for plutocrats.
