Following his pit-stop for wings in Buffalo yesterday, Obama spoke at a campaign fundraiser at The St. Regis hotel, which you might've assumed would be attended by top Wall Street brass. Jamie, since they're buds. Lloyd, because he has to. Vikram, because his plans always fall through. But you would've assumed wrong! The bank CEO's decided they were all good and opted not to pay the $50,000 entrance fee to hear the prez talk about buzz-kill topics like "reform" and "responsibility" (he also said "there are a lot of good people who work in the financial industry who do things the right way," so they missed out on that free ego boost).
While the event drew executives from a number of private-equity firms, leaders from big outfits like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan were nowhere to be found.
"I would recognize a lot of them, but I didn't see any," Rep. Ed Towns (D-Brooklyn) said afterward. Said another attendee: "I didn't see anyone from the big firms. I did see some folks from sort of some mid-level-range hedge funds."
"Sort of some mid-level-range hedge funds"? Are we talking Guerreiro Capital Management?? Because if LB knew those guys were going he would've made it his business to be there. Gotta meet this guy in the flesh.
