No sooner did President Obama make his speech at Cooper Union on Thursday on financial reform than Mayor Bloomberg emerged out of his $290 million off-shore cocoon of comfort to give his retort to the speech in Times Square. And despite his pro-Wall Street reputation, he said he could "agree with 90 percent" of Obama's speech!
Of course, things aren't quite as groovy as that quote makes it seem. No, according to CBS 2's resident rabble-rouser Marcia Kramer, this is truly a "clash of the gladiators." In his statement, Bloomberg made it clear he opposed restricting banks from engaging in "propriety trading," and didn't want to see the president directly appoint the head of the New York Federal Reserve.
He went on to worry about jobs disappearing from NY: "Limiting the size of financial firms would lead companies to move those jobs overseas. We need American regulations to be coordinated with international standards or else foreign firms will find it too costly and too difficult to do business here and our jobs will move overseas." The Observer concludes that Bloomberg's "main point was that he thinks transparency, not burdonesome [sic] regulation, was needed."
