Obama, Bernanke & Wall Street

Some very good points on last night’s Kudlow & Company from veteran Wall Street to Washington analyst Greg Valliere. Greg is the Chief Strategist at the Stanford Washington Research Group.

Kudlow: Is the stock slide economics? Is the stock slide politics? Or is the stock slide a combination of the two?

Valliere: It’s probably a combination of the two, Larry. I think the markets are beginning to worry that Ben Bernanke is just too nice a guy. He’s not tough enough with all of these crazy hawks, another one of whom made a speech today that made no sense at all.

Part of it is politics. Frankly Larry, I thought you went a little easy yesterday on your show with Obama’s chief economic advisor. You know, Obama is not the second coming of Adam Smith. He may be a little bit better than Hillary. But as his advisor told you last night, capital gains taxes are going up. Obama will raise taxes.

So I think when you combine Bernanke’s timidity and the political climate, that’s not a good story for Wall Street.