President Obama Endorses Occupy Wall Street Protesters; Looking to Politicize Anger?

ForexTV NewsDesk   |  October 6 2011 1:24 EDT

ForexTV.com (New York) by staff Reporter

In a stunning, but not totally unexpected statement, President Obama tacitly endorsed the violent protests of the Anti Wall Street movement.

"I think people are frustrated and the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based suspicion about how our financial system works," Obama told reporters in a televised speech that was carried live on ForexTV.com.

Obama used the anger and violence of the protests to gain political cover for the devastating effects of the Dodd-Frank regulations on financial institutions.  Dodd-Frank has been criticized by many banks and financial institutions as being anti-growth and too restrictive. 

The recent increase of ATM fees by Bank of America was used as an example used by the President, saying, “For us to have a healthy financial system, that requires that banks and other financial institution systems compete on the basis of the best service and the best products and the best price… and it can't be competing on the basis of hidden fees, deceptive practices or derivative cocktails that nobody understands and that expose the entire economy to enormous risks. That's what Dodd-Frank was designed to do," Obama said to a somewhat incredulous audience.

Many members of the press grimaced when Mr. Obama suggested that he would use the Dodd-Frank legislation as a base for his upcoming re-election campaign, essentially implying that he would try to politicize the ancient anti-Wall Street populist movement.

The president did add that banks can charge what they like as long as there is accountability and transparency, and that he felt it was appropriate for the government to play an oversight role.

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