Money or Ideology

How influential are investment bankers — and are they guessing right? The game of budget poker going on in the United States has gotten down to that. President Obama even did an interview on Wednesday especially to tell Wall Street to finally get involved in the fight to bring Republicans to their senses. Because, Obama ominously warned, if the U.S. goes bankrupt, investors will suffer as well.

Until now, Wall Street hadn’t seemed too alarmed: Stock prices had fluctuated only slightly and the interest rates on government bonds had barely risen. The investment bankers seemed to think that Washington was only putting on a harmless sham battle between Democrats and Republicans just for show and that the government shutdown would soon end.

This is by no means the first time in U.S. history that government offices had to close because Congress was unable to agree on a budget.

It may, however, be a good thing that Wall Street guessed wrong. In the past, there was no radical tea party uncompromisingly fighting against government and the nation’s first black president. It’s entirely possible that these fanatical ideologues might be courting a serious recession, or perhaps even national bankruptcy, by refusing to take on new debt. But Wall Street certainly doesn’t want to see a market crash — then their profits and bonuses would be jeopardized.

Who Is More Powerful?

This brings about an entirely new order of battle that Obama indirectly but correctly referred to in his television interview: Who is more powerful, Wall Street or the tea party?

The answer to that isn’t as obvious as one might think. In the past, Big Money traditionally ruled Washington; the 2012 election saw the financial sector open the purse strings for presidential candidates and members of Congress to the tune of millions of dollars.

American politics is extremely mercenary, but it’s possible that the tea party isn’t for sale, as evidenced by its conviction that government has to be put in its place and its social systems dismantled. Money vs. ideology — that’s what the current struggle in the U.S. looks like.