Politico: The Wall Street-Washington divide

For all the money that has moved back and forth between Wall Street and Washington in recent years, what’s most striking is how little each understands, still, about the other. When young executives from Goldman Sachs appeared before a Senate panel Tuesday, members were taken aback by what they viewed as an arrogant and condescending tone; “smart asses,” said one conservative Republican. Yet by afternoon, there were flashes of sympathy for Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein as he tried to get senators to appreciate his pride in making the markets work — not just in profiting from “short” and “long” bets on derivatives. All this comes to bear now in a few lines in the giant bill that would force major banks to spin off their swaps operations or lose all federal aid, including access to the Federal Reserve’s discount window.