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Comment by smt88 | Hacker News Reader

It sticks. It's just different industries.

Democrats are beholden to Wall St, Hollywood/music (see: RIAA), and special-interest groups. Silicon Valley also seems to be getting better at influencing Democrats.

It definitely is lopsided, and Republicans are clearly more anti-consumer, but no national politician survives by betraying big donors.

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Doesn't seem true. For example, the Frank Dod Act was passed by Democrats and Wall St. hates that law. Another example, the Consumer Protection Bureau. Another agency that Wall St. hates which was passed by Democrats. If anything, it seems that again Republicans are happy to pass laws that lowers taxes for Wall St. and removes regulation.

To your point, Wall St. donates to Democrats but it seems to have very limited effect compared to Republicans.

I dunno, I think Wall St donations to dems have plenty of affects. See eg Wasserman Schultz and payday lenders.

effects rather. I shouldn't post when tired.

The fact that an act was passed after the greatest bubble pop since the great depression shouldnt be enough to convince you that dems as a whole arent beholden to wall street. they had zero choice but to do SOMETHING. look instead to what they did before the crash. compare what they did to what they could have done. look at what happened to proposals to do more. look at wall street profits a year after the crisis. look at the doners. less beholden than the reps, probably. not beholden at all? no

Frank Dod Act is a ridiculously watered down version of regulation that was originally proposed. Wall Street lobbyists made Democrats nerf it to the point it's almost meaningless. So I would say that Democrats have been very good to bankers in this particular case. For optics reasons (it was right after the financial crisis) something had to be done and this was the best possible scenario for bankers so I'd say they were glad with it under the circumstances.

> Wall Street lobbyists made Democrats nerf it to the point it's almost meaningless

This is wrong. Was Dodd Frank reduced in scope and severity from its first drafting? Yes. Does that amount to watering it down to meaninglessness? No. The bits that stuck have bite. Some bits had, in my opinion, more bite than merit.

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