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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
November 28, 2011
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President,

It is with a great sense of disappointment that I write this. Like many others, I hoped that your election 
would bring a salutary change of direction to the country, despite what more than a few feared was an 
overly aggressive social agenda. And I cannot credibly blame you for the economic mess that you 
inherited, even if the policy response on your watch has been profligate and largely ineffectual. (You did 
not, after all, invent TARP.) I understand that when surrounded by cries of "the end of the world as we 
know it is nigh", even the strongest of minds may have a tendency to shoot first and aim later in a wellintended effort to stave off the predicted apocalypse.
But what I can justifiably hold you accountable for is your and your minions' role in setting the tenor of the 
rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as "class warfare". 
Whether this reflects your principled belief that the eternal divide between the haves and have-nots is at 
the root of all the evils that afflict our society or just a cynical, populist appeal to his base by a president 
struggling in the polls is of little importance. What does matter is that the divisive, polarizing tone of your 
rhetoric is cleaving[b] a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the 
downtrodden and those best positioned to help them. [/b]It is a gulf that is at once counterproductive and 
freighted with dangerous historical precedents. And it is an approach to governing that owes more to 
desperate demagoguery than your Administration should feel comfortable with.

Just to be clear, while I have been richly rewarded by a life of hard work (and a great deal of luck), I was 
not to-the-manor-born. My father was a plumber who practiced his trade in the South Bronx after he and 
my mother emigrated from Poland. I was the first member of my family to earn a college degree.[b] I 
benefited from both a good public education system (P.S. 75, Morris High School and Hunter College[/b], all 
in the Bronx) and my parents' constant prodding. When I joined Goldman Sachs following graduation from 
Columbia University's business school, I had no money in the bank, a negative net worth, [b]a National 
Defense Education Act student loan to repay,[/b] and a six-month-old child (not to mention his mother, my 
wife of now 47 years) to support. I had a successful, near-25-year run at Goldman, which I left 20 years 
ago to start a private investment firm. As a result of my good fortune, I have been able to give away to 
those less blessed far more than I have spent on myself and my family over a lifetime, and last year I 
subscribed to Warren Buffet's Giving Pledge to ensure that my money, properly stewarded, continues to 
do some good after I'm gone.

[/quote]

It's an eloquently written letter, which skirts the real issues:
-the fact that the political system is horribly corrupted by the influence of now effectively unlimited campaign contributions from large corporations whose interests are NOT synonymous with those of the people in this country
-the fact that those positioned to benefit the downtrodden by using their power to remedy this situation have done nothing but continue to vie for their slice of corporate welfare and socialism for the rich, thereby violating the very principles they advocate when they say that laissez-faire pure capitalism is the world's salvation. Pure capitalism and crony capitalism are distinctly different affairs and if he subscribed to the former (let alone to a regulated form of capitalism) his firm would probably no longer be in business given the events of the last ten years.
-he himself acknowledges that he benefited from a good education that he was able to finance, an option which is increasingly out of reach for significant portions of the population in this country.

The anger and the feeling that class warfare is legitimate did not spring out of thin air Mr. Cooperman. Maybe it is time for you to wake up.[/quote]

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