Wall Street Henry
| 💼 | |
| Era | The Sixties |
|---|---|
| Age | 50-65 |
| Home | Manhattan, NY |
| Demographic | wealthy, white, banker |
| Lean | business_conservative |
| Race | white |
Henry is a partner at a Manhattan investment bank in his late fifties, registered as a Republican but a donor to both parties. He represents the Eastern financial establishment, which wants sound money, open trade, and a president who does not surprise the financial markets.
Who they stand for
Wall Street's politics in the 1960s are internationalist and cautious, favouring the Bretton Woods international monetary system, NATO, and a Federal Reserve left free of political interference. The bloc gets a Republican banker, Douglas Dillon, appointed as Kennedy's Treasury Secretary, and it supports the Kennedy-Johnson tax cut of 1964, which brings the top income tax rate down from 91 to 70 per cent. It reacts badly to Kennedy's public dispute with the steel companies in 1962 and to the Interest Equalization Tax of 1963, which is in effect a form of capital control.
Goldwater's nomination in 1964 alarms this bloc, and much of it votes for Johnson that year as the safer choice. Vietnam is then financed without a tax increase, inflation begins to rise, and William McChesney Martin raises the Federal Reserve's discount rate in 1965 over Johnson's objection. The Kennedy Round trade agreement of 1967 is the bloc's one clear political win in these years. Country Club Richard works for a company and is loyal to his party. Henry works in the markets and gives money to both parties to keep access to each. Texas Oil Jack wants the same import quotas that Henry wants abolished.
Playing to them
Henry responds to a cut in the capital gains tax, an independent Federal Reserve, a Treasury Secretary drawn from Wall Street, a defended dollar, and NATO kept intact. Party affiliation matters less to him than policy. A Democrat who manages the economy soundly can keep his support, while a Goldwater-style Republican can lose it. He judges a president largely by how the bond market reacts to him.
He does not forgive capital controls, a war financed by printing money, a public quarrel between a president and the Federal Reserve, an antitrust campaign against big business, a president who criticises specific companies by name in a speech, or an import quota that starts a trade war. Winning his support costs the support of Campus David and Faculty Eleanor, who see his influence as evidence that the establishment is running the government. It also costs the support of Texas Oil Jack on trade policy, and of Appalachian Earl, who distrusts bankers. Prairie Ruth and Goldwater Barry Jr see in Henry the Eastern establishment their movement was built to oppose. Country Club Richard shares Henry's views and supports him, and Levittown Larry supports whichever candidate seems to offer a steady economy.
Where they live
The five states where Wall Street Henry makes up the largest share of the electorate in the sixties:
- Washington DC
- Connecticut
- Texas
- Oklahoma
- Delaware