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Wall Street MAGA Your browser does not support the element.was poorly represented in the expensive seats behind Donald Trump at his inauguration. That honour fell instead to the leaders of America’s technology industry, who turned up en masse. Was this a humbling exclusion? Not quite. Whereas Silicon Valley travelled east to avoid retribution, Wall Street stayed away because it expects none.Bankers are likely to thrive in America’s era. The expectation of broad financial deregulation, provided by a president obsessed with the stockmarket, has made investors giddy. News that Michael Barr, who has sparred with banks over capital requirements, will relinquish responsibility for financial regulation at the Federal Reserve marks the start of a more amiable period of supervision. If in recent years it has felt like high noon in the Valley, it is now morning again on the Street.J.D. Vance, America’s vice-president, announced that the Republican Party was done “catering to Wall Street” during the election campaign. Indeed, Mr Vance is alive to the irresolvable tension between markets and conservatism. Some in his orbit even decry “financialisation”, shorthand for a misalignment of interests between America’s financial industry and its people. So it is strange to imagine Wall Street elites in Davos cheering the ascension of this self-styled common man. Yet bankers have never felt so bulletproof.Their mood owes something to a strong economy and the passage of time. When Steven Mnuchin became treasury secretary at the start of Mr Trump’s first term, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an investment bank, was recent history. His time at Goldman Sachs and property deals were noisily scrutinised by senators during his confirmation hearing. When Scott Bessent, Mr Trump’s pick this time around, was quizzed by senators, Wall Street and its implosion in 2008 hardly came up. How cool was this former lieutenant of George Soros as he prepared to take a post in the counter-revolutionary struggle against the globalist elite.Absence of catastrophe is not the only reason Wall Street is enjoying political irrelevance. Culture has replaced inequality as the overwhelming focus of American politics. In his inaugural address, Mr Trump promised to restore meritocracy and free expression. This change puts big tech, rather than big banks, most squarely in the stocks. The same tech firms could also play a decisive role in America’s competition with China, whereas bankers probably will not. Proximity to power means greater whiplash when it shifts. Since November Wall Street’s executives have needed only to kiss the ring: institutions have exited a green banking alliance, for instance. Those at the helm of America’s biggest tech firms, meanwhile, are in danger of swallowing it.It would also be more difficult to march pitchforks down Wall Street today. That is not because finance has lost its flare for creative destruction, or because of bodyguarding by its indefatigable lobbyists. It is because Wall Street would provide a slippery target for Mr Trump’s “revolution of common sense”, as its risk-taking has become more dispersed. Since the financial crisis, regulation has pushed the hard edge of finance from banks to more—and more complex—institutions in private markets and among hedge funds. Obscurity brings its own risks, but is a shield against angry politicians. Big-tech firms do not benefit from such protection.In Europe things are different. On the continent, bankers remain the kings of finance, and a punch-bag for populists. There is nothing like big tech to take their place. In Italy, for example, threatening to introduce new taxes on banks seems to have become an annual event. Negotiating bank mergers within the bloc passes for foreign policy. Some governments are still selling stakes in financial institutions, a legacy of crisis-era bail-outs. America might be in danger of forgetting some lessons from the crisis; Europe is still living through it.Although the beating heart of American finance is now more remote, its risk-taking ethic has infiltrated the American psyche. Increasingly complex products for retail investors, legalised sports betting and cryptocurrency’s boom reflect the appetites of Main Street. Mr Trump’s decision to launch his own meme coin, days before taking office, was an extraordinary act of personal greed. But wouldn’t most Americans do the same thing, if given the opportunity? It is easy to be a banker when such a mood has taken hold.
