Finance

For all the talk of "changing the culture in Washington," it appears to be business as usual ... only more so.

In a press conference today, the Federal Reserve announced it will keep interest rates low and leave QE3 unchanged, continuing to buy $85 billion a month in bonds to prop up the economy.

Politicians are not known for originality. In their public speech, most cling to the security of clichéd stock phrases the way toddlers hold fast to threadbare blankets.

President Barack Obama pledged this morning in his weekly radio address to continue to crackdown on "irresponsible behavior."

"Here in America, we know the free market is the greatest force for economic progress the world has ever known.  But we also know the free market works best for everyone when we have smart, commonsense rules in place to prevent irresponsible behavior," Obama began.

Earlier today, the Obama campaign pushed around a story that they claimed proved Mitt Romney "was against the auto bailout...but personally [benefited] from it."

Sandy Weill is calling for the banks to be broken up. Bloomberg reports: 

According to the pool report, "joining POTUS on the flight from San Fran was Penny Pritzker, the campaign's finance chair four years ago. Jay Carney said she was in the neighborhood."

Must be nice to have been a big bundler for President Obama, and pretty convenient to get a lift on Air Force One when the president just so happens to be in the neighborhood. 

Barack Obama's campaign just announced that it raised $71 million in the month of June, while earlier today Mitt Romney's campaign announced a $106 million June haul. The difference? Romney outraised Obama by $35 million in June.

C. Boyden Gray and Jim R. Purcell, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

Last week, Marc Lasry defended private equity on national television. "Private equity, do they do God's work or are they vampires?" a CNBC host asked Lasry, who is a hedge fund manager. "I think they do very good work," he replied.

Today, Barack Obama will go to Lasry's New York City home. But the president isn't going to voice his disagreement with the money man; instead, he's going to collect a check--$40,000 per person in attendance.

This morning on CNN, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was asked, "Why is it not hypocrisy for the president to take campaign donations from private equity when he's attacking private equity making that an essential part of his campaign?"

This may come as a shock to many pollsters and much of the press corps, but public opinion is a little more complicated than randomly calling 1,000 Americans, asking them a dubiously worded question about a complex political issue, and reporting the aggregate results.