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Professor Keith T. Poole was quoted in a recent New York Times article discussing Wall Street and political gridlock. Rising political polarization in Congress correlates closely with rising income inequality in America, Poole said. “We’re now approaching levels of inequality we haven’t seen since the Gilded Age,” he said. This has been accompanied by disproportionately high earnings on Wall Street, he observed. With a highly polarized, Republican-dominated Congress likely to be bickering with a Democratic president in his last two years in office, he said, major tax and regulatory legislation to restore a more equitable balance is unlikely. “Wall Street is getting very rich,” he said. “And with gridlock, that trend is likely to continue. It’s no wonder that Wall Street likes gridlock.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES