Decaf

Gibbs can be entertaining.

“I’m not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives, or in what house he lives,” Mr. Gibbs began, jabbing at the reporter for his former career. “I think we left a few months ago the adage that if it was good for a derivatives trader that it was good for Main Street.”

Mr. Gibbs went on to say that “Mr. Santelli has argued, I think quite wrongly, that this plan won’t help everyone,” adding, “I would encourage him to read the president’s plan and understand that it will help millions of people, many of whom he knows. I’d be more than happy to have him come here and read it. I’d be happy to buy him a cup of coffee — decaf.”

In a sense, Mr. Santelli’s critique turned the tables on Mr. Obama; the president himself has been trying to tap into populist anger by declaring Wall Street bonuses “shameful.” When he announced his housing plan in Phoenix on Wednesday, Mr. Obama said pointedly that it would not help “speculators who took risky bets” or “dishonest lenders who acted irresponsibly” or “folks who bought homes they knew from the beginning they would never be able to afford.”

Mr. Santelli’s attack was a reminder to the White House that the mounting costs of the bailouts carry a political risk. If the bailouts are seen as primarily helping groups like bankers and people who got themselves into trouble by making bad financial decisions — rather than helping the overall economy and trying to stem the loss of jobs — it could make it more difficult for the administration to go back to Congress for more money and to maintain support for the president’s agenda.

But bailing out bankers was not Santelli's point. It was about "subsidizing losers' mortgages." That's the populism of the mythological "welfare queens" sort. The populism of traders, hedge fund sellers and derivative purveyors. Bankers are Rick Santelli's friends.

A veteran trader and financial executive, Santelli has provided live reports on the markets in print and on local and national radio and television. He joined CNBC from the Institutional Financial Futures and Options at Sanwa Futures, L.L.C. There, he was a vice president handling institutional trading and hedge accounts for a variety of futures related products.

Prior to that, Santelli worked as vice president of Institutional Futures and Options at Rand Financial Services, Inc., served as managing director at the Derivative Products Group of Geldermann, Inc., and was Vice President in charge of Interest Rate Futures and Options at the Chicago Board of Trade for Drexel, Burnham, Lambert. Santelli began his career in 1979 as a trader and order filler at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in a variety of markets including gold, lumber, CD's, T-bills, foreign currencies and livestock.

Probably all above board and with the greater good in mind, I'm sure.

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