Obama on economic policy

From this interview with The New York Times:

So we won’t miss [the booming financial sector]?

THE PRESIDENT: We will miss it in the sense that as a consequence of 25-year-olds getting million-dollar bonuses, they were willing to pay $100 for a steak dinner and that waiter was getting the kinds of tips that would make a college professor envious. And so some of the dynamic of the financial sector will have some trickle-down effects, particularly in a place like Manhattan.

Well, it's certainly encouraging that Obama understands that having more rich people is beneficial for the rest of society. Conversely, he also seems to understand that when rich people suffer financial hardship that the impact makes its way down the economic ladder. It begs the question, however, of why he is so eager to increase their taxes.