Theodore Roosevelt's "malefactors of great wealth"

If curiosity kills the cat, I may need nine lives! As I "googled" the current Secy of the Treasury's name, I was hit by the rather virulent anti-semitism in most of the entries. So much so in fact, that I changed a previous blog's title from his name to that of his function, for I didn't, even by chance, want to be associated with those prejudices. Some centuries ago the "malefactors" were good Catholics in Florence (with the inappropriate name of Medici) and in Augsburg (the Fuggers); the latter even buying up church art after the Protestants ransacked Cath. churches in the Low Countries to flog it in Eastern Europe. In the 17th century, Amsterdam became the "Wallstreet" of Western Europe and its bankers acquired an embarrasment of riches in spite of their Calvinism. And of course Roosevelt coined the phrase to describe the bankers of New York City who were all Godfearing Protestants and "Yankees" who made their money in part by (in Thorstein Veblen's phrase) "gathering the loose change" of the settlers on America's frontier. Roosevelt also referred to them as the "Ananias Club" in reference to the High Priest who paid Judas 30 silverpieces for betraying Christ. He could not have chosen a better name for bankers who clearly betrayed (as modern Wallstreet did again) the Mosaic laws against usury or Christ's injunction to "love one's neigbor." Clearly, greed isn't the defining nature of a particlular ethnic group or religion.

Question:

Was Thomas Hobbes correct after all when he characterized people as selfish, etc.?