Maybe outspoken former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein should be one of the billionaires that donates to Bernie Sanders’ Democratic nomination campaign.
“I think with Bernie Sanders at the top of the ticket you can see a lot of Democrats lose House and Senate seats. So for Wall Street, a Bernie Sanders nomination would be, in a perverse sort of way, a sigh of relief because he can’t get elected,” said AGF Investments chief U.S. policy strategist Greg Valliere on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade.
It’s unlikely Sanders — who is incredibly anti-big business and rich people — would accept one cent of Blankfein’s billions. Needless to say, Blankfein opening up his fat wallet for Bernie is as likely as President Trump naming one of his luxury hotels after this writer.
Blankfein returned from a three-month Twitter hiatus on Tuesday night to rip a would-be president Sanders to shreds.
“If Dems go on to nominate Sanders, the Russians will have to reconsider who to work for to best screw up the US. Sanders is just as polarizing as Trump AND he’ll ruin our economy and doesn’t care about our military. If I’m Russian, I go with Sanders this time around,” Blankfein tweeted.
If Dems go on to nominate Sanders, the Russians will have to reconsider who to work for to best screw up the US. Sanders is just as polarizing as Trump AND he’ll ruin our economy and doesn’t care about our military. If I’m Russian, I go with Sanders this time around.
— Lloyd Blankfein (@lloydblankfein) February 12, 2020
Blankfein’s tone isn’t a shocker given Sanders’ proposed policies around wealth taxes and other socialist programs. He also probably isn’t too keen on how Wall Street itself would fare under a president Sanders. Wall Street regulations could be ratcheted up again as they were under the Obama administration, especially if Sanders chooses firebrand and anti-big bank Democrat Elizabeth Warren as Treasury Secretary. Wall Street execs could also lose influence inside the Fed as the Sanders administration appoints non-traditional board positions.
"Banking industry executives must no longer be allowed to serve on the Fed’s boards and to handpick its members and staff," Sanders wrote in a 2015 New York Times op-ed titled “Bernie Sanders: To rein in Wall Street, fix the Fed.”
Sanders added, "Board positions should instead include representatives from all walks of life — including labor, consumers, homeowners, urban residents, farmers and small businesses."
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and co-anchor of The First Trade at Yahoo Finance. Watch The First Trade each day here at 9:00 a.m. ET or on Verizon FIOS channel 604. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
Beyond Meat founder: things are going very well with McDonald’s
Starbucks CEO on what China has in store for the coffee giant
Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, SmartNews, LinkedIn, YouTube, and reddit.
