“The financial system isn’t working the way it should for most Americans,” said Mr. Bloomberg in a statement. “The stock market is at an all-time high, but almost all of the gains are going to a small number of people.”
That’s not totally true. People who have pensions invested in Wall Street are little people who benefit.
Bloomberg who made a fortune selling data to Wall Street is flip-flopping to get elected. He always said rules aimed at reforming Wall Street were bad for the economy.
The NY Times writes, “The new proposals suggest how far to the left Democratic presidential hopefuls considered moderates have felt they needed to tack. This is especially so for Mr. Bloomberg, a former Salomon Brothers trader whose estimated $63 billion fortune came from selling data to Wall Street.”
Bloomberg was NEVER a moderate, except on law enforcement, but he has since taken that back. He is now opposed to the one thing that worked in New York City — stop and frisk.
He once supported the banks.
In 2010, for instance, Mr. Bloomberg urged Democratic lawmakers not to get too tough on banks, and he criticized the so-called Volcker Rule, which prevented banks from making risky trades for themselves rather than clients. He called the proposed new restrictions “shortsighted,” with the potential to reduce middle-class jobs.
A spokeswoman for the Bloomberg campaign, Rachel Nagler, said he’s not flip-flopping, he’s changing because it’s all contextual.
Context matters,” she said. When the Volcker Rule was introduced, “Mike was skeptical of regulators’ ability to divine traders’ intent,” which was how the law required regulators to judge investments, she added. Mr. Bloomberg’s new plan would focus “on the outcome of speculative trading — big gains and losses — rather than on traders’ intent.
He is also reversing course on redlining.
In 2011, he said, “It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp,” the Times reports.
HIS NEW PLAN
He will tax financial transactions, starting at .1%. He’s in line with Bernie Sanders and AOC. It will raise money for the hard-left social justice programs.
There is a lot of uncertainty as to “how much transactions would drop in response to a tax.”
Much of Mr. Bloomberg’s plan is an effort to bolster or restore elements of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law which, like the Volcker Rule, were reversed or reduced under President Trump. For example, Mr. Bloomberg proposes making stress tests for banks more stringent and reinstating the requirement to produce annual “living wills,” which are complex documents that detail how banks would unwind their operations in a bankruptcy.
Elsewhere in his plan, Mr. Bloomberg says he would merge Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-owned housing giants. He would strengthen consumer protections that govern payday lending and financial advisers, as well as give the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau oversight of auto lending and credit reporting. Borrowers of student loans would be automatically enrolled into income-based repayment plans with payments capped at 5 percent of disposable income.
It is a very progressive plan, but it’s never hard-left enough for progressives.
The first test of Mr. Bloomberg’s convictions in regulating Wall Street could come at Wednesday’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas, which is expected to be the first time he will appear on stage alongside his presidential rivals.
Bloomberg is reversing course on all his alleged values. He has no core and who knows how he will rule, but he will rule with little concern for Americans.
BLOOMBERG DOESN’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK:
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