I know, the very title is shocking. I mean what can be more mutually exclusive than the words 'Bernie Sanders' on one hand and 'Wall St.' on the other?
In an Ohio Town Hall, a young man majoring in finance asked Bernie if he will be in trouble if Bernie is elected. The Bern's answer? I'd recommend you do community banking.
While Bernie has gone negative recently, demanding that Hillary release her paid speeches, it's been notable that he is not willing to release his tax returns beyond a summary of 2014.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/04/on-tax-returns-bernie-throws-his-wife.html
You wonder why that might be. I mean you assume that he's not Mitt Romney hiding all his income in the Cayman Islands, but what is going on? Do we need to put Harry Reid on the case? He was the guy who talked to Romney's friends to figure out where Mitt's tax returns might have gotten?
So far Bernie has been throwing his wife under the bus-she does his tax returns. So can she release them then?
As to what might be in them, I think Joy Reid touches on the problem for Bernie here.
"Among them many perils of negative campaigning is that it triggers more scrutiny of you. Sanders' Wall St. petard:
https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/717038498054860800
By setting himself up as this kind of saint and angry prophet of Wall St., eventually people are going to want to look at his house too. If you are going to throw these sorts of self-righteous stones, better make sure you live in a house with no windows.
"Bernie Sanders’ entire campaign is based on the central themes of honesty, integrity, and trust. Sanders and his surrogates have carefully crafted his image as the only honest politician in the race, as the only person you should trust to elect as President. The argument is that while Hillary Clinton is corrupt, and beholden to big money interests, Sanders is not—he frequently touts that he doesn’t even have a Super PAC."
http://garnetnews.com/2016/04/04/bernie-sanders-invested-wall-street/
That in itself, is not at all true, as we've noted many times.
"Perhaps Sanders biggest campaign issue is Wall Street. In the November debate, he went on record saying he believes Wall Street’s business model is illegitimate, that it is actually “fraud.” Sanders has campaigned on massive Wall Street reform, and a break-up of the big banks."
"With such an anti-Wall Street platform, one would think that Sanders didn’t own any stock at all. But not only does Sanders own stock, he actually is invested in several industries that he’s heavily criticized."
"Sanders has railed against the “Big Banks,” “Big Pharma,” and “Big Oil” but that hasn’t stopped him from investing in and profiting from any of those industries. I went to OpenSecrets.org to take a look at the assets Bernie Sanders reported in 2014."
"One of Sanders’ most well-known policies is his push to break up the big banks. Sanders has given America’s biggest banks the notorious “too big to fail” label, and he has pushed the idea that their profits are coming at the expense of American workers. I was surprised, then, to find that Sanders himself owned funds with holdings in some of America’s biggest banking institutions, including JP Morgan & Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, US Bancorp, Wells Fargo, and Bank United. Bank United is particularly interesting, seeing as the federal government actually had to seize the bank in 2009 in part because “it was critically undercapitalized and in an unsafe condition to conduct business.”
"Bernie Sanders has made attacking Big Pharma and their drug price hikes a regular part of his campaign speeches. Last fall, Sanders heavily criticized Turing Pharma and its massive price hike of the drug Daraprim, which is used to treat parasitic infections."
"What we didn’t know at the time is that Sanders is invested in and profiting from several pharmaceutical companies that have made major price hikes recently."
"Sanders owns Pfizer, which has come under fire for raising prices for more than 100 of its drugs, some by more than 20 percent in 2016. Sanders is also invested in Novartis, whose cancer drug Gleevec costs $76,000 annually. Some estimate that the annual cost is significantly higher, possibly into the six figures. When pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Novartis can increase the prices of their drugs or shut out low-cost generic competition, their stock price increases. Those price increases make Sanders money."
"On his campaign website, Sanders states that he wants the rest of the country to “stand with Vermont and other states to ban fracking.” So why is Sanders invested in mutual funds that own fracking companies? How can Sanders attack fracking industry contributions when he is actually profiting from the fracking industry."
This may suggest why he doesn't want to release his tax information too soon. With even just one year bringing in this level of embarrassing scrutiny, with more years it will just get exponentially worse.
In an Ohio Town Hall, a young man majoring in finance asked Bernie if he will be in trouble if Bernie is elected. The Bern's answer? I'd recommend you do community banking.
While Bernie has gone negative recently, demanding that Hillary release her paid speeches, it's been notable that he is not willing to release his tax returns beyond a summary of 2014.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/04/on-tax-returns-bernie-throws-his-wife.html
You wonder why that might be. I mean you assume that he's not Mitt Romney hiding all his income in the Cayman Islands, but what is going on? Do we need to put Harry Reid on the case? He was the guy who talked to Romney's friends to figure out where Mitt's tax returns might have gotten?
So far Bernie has been throwing his wife under the bus-she does his tax returns. So can she release them then?
As to what might be in them, I think Joy Reid touches on the problem for Bernie here.
"Among them many perils of negative campaigning is that it triggers more scrutiny of you. Sanders' Wall St. petard:
https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/717038498054860800
By setting himself up as this kind of saint and angry prophet of Wall St., eventually people are going to want to look at his house too. If you are going to throw these sorts of self-righteous stones, better make sure you live in a house with no windows.
"Bernie Sanders’ entire campaign is based on the central themes of honesty, integrity, and trust. Sanders and his surrogates have carefully crafted his image as the only honest politician in the race, as the only person you should trust to elect as President. The argument is that while Hillary Clinton is corrupt, and beholden to big money interests, Sanders is not—he frequently touts that he doesn’t even have a Super PAC."
http://garnetnews.com/2016/04/04/bernie-sanders-invested-wall-street/
That in itself, is not at all true, as we've noted many times.
"Perhaps Sanders biggest campaign issue is Wall Street. In the November debate, he went on record saying he believes Wall Street’s business model is illegitimate, that it is actually “fraud.” Sanders has campaigned on massive Wall Street reform, and a break-up of the big banks."
"With such an anti-Wall Street platform, one would think that Sanders didn’t own any stock at all. But not only does Sanders own stock, he actually is invested in several industries that he’s heavily criticized."
True. He is not just critical of Wall St. as many of us are, he argues that it is fundamentally evil. Because of the categorical nature of his Wall St. critique it is very surprising that he has any Wall St. investments. Yet he does, including in the banking and fracking industries.
"One of Sanders’ most well-known policies is his push to break up the big banks. Sanders has given America’s biggest banks the notorious “too big to fail” label, and he has pushed the idea that their profits are coming at the expense of American workers. I was surprised, then, to find that Sanders himself owned funds with holdings in some of America’s biggest banking institutions, including JP Morgan & Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, US Bancorp, Wells Fargo, and Bank United. Bank United is particularly interesting, seeing as the federal government actually had to seize the bank in 2009 in part because “it was critically undercapitalized and in an unsafe condition to conduct business.”
"Bernie Sanders has made attacking Big Pharma and their drug price hikes a regular part of his campaign speeches. Last fall, Sanders heavily criticized Turing Pharma and its massive price hike of the drug Daraprim, which is used to treat parasitic infections."
"What we didn’t know at the time is that Sanders is invested in and profiting from several pharmaceutical companies that have made major price hikes recently."
"Sanders owns Pfizer, which has come under fire for raising prices for more than 100 of its drugs, some by more than 20 percent in 2016. Sanders is also invested in Novartis, whose cancer drug Gleevec costs $76,000 annually. Some estimate that the annual cost is significantly higher, possibly into the six figures. When pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Novartis can increase the prices of their drugs or shut out low-cost generic competition, their stock price increases. Those price increases make Sanders money."
"On his campaign website, Sanders states that he wants the rest of the country to “stand with Vermont and other states to ban fracking.” So why is Sanders invested in mutual funds that own fracking companies? How can Sanders attack fracking industry contributions when he is actually profiting from the fracking industry."
This may suggest why he doesn't want to release his tax information too soon. With even just one year bringing in this level of embarrassing scrutiny, with more years it will just get exponentially worse.
But this is the peril of setting yourself up as a Saint. You better make sure you don't yourself live in a glass house.
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