The rich and powerful are scared to death of Elizabeth Warren.
So scared, in fact, that many bankers, hedge fund managers and financial industry luminaries will only talk about her on the condition of anonymity.
Consider, for example, the following quote attributed by Politico to a “prominent Wall Street hedge fund manager and Democratic bundler who is raising money for a Warren rival”:
There’s really not a damn thing you can do about Warren. There is nothing. It’s the same thing Republicans went through with Trump. You look at her and think what she is going to do is going to be horrible for the country. But if you say anything about it you just make her stronger.
That fund manager was among more than a half-dozen people Politico interviewed for a fantastically amusing new piece called “Corporate America freaks out over Elizabeth Warren”.
Most of those who were willing to provide quotes were not willing to be identified “for fear of being directly attacked by Warren”, Ben White writes.
Those fears are well founded, and whoever the coward is that produced the assessment quoted above is right about at least one thing: There isn’t “a damn thing you can do” about Warren, something famous idiot Jim Cramer learned the hard way when he got Wile-E.-Coyote-d by Liz last month:
I'm Elizabeth Warren and I approve this message. https://t.co/2Ewkbm0ZwA
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) September 10, 2019
As for the nameless financier whose quote served as the anchor for Politico’s Wednesday piece, regular people (and by “regular”, we mean anyone who doesn’t have a fine art collection and a Patek on their wrist), probably find it pretty rich (figuratively and literally) that a “prominent Wall Street hedge fund manager” would presume to tell everyday Americans what’s “horrible for the country”.
We’d be willing to bet Jim Cramer’s net worth (which, at last check, was around 1,700 times the median national income) that whoever it is who offered up that assessment couldn’t hold their own in a debate with Warren, who spent her entire pre-political life researching inequality and the death of the American dream.
Speaking of the American dream, there is at least one person who was willing to put his name where his mouth is. Politico quotes Leon Cooperman (a frequent Warren critic) as follows:
What is wrong with billionaires? You can become a billionaire by developing products and services that people will pay for. I believe in a progressive income tax and the rich paying more. But this is the f***ing American dream she is sh—-ng on.
That’s right! By outlining dozens of well-researched plans (many of which are backed up by decades of academic work) to restore the American middle class and keep average citizens from falling through the cracks, Warren is “shitting on” the “f—ing American dream”, which everyone knows is to become a billionaire like Leon and then “sh-t” on all the people Warren is trying to help.
About two weeks after Cramer landed in Warren’s Twitter feed last month, CNBC proved they learned exactly nothing from the experience when they had one of their token “journalists” cobble together a piece of absurd propaganda which carried the title “Wall Street Democratic donors warn the party: We’ll sit out, or back Trump, if you nominate Elizabeth Warren“.
CNBC decided to tempt fate again on Wednesday.
Instead of capturing the gist of Politico‘s piece (which is a well- reported campaign update chock-full of good information above and beyond the quotables) the network instead went with this headline: “Elizabeth Warren is ‘s—–g on’ on the American Dream, says investor Leon Cooperman“.
We suppose it all depends on who you wanna trust when it comes to protecting the “American dream”.
In this context, your choices are, on one side, Elizabeth Warren, and on the other, a half-dozen billionaires who are too cowardly to give their names, Leon Cooperman and Jim Cramer, who coined the phrase “Bear Stearns is fine”.
Well I don’t know. The consumer protection bureau Warren sponsored was a very good idea, but what I’ve read of her “well researched” policies as a candidate don’t actually impress me all that much. Yes, I know – who am I? Nobody, that’s who.
It’s a shame that people of any political persuasion or income won’t be identified for fear of retribution but it looks to me that in today’s US those fears are not entirely unfounded, as Private Eye might have John Major say.
Inequality in almost every respect is a good thing, not a bad one. The issue with economic outcomes as I see it is poverty, which is not at all the same thing. There is plenty of inequality in Switzerland. When people equate inequality and poverty it strongly suggests they don’t know what they are talking about.
The politics of envy are pretty ugly. Look at Donald Trump who has built his career on them! The issue of the megawealthy is partly how they got what they’ve got – the current president again comes to mind – but it’s more important what they do with it.
The United States is a seriously corrupt society. The rule of law is flouted to the point where the most venal are in charge – a kakistocracy – and what is below is hardly inspiring. The challenges are definitely impressive. Taxing more is not going to make much of a dent, but taxing differently might be worthwhile. The US is the only member of the OECD without a value added tax. Now, why would that be?
Stevo… those are some pretty naive comments. If your referring to income inequality as a good thing, in that we have a heterogeneous society, your oversimplifying it. What we have is a stratified society with a heavy concentration of wealth at the top. So much so that it’s worse than it’s ever been. Me might as well be Communist. China has more millionaires than we do. So, I guess, I’m not sure what your in favor of hear or what your point is. It makes no sense and it’s a slap in the face to people who have common sense. Also, are you implying Trump got we has because he’s smart or he work for it? LOL. Do a little more research next time before making ridiculous assertions. Ohh.. and “the U.S is a ridiculously corrupt society.” We’ve always had some degree of corruption, but the corruption we’re currently experiencing is too an extreme we have never seen, nor are we likely to see ever again in the U.S. Wake up bud!
You know the billionaires that own the Republicans and some of the Democrats are afraid of losing their grip on the American governmental and financial system when rhetoric like this starts coming out. It is the absolute best thing for Warren’s campaign. She will ride this all the way to the White House.
Someone has to speak for billionaires…….they are people too.
There is no need to restore the middle class because the middle class is alive and well. According to Pew research reported here https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/14/how-many-americans-are-considered-upper-class.html , 71% of Americans are in middle class or above. Set aside those one-percenters who so desperately need to be relieved of their unnecessary wealth and you’re looking at a very healthy 70% majority. These people are in an OK shape, good shape or in various shades of very good shape.
Yes, Warren is trying to destroy the American dream by punishing success. That’s clear and simple. Ostensibly, she is trying to help people who need to be helped (and, to be fair, many people do need help, but let’s not forget that many of those receive a lot of help already) but this to a large extent is a lie. Her real goal is destroy the riches and to deal with inequality even if it makes everyone miserable. Nothing illustrates this better than her stubborn insistence on killing private health insurance. Even most of the fellow democratic candidates understand that it will be a disaster (except of course just like her other idiotic proposals, like wealth tax, this will never be approved by the Congress). And I think she knows it, she is not that stupid, she is just trying to get elected.
To answer your question, the only person I trust less than Warren is Trump.
This comment is chock full of unsupported allegations of bad faith.
For instance: “Warren is trying to destroy the American dream by punishing success”
And: “Her real goal is destroy the riches”
And: “Her real goal is to make everyone miserable”.
This person has been banned from commenting permanently.
Let that be yet another lesson for folks: Heisenberg Report is not the place for slander, libel and unsupported allegations of bad faith.
Did you recently permanently ban another “Anonymous” or is this the same person? Are there multiple Anonymi? Anyway, thanks. Here in Matt Gaetz-land I’m bombarded with this shit. You are such a welcome respite H!
I’m just tired of it. At a certain point, enough is enough. The president is calling people from his own party “human scum”, people are accusing Elizabeth Warren of trying to “sh—t on the American dream”, people are saying Ilhan Omar is a secret terrorist, and on and on and on.
Maybe large sites have some kind of duty to allow everyone to talk, even when they say things that are clearly injurious to democracy, but I don’t have any such duty.
I’m happy to hear from dissenting voices, but I’d sooner have zero page views and zero comments than I would allow that kind of thing.
I ran totally out of patience with it this week.
And I ran similarly out of patience with two people whose only purpose for commenting was to make snide remarks on market-based articles. One of whom suggested that I should be so lucky to have his/her comments because I only get 20 or so comments a day.
We may not get millions upon millions of page views/month, but we do get hundreds of thousands, and I know with absolute certainty that some of the market-oriented articles we post are read by people who I have a lot of respect for personally. I’m not about to subject them to ridicule from random people just so I can say I got 50 comments on a given day as opposed to 25.
Wow, I just went on to your next post.
Well said, H.