Bernie Sanders would ‘ruin the economy,’ former Goldman Sachs CEO says
(CNN) — Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein thinks Bernie Sanders would be a bad president. It’s safe to assume that Sanders isn’t too broken up by that, considering that the Vermont senator has spent much of his campaign criticizing Wall Street and billionaires.
In the wake of Sanders’ New Hampshire primary win Tuesday night, Blankfein sent out a tweet that took shots at both Sanders and President Donald Trump.
Sanders’ proposals include major increases in corporate taxes and taxes on the rich, breaking up big tech companies that have helped lift the overall market, curbing stock buybacks and instituting Medicare for all to provide government-run health care for all Americans.
The Sanders campaign did not immediately respond to the tweet. But many of his supporters responded on Twitter and cheered the fact that Blankfein was saying bad things about their candidate.
Blankfein hasn’t donated money to any presidential candidates this election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks campaign finance records. He has given money to both Democrat and Republican candidates and political action committees in the past. The last time he backed a presidential candidate financially was in 2007 when he gave the legal maximum donation of $4,600 to Hillary Clinton.
This isn’t the first time Blankfein criticized a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate’s potential harm to the US economy. He also criticized Senator Elizabeth Warren, another vocal critic of the rich and Wall Street, telling CNN that he believed she would bring “cataclysmic change“ to the economy. Warren was a front runner when he made that statement. But she finished a distant fourth in Tuesday’s primary vote.
Still, investors do not appear to be worried about the possibility of a Sanders presidency, despite his success in New Hampshire and a strong showing last week in the Iowa caucus. Market analysts say investors seem to be betting that Sanders can’t win the presidency, despite his early success. They may also believe that even if he wins he won’t have the support in Congress to pass major parts of his agenda.
Blankfein retired as Goldman CEO in 2018.
The S&P 500 is up 4.5% so far this year and was higher in early trading Wednesday. Investors are encouraged by the strength of the US economy and hopes that the worst has passed on the coronavirus that has already killed more than 1,000 people.