Bernie Sanders’ call for wild and crazy ideas like taxing Wall Street to pay for free college has provoked another round of Wall Street whining. (For past installments see here and here.) This time around, it’s Goldman Sachs chair Lloyd Blankfein who is sounding the alarm that saying billionaires should pay their share presents some kind of historic danger. According to Blankfein:
… Sanders' attacks on the "billionaire class" and bankers could be dangerous.
“It has the potential to personalize it, it has the potential to be a dangerous moment. Not just for Wall Street not just for the people who are particularly targeted but for anybody who is a little bit out of line,” Blankfein said. “It’s a liability to say I’m going to compromise I’m going to get one millimeter off the extreme position I have and if you do you have to back track and swear to people that you’ll never compromise. It’s just incredible. It’s a moment in history.”
Oh, yes, tax policies of the kind that the United States had until the 1980s are going to be a super dangerous moment, targeting not just the whiner billionaires of Wall Street but anybody who the pitchfork mob decides has $10 too much in their bank account, or something. What a serious risk the nation faces.
Does Wall Street money somehow make people’s skin thinner?