Bernie Sanders Just Received A Very Unexpected Endorsement


Every movie lover knows the expression “Greed is Good.” The slogan was made famous by corporate raider Gordon Gekko, played by the amazing Michael Douglas in the 1987 film Wall Street. Well, Gordon Gekko was actually based on a real Wall Street tycoon named Asher Edelman, who has shockingly just endorsed Bernie Sanders for President.

I guess greed is not so good anymore.

It’s incredibly ironic that after all Sanders’ railing against Wall Street, his central campaign message, one of the “Godfathers of Wall Street” would come out in support of Sanders. When he answered the question of who he supported for President on CNBC, the conservative hosts looked like they just about soiled themselves in shock. However, Edelman’s reasoning was incredibly rational. He said:

“When you have the top 1% getting money, they spend 5-10% of what they earn. When you have the lower end of the economy getting money, they spend 100-110% of what they earn.

As you’ve had a transfer of wealth to the top and a transfer of income to the top, you have a shrinking consumer base basically, and you have a shrinking velocity of money. Bernie is the only person out there who I think is talking at all about both fiscal stimulation and banking rules that will get the banks to begin to generate lending again as opposed to speculation.”

This is probably the most rational thing I’ve heard from a Wall Street hotshot, ever. Edelman realizes that the top 1% hoarding all of their money is only contributing to our economic downfall. If you give the working man money, he spends it, or even overextends a little in some cases. That’s what’s referred to as the velocity of money: how quickly money changes hands. It’s much faster if you put it into the hands of everyday people, and that’s great news for the economy and for businesses.

If only the conservatives could get on board with such a simple concept, that would be great. Bernie Sanders would make things better for all people, not just the liberals. The top 1% wouldn’t even miss that extra money anyway, since apparently they just like to let 90-95% of it sit around and play Scrooge McDuck anyway.

Featured Image via Flickr, available under a Creative Commons license.

 

Nick Bartholomew is a writer, editor, and an LLA (Liberal Living Abroad) based in Osaka, Japan. While he spends his time enjoying Japanese culture, he still does his civic duty by following US politics closely. He also blogs about gaming and technology on his website Ctrl-Alt Awesome.