This is a bit of a shocker, but who better to know what's needed to fix America's economic and financial problems than the iconic person most known for exploiting financial speculation to vastly enrich the one percent at the expense of everyone else?
Former corporate raider Asher Edelman, the inspiration for the fictional Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, was asked who he wanted to see as the next president of the United States.
His answer?
“Bernie Sanders… No question.”
“Well, I think it’s quite simple," Edelman began. "If you look at something called ‘velocity of money’ — you guys know what that is, I presume — that means how much gets spent and turns around. When you have the top one percent getting money, they spend five, ten percent of what they earn. When you have the lower end of the economy getting money, they spend a hundred, or a hundred and ten percent 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. So from an economic point of view, it’s straightforward.”
This is an aspect of the problem of all new wealth going to the top one percent that is too frequently missed.
It isn't a matter of envy of the wealthy.
It's a matter of too little input for the demand side of the economic equation. What is supply worth when there's too little demand because people don't have enough money to spend it on the things they need?
For whatever reason, kudos to Edelman for coming out and endorsing Bernie Sanders because he believes he's the best one to fix the problems that decades of irresponsible financial deregulation and trickle-down policies have gotten us into.
(via)
Update: Here’s the video: