Democratic presidential race candidate Michael Bloomberg announced his proposal to attack Wall Street, the place he himself made his billions.
Against wide expectations, the former mayor of New York, Bloomberg, published a plan that is a leftward-leaning approach on financial regulation, including reworking the Volcker Rule, that was implied to deny taxpayer subsidy to speculative trading.
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“The stock market is at an all-time high, but almost all of the gains are going to a small number of people,” Michael Bloomberg said in a statement. “The financial system isn’t working the way it should for most Americans."
Being an “arrogant billionaire” is what Bloomberg gets mostly attacked for.
"Mike Bloomberg owns more wealth than the bottom 125 million Americans," Bernie Sanders said at the Nevada debate. "That's wrong, that's immoral, that should not be the case when we got a half a million people sleeping out on the streets, when we kids who cannot afford to go to college, when we have 45 million people dealing with student debt."
But with his new on-take on the financial system, it seems like Bloomberg is trying to show that, even though he made his money there, he won’t pledge too much allegiance to Wall Street, when elected as President.
To soften his hard billionaire image, Bloomberg and his strategists are also trying to focus on his middle class childhood in Boston and philanthropic work.
Perhaps the most surprising of the businessman Bloomberg's proposal
is his plan for the justice department to create a team which will fight corporate crime.
Bloomberg further announced to sell his financial information and media company, if elected President in November.
What exactly is written in Bloomberg’s Financial Reform Policy proposal?
Bloomberg plans on establishing a financial system, strong enough to face a crisis without affecting the broader economy, by reversing the trump-era decline in equity level, reconsidering the Volcker Rule, toughening stress tests and requiring annual living wills for financial institutions. He further declared he wants to strengthen the Financial Stability Oversight Council, make the U.S. financial regulatory system more effective, and merge Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
To achieve his goal, Bloomberg also plans on restoring the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule, which calls on brokers and insurance agents to put their clients interests first.
The last point on Bloomberg’s proposal is to mobilize finance for the public good and enable benefitial financial innovation that people can benefit from, including a tax of 0.1% on all financial transactions.
The financial transaction tax may weigh on broker and exchange stocks like:
