Billionaire close to tears amid fears of "lefties" like AOC, Bernie Sanders
Billionaire close to tears amid fears of "lefties" like AOC, Bernie Sanders
Billionaire Leon Cooperman choked up several times while discussing capitalism and expressing his concern that progressives "don't get it."
Billionaire Leon Cooperman was on the verge of tears while speaking about his concern about "the lefties" and their progressive outlook on capitalism.
"I've lived the American dream. I'm trying to convince people like [Senators] Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and AOC (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)—don't move away from capitalism. Capitalism is the best system," Cooperman said on CNBC's Squawk Box on Friday while holding back tears. "I get choked up when I talk about it because basically, my father came to America at the age of 12 as a plumber's apprentice. No education."
"I went to public school in the Bronx, high school in the Bronx, college in the Bronx. I started my career in Wall Street the day after I got my MBA from Columbia. I had no money. I couldn't afford a vacation. I made a lot of money. I'm giving it all back," Cooperman said before co-anchor Rebecca Quick stepped in as he choked up.
"Giving it all back?" Give me a fucking break, asshole.
"...my father came to America at the age of 12 as a plumber’s apprentice. No education.”
“I went to public school in the Bronx, high school in the Bronx, college in the Bronx. I started my career in Wall Street the day after I got my MBA from Columbia. I had no money. I couldn’t afford a vacation. I made a lot of money. I’m giving it all back...
I'm imagining the cost of living that allowed his father to live on the salary of a 12 year old who worked as a plumbers assistant. I'm also imagining that this billionaire probably went to Bronx Science (a free public school now where attendees likely have paid for test prep to do well on the entrance exam, out of reach for a lot of NYC public school students). If he went to college in the Bronx, it was likely Fordham - the 2023 cost of attendance (tuition plus fees and books) is now $89,575. For an MBA from Columbia, their cost of attendance (which includes room and board) is now $127,058 in 2023.
He cannot make the connection that COL and earnings have grown exponentially since the time his father was 12, yet wages haven't. Does he not see that very few students would be able to go to private universities for undergrad and grad schools and service their debt with current wages? How many graduate and immediately start working on Wall Street? He's probably against WFH, too, solely seeing the benefit to his commercial real estate portfolio and ignoring the commuting costs and work life balance issues for the workers. The world capitalism gave him and his father is gone. At this point it's as real as ghosts and dreams. We are dealing with the current world that capitalism has given us, a capitalism that only a billionaire would cry over.
113hat COL and earnings have grown exponentially since the time his father was 12, yet wages haven’t. Does he not see that very few students would be able to go to private...
He sees and he knows. It is crocodile tears of a men that has a "fuck you i got mine" attitude.
36No, he probably doesn't know. It's been decades since he had any real "economic anxiety". His type of budgeting and belt tightening is renting out his yacht when he's not using it, or staying at his current vacation homes instead of buying new ones.
He literally doesn't know what the average person experiences, so we shouldn't listen to him for advice.
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We are dealing with the current world that capitalism has given us, a capitalism that only a billionaire would cry over.
That's where you're wrong! Billionaires still have loyal friends unlike you!
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"I've lived the American dream.
While creating more nightmarish conditions for others.
Congratulations, and fuck you.
77If he gave it all back, why is he still a billionaire?
69It's a neat trick: You give your donations to a foundation where you also put your family members, and use that foundation to lobby for the stuff that you're investing in.
That's at least mostly what Gates is doing.
43You don't understand rich folk. They are giving it back to themselves - all of it, and all they can weasel out of you.
15Oi i have an idea!
He's lying.
9
capitalism is the best system
guy who made lots of money under capitalism expresses that capitalism is the best system
64There are two groups of people who support capitalism as it exists today:
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The truly rich, the 1%, who exclusively got that way by exploiting the 99% as much as physically possible, and
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The portion of the 99% who've been brainwashed through various methods into thinking that they can become rich -or- that the rich will "watch out for them" or some equivalent fairytale
20There are two groups of people:
Those that think there are two groups of people, and those that don't.
The premise that socialism is better relies on the government not becoming corrupt. When it fails, it's really bad.
Capitalism also functions great when the government isn't corrupt ... it gives consumers choice and fails much more softly.
If you look at examples of cooperatives, socialist utopia projects, etc.. they break down much for the same reason capitalism has broken down for the majority of people in the US... The largest party is the party that doesn't vote, and of those that vote half of them don't know what they're voting for, and of those that know what they're voting for half of them are basing their votes on misinformation.
Managing society takes work from everybody in society. There's no easy button that keeps the train on the tracks.
To be fair, you did qualify "as it exists today" and that makes a difference. However, the point is it's not capitalism that failed us, in many ways it's ourselves, our parents, and/or our grandparents not paying attention and elected the right people. Similarly those same people buy the cheapest thing in Walmart and don't stop to ask themselves why it's so cheap.
Union busting, the manufacturing exodus, etc, it all could've been stopped if people had just paid more attention. You'll never get me to trust that by moving to socialism as an economic model people are suddenly going to pay more attention and not fuck it up.
7
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If he was giving it all back, the story would start with words “former billionaire.”
I also don’t understand this constant probing of the people when it comes time to provide assistance. I pay my taxes, that’s my contribution to social programs. When there’s a natural disaster or issue don’t put a bunch of celebrities on TV asking for slightly less poor people to donate. I want the government to step in and help out. Billionaires should not exist unless everyone has a safe place to sleep at night and warm meals to eat during the day. Considering that’s not the case, that’s how you know capitalism isn’t the best system
53So he went to public school in New York back before Reagan started cutting taxes for the rich and exploding the wealth gap. The taxes that paid for that very school and gave him his start. Now this twat is on the conservative side of completely gutting public schools.
49"I lived the American dream."
Aka greedy ganged out selfish evil cunt that rapes humanity and legally lives like a mob member.
They're the same as the street crims that brag about stacks, sell and steal, and break communities and families with drug addictions and pimping ...all while they already have enough to live comfortably.
Different worlds, same game. ...treated em all the same. Mainstream or street.
There's really no security here. It's all still chaos. Quit letting them entice you with a false sense of safety. Regardless of governments and factions we are the ones that need to shape our destinies and we can regain the soul we lost by seeing through their greed, and political and business marketing.
No sides, live for humanity.
37Good. They should cry.
37There are times when Bernie and AOC aggravate me. Other times I think they're pretty smart. That's okay, I don't have to agree with someone 100% of the time. But, the rich...never in human history has greed trumped common sense as it does today. They use their wealth to promote negative consequences for society., and as long as they put more in their well lined pockets they're happy. Too much is not enough. Fuck em.
36At least you can have the freedom to be aggravated by a progressive. I live in Texas with corrupt politicians leading our state. Ever hear of ERCOT? I have, daily through text messages to "conserve energy or else". Just fix the fucking grid hot wheels. Stop wasting money on idiotic floating barriers that are illegal in the Rio Grande. I'm here for someone that wants to at least attempt to change something.
edit: punctuation
8One of the first fire brigades was owned by Marcus Crassus. He'd offer to save your house in exchange for selling it to him at miserable prices and often allow you to rent it afterwards. But you got to keep your stuff in the house, so he wasn't all bad, right? Yeah, Marcus Crassus was a pretty shitty guy.
4
28Now I want to see his reaction when people start breaking out the guillotines because his ilk have made peaceful resolution impossible.
28yeah it worked for you, you miserable old fuck. unfortunately it's failed everyone else
28if youre giving it away than you wont mind paying more in taxes so that more people can use a help up to get healthcare or go back to school.
26They always mean after they're dead. Like how Rockefeller bought a good name for himself after being a monopolist who set humanity back by decades.
2Heck yes! Or even better, take a fraction of what they currently use for our military budget and put that towards those instead.
1
Hey now, Leon Cooperman has given over $155 million in different grants and charities.
He just happens to have two billion three hundred and forty five million left over.
23only two billion?? How does he live?? I could never live on only two billion
15I'm starting a gofundme for him. That poor little fella!
2
Frankly I agree with him, capitalism is great if he and all of his billionaire buddies gave away most of their earnings. Maybe we should have some kind of system, where we force the mega wealthy to give away most of their earnings to fund programs that help out the rest of us. Now what would we call that system? Hmmmmmm....
3Taxes Take All eXcess Earnings for Socialism policies.
Billionaires are a quirk of capitalism. They shouldn't exist.
2
lottery winner tries to convince people to spend all their savings in lottery tickets: “It worked for me and it can work for you too”
21Oh noes! If he pays more in taxes he might be just regular old dirty rich instead of obscenely-no-one-could-ever-contrubute-enough-to-the-world-to-justify-this-level-of-wealth-accumulation rich. I feel so sorry for him.
21Remember, those tears are falling over the fear of not being able to squeeze the last dollar out of every other being anymore. They don't fear for their life. They fear not being able owning yours.
19Not being able to? They ARE literally squeezing every dollar and penny out of common folk. Imagine diabetic patients dying because they can't afford insulin - which was made available as a medication nearly 100 years ago and was meant by the discoverers to eradicate diabetic deaths. Imagine accepting tax payer's money in the form of Covid-19 bail out meant to support employees and avoid layoffs, then keeping it to themselves and laying off the above said employees. Imagine creating artificial scarcity of food in the name of a pandemic and raising prices across the board and through the roof. Imagine training AI on work done by coders, journalists, writers, etc and then using it to lay off the same people.
Their tears aren't because they can't squeeze out every dollar out of us. Those tears are what crocodiles shed when they mercilessly shred their helpless victims to shreds. It's the tears that a serial killer sheds on seeing their victims struggle for life. It's the same tears that any villainous sociopath gets when they torture others.
7villainous sociopath / billionaires
"They're the same picture"
6Yes, they are now. But those evil communist lefties try to take their birthright from them! 😭
5The team who invented cheap insulin patented it and gave the patent to the university of Toronto for $1.
UT then licensed it out to pharma companies and made billions.
2
Make 'em cry.
18It's a good sign that they're scared
18If we could somehow get more progressives to start running locally and work their way up and take over the dnc maybe we would stand a chance.
7
I was told there would be a video of a crying billionaire.
17Yeah, where video?
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17I'm so tired of this style of journalism. Do headlines really need to imply people are ready to cry? This is not respectable journalism and I'm not even reading the rest of it after that.
14Judging by the text of the article, the headline is literally true.
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12Warming up the grill...
^^^metaphorically
4Hey, it's Saturday; it's a good day for a cookout.
2
Cry me a river.
11- 8
disingenuous scumbag
8Permanently Deleted
6Good.
5🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Billionaire Leon Cooperman was on the verge of tears while speaking about his concern about "the lefties" and their progressive outlook on capitalism.
I'm trying to convince people like [Senators] Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and AOC (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)—don't move away from capitalism.
Capitalism is the best system," Cooperman said on CNBC's Squawk Box on Friday while holding back tears.
A Gallup poll from August 2022 found that 52 percent of Americans think the government should redistribute wealth through heavy taxes on the rich.
Numbers that confirm earlier surveys, like a September 2021 Morning Consult poll that found 74 percent agreed with the statement, "The wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes," and a Marist poll from July 2019 that showed 62 percent of Americans saying a higher tax rate on income above $1 million is a good idea.
Cooperman published a memoir over the summer, called, From The Bronx To Wall Street: My Fifty Years in Finance and Philanthropy.
Saved 74% of original text.
2lol he thinks it's scary now?
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