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.
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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.
Good. They should cry.
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.
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…
Taxes Take All eXcess Earnings for Socialism policies.
Billionaires are a quirk of capitalism. They shouldn’t exist.
only two billion?? How does he live?? I could never live on only two billion
I’m starting a gofundme for him. That poor little fella!
It’s a good sign that they’re scared
If 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.
Remember, 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.
Not 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.
Yes, they are now. But those evil communist lefties try to take their birthright from them! 😭
The 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.
villainous sociopath / billionaires
“They’re the same picture”
If he gave it all back, why is he still a billionaire?
It’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.
Are you talking about Bill Gates who’s given tens of Billions to eradicate mosquito borne Malaria, and has pledged to give away ALL of his money to charity upon his death, that Bill Gates?
He’s certainly a better example than most, but there’s nothing stopping him from using his insane wealth to literally BUY reform, or even giving it all away now and living comfortably on the interest alone. Money like that could purchase half of Congress.
Yes, please see the links below, however as a brief summary:
Bill and Melinda Gates foundation do two things: Invest in public issues and lobby governments to spend in said issues, in exchange for further donations and investments.
However, in parallel, Bill Gates also invests in specific companies that will be targeted as main providers for those activities.
One could consider that he’s investing in companies that help out (e.g., vaccination) and that’s not a bad thing. The problem is that he is bennefiting from lobbying in pro of the companies he has invested on.We could also agree that even if he’s bullying governments and institutions into giving him more money through those companies, at the end it is a positive boost (like the example you mention).
That’s not the case with Common Core: Diane Ravitch put it better than I could here, but basically Bill Gates’ is forcing public schools into programs that do not work, alienate teachers and students, have almost bankrupt public education and required purchasing materials from companies he controlled.
Furthermore, for each time Common Core failed, he doubled down, and for each consecutive failure he decided that a new drastic measure will solve the issue, even though the education community was saying otherwise.
The issue with these foundations is that rich people believe they have the solution to all the problems: not money but their intellect, and that they know more than everyone combined on that profession.
This is in parallel what is been happening with carbon capture. This foundation is also lobbying for a technology that has been heavily critisized as a pipedream; however, surprise surprise, Bill Gates do have large investments in carbon capture companies (e.g. Heirloom).
Again, I do not think he’s evil or is going to inject me with pentium II mmx now; I just think he feels smarter than everyone else and is misguiding governments to invest in failed practices despite what the actual professionals are saying.
Videos:
https://youtu.be/U3Z9gBKuTIk (CNBC - How Common Core Broke U.S. Schools)
https://youtu.be/laGtd-b0vMY (FT - Carbon Capture: hopes, challenges and controversies)
https://youtu.be/ag5zQeXC-TY (THD - How Bill Gates Hijacked US Education Agenda (Opinion))- nccs.urban.org/publication/nonprofit-sector-brief-2019#recipients
- statista.com/statistics/250878/number-of-foundations-in-the-united-states
- propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
- nytimes.com/2021/06/08/us/politics/income-taxes-bezos-musk-buffett.html
- irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundations/taxes-on-failure-to-distribute-income-private-foundations
- nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-giving-statistics
- issuelab.org/resources/36381/36381.pdf
- thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy
- latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jan-07-na-gatesx07-story.html
- sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1166559/000110465923060842/0001104659-23-060842-index.html
- sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1663801/000089843223000302/0000898432-23-000302-index.html
- latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2012-may-18-la-ford-foundation-los-angeles-times-20120517-story.html
- archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/ford_foundation_los_angeles_ti.php
- jacobin.com/2015/11/philanthropy-charity-banga-carnegie-gates-foundation-development
- washingtonpost.com/local/education/pearson-pays-77-million-in-common-core-settlement/2013/12/13/77515bba-6423-11e3-aa81-e1dab1360323_story.html
- sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000095012323005270/0000950123-23-005270-index.html
- philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/gates-foundation-awards-11-million-for-financial-inclusion-in-africa
- news.stanford.edu/2018/12/03/the-problems-with-philanthropy
- washingtonpost.com/education/2021/05/05/what-bill-melinda-gates-did-to-education
- chalkbeat.org/2018/6/21/21105193/the-gates-foundation-bet-big-on-teacher-evaluation-the-report-it-commissioned-explains-how-those-eff
- currentaffairs.org/2021/05/humanity-does-not-need-bill-gates
- prweb.com/releases/2014/02/prweb11601976.htm
- washingtonpost.com/education/2020/02/10/bill-melinda-gates-have-spent-billions-dollars-shape-education-policy-now-they-say-theyre-skeptical-billionaires-trying-do-just-that
- philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/statistics-on-u-s-generosity/[28] charitywatch.org/nonprofit-compensation-packages-of-1-million-or-more
- nytimes.com/2013/07/27/opinion/the-charitable-industrial-complex.html
- latimes.com/business/la-na-gates8jan8-story.html
- policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-billionaires-the-investment-emissions-of-the-worlds-richest-people-621446
- oxfam.org/en/research/time-care → PDF report
- oxfam.org/en/research/survival-richest → PDF report
I mean, I think he’s evil. But I also remember Microsoft in the 90s: the EEE strategy, the monopolistic bullshit with web browsers, the FUD against competitors, the Strong arming of computer manufacturers to not offer alternatives, etc.
I mean, I think he’s evil.
You don’t mean to say that the guy who tried to keep vaccines for COVID patented instead of making them free for everyone to manufacture is evil, right?
Gates is a weird figure - I don’t think he’s actually evil (nowadays), because evil implies malicious intent. Rather, he unintentionally commits evil actions (those which harm people and if committed with full understanding would be unambiguously evil) as a result of his own personal extremely warped values. The guy thinks patent law is the highest moral good, so the millions of people who don’t get vaccinated as a result are either forgotten about or a necessary sacrifice for the societal good of protecting patents (which he might justify as making these sorts of innovations possible in the first place - demonstrably incorrect, but good luck getting him to listen to anyone who might tell him that).
tl;dr you can’t be evil by human standards if you have alien blue and orange morality.
You’re probably right, I just watered down my rant to make it sound less like 5G chips in vaccines gang.
Why wait until death?
Pledged to give all of his money to… the foundation named after him that he dictated the charter of…
This is different from Carnegie, Rockefeller, how?
The owner of Patagonia is also doing that.
You don’t understand rich folk. They are giving it back to themselves - all of it, and all they can weasel out of you.
Oi i have an idea!
He’s lying.
There 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.
At 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
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
"…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.
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!
hat 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.
No, 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.
he made his billions at wall street and is an educated economist. He knows exactly how the system runs and how it fucks people over. He is investing in the system to be like this after all.
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Warming up the grill…
^^^metaphorically
Hey, it’s Saturday; it’s a good day for a cookout.
Make 'em cry.
Cry me a river.
Oh 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.
“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.
