# Will Wall Street be abolished if Sanders wins? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 7, 2016, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437 "2016-02-07T16:37:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/61 "2016-02-08T02:57:18Z")
We never had the subprime mortgage crisis in Australia. You know why? Because we weren’t stupid enough to deregulate our banks so throughly that they could take junk loans, bundle them together and resell them as a “premium” financial vehicle. Banks and wall street have both proven that if they’re deregulated, they will do bullshit like this, create fake money, walk off with the profits and leave it to the taxpayers to bail them out. They need to be regulated properly and bank executives need to face proper sentences and jail time if they break the regulations. This will actually be a good thing for the economy because it will reduce the occurrence of recessions caused by bubbles. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/62 "2016-02-08T05:03:33Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > You’ve been asked some specific questions. > > What, specifically, do you think he will do? You’ve said he would sign executive orders. Okay, fine. > > What do you think he might do within the bounds of those executive orders that would “abolish” Wall Street? > > Be specific. Cite your sources. Use facts, not opinions. Just wanted to repeat the requests for clarification from you. And it’s been a while since you were asked _where_ you got the idea that Bernie wants to abolish Wall Street from. Did you hear that Bernie was going to abolish Wall Street? Where? Or is it just your own idea? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/63 "2016-02-08T06:16:50Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > We never had the subprime mortgage crisis in Australia. You know why? Because we weren’t stupid enough to deregulate our banks so throughly that they could take junk loans, bundle them together and resell them as a “premium” financial vehicle. > Banks and wall street have both proven that if they’re deregulated, they will do bullshit like this, create fake money, walk off with the profits and leave it to the taxpayers to bail them out. They need to be regulated properly and bank executives need to face proper sentences and jail time if they break the regulations. > > This will actually be a good thing for the economy because it will reduce the occurrence of recessions caused by bubbles. Yes, and your credit card regulation is better as well. Here in the US, the well healed get credit cards with “Rewards” -they are essentially kickbacks. The credit card companies pass higher fees on to merchants, who are forbidden to pass them on to cc customers. So essentially, those who pay cash subsidize those who use premium credit cards. And merchants get squeezed. Hardly the end of the world, but annoying and unnecessary. In Australia they I understand they have –_horrors_– fee caps. Too bad the carbon tax got withdrawn. That was good too. Ah well, the grass is always greener on the other side of the world. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/64 "2016-02-08T06:41:27Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > How would he do such a thing? Please be specific. As Commander in Chief, he could order nuclear strikes on the offices and data centers of all of the major exchanges. (Not that he’d actually do such a thing, but you asked the question.) ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/65 "2016-02-08T06:52:35Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Yes, and your credit card regulation is better as well. Here in the US, the well healed get credit cards with “Rewards” -they are essentially kickbacks. I have rewards on my Australian issued personal and company credit cards. But yes you’re right they do have fee caps. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/66 "2016-02-08T09:23:55Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Friends who are scared, about to snap and who need to be respected. I don’t generally respect people who are about to snap. I feel pity that they are unable to handle the burden of their lives. Does this mean I’m a leftist who wants to destroy Wall Street, peace be upon them? I don’t know. I’m still trying to understand the thread. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/67 "2016-02-08T09:49:08Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I’m still trying to understand the thread. Right wing loony talk that properly regulating Wall Street would somehow drive all the firms there bankrupt or cause them to flee the country and set up somewhere else. Thats dismissing the fact that Sanders would have to get an new laws regulating wall street past congress first. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/68 "2016-02-08T12:50:27Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > The problem is that Sanders’ accusation has far better factual grounding. I’m thinking of … Point not disputed that abuses have been widespread and that effective regulation of the industry lacked and effective implementation of regulations that existed were poorly enforced … it is still not the same as saying that the basic business model is fraud. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/69 "2016-02-08T13:14:55Z")
“Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.” - Teddy Roosevelt ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/70 "2016-02-08T13:50:07Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > How would he do such a thing? Please be specific. Two words: Mecha Bernie. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/71 "2016-02-08T17:59:05Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I don’t generally respect people who are about to snap. I feel pity that they are unable to handle the burden of their lives. > > Does this mean I’m a leftist who wants to destroy Wall Street, peace be upon them? I don’t know. **I’m still trying to understand the thread.** Some of it appears to be riffing on some of the other things Miss **Days** has been posting in other threads she has started. So, understanding the thread might begin by developing an understanding of the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/72 "2016-02-08T19:42:27Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Some of it appears to be riffing on some of the other things Miss **Days** has been posting in other threads she has started. > > So, understanding the thread might begin by developing an understanding of the OP. Wait, \*\*GloryDays \*\*is a woman? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/73 "2016-02-08T20:15:01Z")
[The real threat to Wall Street is not Bernie Sanders — it’s Donald Trump.](http://www.salon.com/2016/02/08/the_real_threat_to_wall_street_is_not_bernie_sanders_its_donald_trump/) > [@](#): > > During a weekend rally in New Hampshire, according to a report from the Washington Examiner’s Byron York, Trump broke from typical GOP rhetoric even more than usual. Instead of railing against high taxes or big government, Trump, York says, was “in full populist mode,” railing against big pharma, big insurance, big oil and big defense. > > At times, York reports, Trump even went so far that he “sounded like Bernie Sanders, if Sanders had Trump’s sense of showmanship.” But what York quotes Trump saying about the big donors who support his opponents is far more incendiary than anything Sanders himself has uttered. These corporate fat cats, Trump raged, were “bloodsuckers.” > > “Bloodsucker” is not a word you hear often in U.S. politics; and for good reason. It’s not because the word is so brutish Americans are otherwise so cuddly, however. It’s because “bloodsucker” — like “cockroach,” “vermin,” “parasite,” or “disease” — is considered too dehumanizing and eliminationist. It’s how Nazis and Stalinists speak. (Not for nothing was it the slur especially popular in France during the Reign of Terror.) > > And the reason why “bloodsucker” is so dangerous, and why any lefty who uttered it would be rightly savaged, is because of what it suggests. The implication is that the body politic — “the American people” — is, by nature, unified. Anyone who differs with “the people’s” self-declared tribunes, therefore, is unnatural and alien. They are dangerous outsiders; they are a threat. > > Bernie Sanders does not talk like this. He knows better — both as the progeny of Holocaust survivors, and as a decent man. He knows where this kind of talk has often led, and he scrupulously avoids it. Yet for reasons unclear, Wall Street still seems to regard Sanders — not Trump — as politician most likely to turn the mob against them. He isn’t, not by a long shot; and it’s long past time they recognized that fact. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/74 "2016-02-08T22:24:55Z")
It’s fascinating that Sanders and Trump are basically mirror images. Trump is the fascist anti-establishment candidate, Sanders is the socialist anti-establishment candidate. Not sure who would have believed you 4 years ago if you told us they would both be seriously challenging the respective party machines today. ---
**Author:** ![GloryDays](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9c0ed/32.png) [@GloryDays](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GloryDays)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/75 "2016-02-08T23:03:20Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > It’s fascinating that Sanders and Trump are basically mirror images. Trump is the fascist anti-establishment candidate, Sanders is the socialist anti-establishment candidate. Not sure who would have believed you 4 years ago if you told us they would both be seriously challenging the respective party machines today. That’s good. The Republican and Democratic Party establishment needs to be challenged vigorously after decades of foolishness. Sanders is a good man, but he will have a huge challenge around him if he is elected president in November. ---
**Author:** ![GloryDays](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9c0ed/32.png) [@GloryDays](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GloryDays)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/76 "2016-02-08T23:04:21Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Some of it appears to be riffing on some of the other things Miss **Days** has been posting in other threads she has started. > > So, understanding the thread might begin by developing an understanding of the OP. I am a male. Also, Wall Street could be sunk by policies in City Hall (New York City), Albany, and Washington. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/77 "2016-02-08T23:09:31Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I heard him interviewed on the radio today and asked to clarify if he really meant it, specifically stating the concerns that I put into my post, why, if that is the case, should anyone trust having their pension fund money and retirement funds in a fundamentally fraudulent market? Given the opportunity to clarify that it was hyperbole he doubled down. He said he meant it, repeated it, and then quoted individual examples of fraud as evidence that the whole enterprise is based on fraud. > > That was what actually got me putting out my post because it was of the exact same form as Trump’s Mexican rapists and Muslim terrorists rhetoric, and that we have suffered through before with Blacks as criminals and ironically enough for Bernie, Jews are, well almost anything, just with a different “other” as the target: group X is teh evil and as proof here are a few who are. > > I do not cut Trump the “campaign hyperbole” slack, and I see no cause to grant it to Bernie just because the target is more popular to vilify among those in my circle. > > To the issue of the op my point remains: a President can do much harm and sometimes good to the markets both domestically and internationally without new laws passed or executive orders decreed … just by the impact of how they use the bully pulpit. Abolish? No. Meaningfully regulate? Needs some cooperation from Congress. Harm, significantly, yes, just with words alone. What silly nonsense-it’s absurd to equate anti-Wall Street rhetoric-an institution which collectively has been malicious and detrimental to the American public with Mexicans, Muslims, or blacks who collectively have not been such. Wall Street is necessary for the functioning of a capitalist economy, yes, but they are also collectively guilty in a way ethnic groups and religions are not. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/78 "2016-02-08T23:10:10Z")
> [@GloryDays](#): > > That’s good. The Republican and Democratic Party establishment needs to be challenged vigorously after decades of foolishness. Sanders is a good man, but he will have a huge challenge around him if he is elected president in November. Strangely, I find myself agreeing with every word of that. Though I doubt you and I would agree on exactly where in either party the “foolishness” lies. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/79 "2016-02-08T23:12:51Z")
> [@GloryDays](#): > > I am a male. Also, Wall Street could be sunk by policies in City Hall (New York City), Albany, and Washington. Sure, they could rezone it from business to residential. But the **stock exchange** would survive, it would simply relocate elsewhere – or move online. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437/80 "2016-02-11T18:02:50Z")
As you [so eloquently pointed out in another thread,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=783647) the “biggest belief” in the United States right now is that young people are currently joining the military in search of handouts and other personal gains. If Sanders abolishes Wall Street it will result in large numbers of greedy self-centered young workers with nowhere to turn to but the military if the wish to keep receiving the gratification that is no longer available to them by working in finance. This will greatly swell the ranks of our military, making it even more powerful than it would have been before Sanders took office, and Sanders has always struck me as being too much of a pacifist to want this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-wall-street-be-abolished-if-sanders-wins/745437.md?page=5)