It is time for a wealth tax in america ive heard there are some billionaires who doesnt support this plan. Theville ville ification of billionaires makes no sense to me she probably thinks more about cataclysmic change to the Economic System as opposed to tinkering. Lloyd blankfein responded on twitter. I can watch that over and over again where were you when you first saw that i was kind of brushing my teeth in the morning where i normally watch the channel i was surprised and flattered to think that i could play such an Important Role in the president ial campaign. Were you angry . No, i wasnt angry. Im a little bit staggered that it gotten to this point of kind of name calling. How provocative was my statement that i would tinker with the Financial System and i wouldnt explode it and that becomes in this kind of polarized world, thats a very radical statement to say you wouldnt blow up the best financial and Economic System in the world. Let me read from your tweet, if i may you say you were surprised in the tweet. You go on to say, not my candidate but we alike on many issue, vilification of people may be good for her peopcam bait the country. Maybe tribalism isnt the answer. Thats a comment toward her native american claim. I work for the worlds financial institutions, i have name recognition my political position is known i used to be a kind of a moderate democrat and now without having moved anything, ive become like a in their eyes kind of a right winger because i dont want to blow up the Financial System its an odd time where were shifting a bit from populism where you are want to represent underrepresented people, people that feel they didnt have a voice and they want to appeal to them to a kind of demagoguery where in addition to trying to help underrepresented people, youre labelling people as villains who may or may not have a role in the problem just to vilify them in order to improve your prospects so the migration from populism to demagoguery is a bit of a dangerous moment i just fear for the political process in the United States, thats all but guess what, well survive this and well get through it. Theres a cycle to it. You do say in the tweet youre aligned on several issues, on many issues, the word you used on what issues are you aligned with senator warren on i believe strongly that the Economic System should be fair, that people shouldnt be underrepresented in receiving the fruits of Wealth Creation. So im for progressive tax, im for most of the social issues that shed be for, lgbt issues, other friender righ gender righ. But at the end of the day i recognize the Great Success of the Wealth Creation machine and less somebodify successful parte weather distribution machine we shouldnt have unworkable, demotivating kinds of taxes that will achieve equality by reducing everybodys level of wealth im wondering what you mack of so make of the general tone of warren versus wall street. I dont know if you saw the interview Lee Cooperman did on my show where he literally broke down in tears thinking to himself im somebody who spent the better part of my adult life trying to give back, ive taken the buffett giving pledge, ive sent 500 kids to college you know what im getting at yeah, i have a thicker skin i dont want to speak for lee. Hes a great guy, a very philanthropic guy, all the things he says he is, a very rasal gra rational guy, he was responsible for research at Goldman Sachs. He put out a very reasoned paper, is he hard to know but it wasnt Somebody Just taunted him and made fun of him and thats the environment that were in so it becomes a symbol. Very hard to at this moment to just somebody says youre a bad guy and you go back and say im not such a bad guy thats not an argument that people win so, you know, im not dying to be here. I could be here. It not bothering me. Given my choice, id just, you know, if i could i would just bury the match et a hatchet ad move on. Whats your take on the wealth tax i can understand where the wealth tax is coming from. Its a very good way to share the rewards, share the fruits, which you can achieve on an aggressive tax system. An estate tax at the end of death would accomplish the same thing. I understand where its coming from, i understand the goals the problem with it is is its completely unworkable. Forget about the constitutionality. Where its been attempted, its hard to settle an estate often can take many years to settle an estate how do you mark to market your entire wealth every year, farmers who own farms, people who own homes. Its not just fancy people with tens of millions of art collections, it anybody with a farm or a home would have to establish what that home was worth every year youd spend years fighting about it and next year youd have to do it again. Did you think about whether you were going to respond to the warren ad or was it a spur of the moment thing i asked the question in the context of and i asked lee coop areman this as well as to whether you all think youre playing right into her hands by responding and giving her more material to play around with im not living to respond to Elizabeth Warren or anybody. My whole response consisted of 280 characters in a tweet, most of which wasnt addressing anything that she was saying so this is not a big moment in my life and i dont know frankly, i dont know what it means. I started off the conversation by saying i was a little bit in a weird kind of way, its a little bit flattering. I didnt think given my noncombatant retired state, i didnt think i could be that important for her to label me that way if i were to ask you, are you surprised that theres this still lingering animosity in certain corners of the political sphere towards wall street, that you guys are the ones who caused the crisis, not you and goldman, but you guys collectively, you caused the near destruction of the Financial System and here we are today and people cant forget about that . I think people who are responsible at the center of the Financial System going back to the financial crisis, going back to the depression, going back to throughout the history of mercantilism have always find their moment of vilification because people who build things, you can see it, but the people who are responsible to make sure the right things get built in the right time and the right money is spent for it and when mistakes are made and the wrong things are built to repossess those assets and recycle the capital, theyre not always loved. So people at the center of the Financial System play a very, very Important Role in allocation capital and allocating capital, allocating risk but not only is their work not always appreciated, but the people who find themselves on the wrong side of that allocation have a lot of disdain for the people at the center of that process would we be here today had some gone to jail as a result of what happened during the crisis . Is that part of this lingering animosity . I dont know no. I think if we never had a financial i seem to recall that before the financial crisis hi to respond to these kind of questions as well. So there is always, again, some kind of some kind of resentment in the worst time, lack of appreciation in the better times, for what the people who are at the center of the al occasion process of the Financial System again, risk, capital, people again, when you have the role that i had in my old firm, you have people who have capital to invest and people who need capital for their businesses the people who dont get the capital resent your decision not to give it to them and the people who have the capital to invest may not like it if after the fact it didnt go to the best place possible. This whole thing has really spurred a conversation about capitalism in and of itself. Were discussing it more i think recently than we have in the most recent past is the system broken does capitalism need a fix no, its not. Look, were sitting here theres a lot of unusual aspects to this moment in time where the passions and the the passions are the greatest at a moment when things arent in really the greatest distress weve ever faced in our lives i think the two parts of the capitalism kind of, if you will, socialism debate are really how do you allocate the benefits and the product of side, what youve pro tuesdayed oduced out of thei think thats very, very fair game for conversation. The other part is socialism versus capitalism is how much of the Economic System should be run by the government. There its almost hard for me to believe only people without experience in this matter could think what we really need is to have the government run a much bigger section of the economy because i know i really want the Transportation System to be like amtrak all the way through or housing to be like the new york city housing authority, which is governmentrun housing you know, there are great people who work for the veterans administration, some people get great care there but i dont know that everybody wants their Health Care System to be run and waiting on for weeks for an appointment like some of our veterans do with the v. A. System for me having our government run more and more of the economy is not a way anybody would go who ever experienced the government running a bigger part of the economy. This isnt necessarily a conversation of capitalism versus socialism its the likes of a ray dalio or marc benioff suggest that capitalism itself could be tweaked, maybe my word more than theirs of course everything can be tweaked. These are nails. I tried to break it down into the allocation the allocation or reallocation of wealth on the one hand or house of representatives of the system should be run by the government is two bifurcated things the label is distracting i think thats what the debate is about should there be private health care or the government administered system . On paper it looks like the government system would be effective but its that profit motive that makes sure you get the best people in the jobs, people work hard, longer hours than they should, you get rid of incompetent people, you reward people who work especially hard or are especially good, you shut down things that dont work, even if its in some congressmans district the private sector can behave in ways that people in government cannot so no shade on the people in the government my dad worked for the post office but again, look at the post office so how do you think about the issue of incoming equality people say its the preeminent issue of our time. Its certainly one of the principle ris bks to the market inequality, wed have to have less of it lower Interest Rates, people who have assets get richer, people who dont have asset arent benefit federal deficit from the asset prices uber comes along and officially every driver never has an empty car. Theyre driving around so maybe you need 30,000 making this number up but maybe you need 30,000 fewer taxis in new york city than you had before well, that value goes to the shareholders and the initial venture capitalists who created uber they get richer. Meanwhile 30,000 cab drivers lose their job so theres a migration of wealth from labor to capital. So that gets repeated because of Technology People who create the Technology Get the wealth that comes from needing fewer people to do the job and so there are fewer people employed. Now, ill tell you whats happening at the same time other industries are being created, there are more services and we have low employment in this country and over time low unemployment means that new ideas come along and they have to bid up the wages of other workers to pry them from their other jobs thats whats happening. So wages are starting to ride. Do i wish it had converged sooner yes. Should we wait for that to happen no, im for tinkering with the system do you think ceos make too much money do you think television reporters make too much money . I do yeah . Yeah. I dont know if television reporters are making such a great amount of money and those at the bottom of the television arent making ceos are the wealth of ceos is going up at an amazingly high rate relative to the rank and file. Im just guessing that if you that someone must have decided that you in this seat draws more viewers than if you and your cameraman switch places and therefore you command a higher wage for the job you do, even though when i chatted with the fellow back there, he seemed i liked him a hell of a lot and probably works hard. But the spread between what i make andy makes is probably way small compared to what you make compared to the rank and file or what any ceo makes compared to the rank and file, no . Its widespread somebody must have the misapprehension that somebody in that job do you think its out whack, though out of whack from what . Im asking what jamie diamond was asked by leslie stahl. If you film a movie and get the number one Box Office Star to be in that movie and you think what is that movie worth with the number one Box Office Star in it versus the new 40 Box Office Star . If someone thinks they can make an extra 50 million by having the number one guy in it, whats that guy worth as a difference over the other guy every industry has its own market mechanisms. I dont think anybody should apologize where they end up in that process and then you can ask them what they do with the money, whether theyre good citizens, whether they give back to society, whether it serves an important social purpose or its counterproductive. Im not criticizing you for asking the question, although maybe you shouldnt ask it ten different times. Well, i think it sort of gets to the heart of why were having the conversation about income inequality why people like Elizabeth Warren put people on wall street i dont think the whole Economic System hinges on whether taylor swift or the nfl quarterback versus the lineman, what the relative proportion i think its an important thing if youre talking on the side about that particular industry or what it can afford but i think the real issue for the overall economy in a macro sense what should be the government percent of participation, whether the government should take over health care and housing and then the distribution question is one of calibration and degree and where i am on that spectrum, which was the observation that made was that i may be in the middle im not an extreme eastbound of that spectrum i grew up in Public Housing in new york city, my dad worked nights at the post office. I might surprise you in that i never behaved in my life to maximize my income over other conversations. So i might find myself kind of as a directionally on line with people who would like to see a more equally calibrated kind of distribution of the system but i dont want to do anything to impede the Wealth Creation of the system thats a little bit what the debate about wealth should be for me youre not supporting Elizabeth Warren who do you support rockefeller i have nom complaints about meep has not criticized me lately if he did, you would probably have a tweet about it. Seriously, who are you supporting im a militant moderate and also not just for not just on the outcomes but im also for that because i like the stability of a state you know, everybody today, you know, in the last administration produced somebody who just the first day in office wanted to just undo everything that was done if the government changes in the next election cycle, the first thing theyre going to do, executive orders are going to fly and just undo Everything Else were going to go back from one extreme to another the other good thing about moderation is that it creates a more it creates a more stable environment going forward. So, radical comment that i made that invited that negative comment was i would tinker with the system but i wouldnt blow up the Economic System and if i had to say over again, i would just add i wouldnt blow up the Economic System that is generating that is really in fact the most successful and has the most growth it very ra its very rare that the biggest is the most nimble and most flexible and fast growing, but the United States economy is all of those things among developed countries so i would take pride in it while recognizing there are flaws that we should correct. Again, were in a very, very political moment and again, at the juncture between populism and demagoguery when i say dangerous, i dont want to produce another reaction, im just saying i wish people would call out that kind of thing i mean, the only thing the odd thing in that commercial, im used to wall street getting pelted, im used to firms being named but going after specific individuals who really didnt raise their hand, are not really that engaged in the process like my friend Lee Cooperman and, you know, it just seems to me its taken a new direction, is that really good, should we applaud and clap for that . Im not so sure. Youre an equal tunopportuni target between warren, sanders and trump. Im glad i could play my role in unifying the country. How do you think President Trumps done listen, im sure there are villages in the amazon that havent seen electricity where theyre sitting around a table talking about President Trump every day. This is a very welltrod territory here i would say that on economic issues, if you look where things are, i think hes done pretty well and it crazy not to acknowledge that, even if you clearly dont likeless temperament and the burdens hes putting