Bernie Sanders thinks the time is ripe for the expropriation of the wealth of the wealthy from those who have earned it. Never mind — he will put it to use in the service of all things bright and beautiful. What could go wrong?
Something tells me that Sanders’s argument hasn’t been put to the test of analytical rigor. In the second paragraph of his Guaridan column plugging this year’s socialist model, for example, he writes:
Never before in American history have we had such concentration of ownership. While profits soar, a handful of giant corporations dominate virtually every sector of our economy, charging higher and higher prices for the products they sell. Four Wall Street firms combined – BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity, and State Street – are the major stockholders of more than 90% of American corporations.
Something tells me this is slightly misleading. These firms do not “own” the companies in any meaningful sense. They are asset managers who hold shares on behalf of millions of individual clients, pension funds, and 401(k) plans. The underlying stock belongs to individual investors. However, that proposition is good enough for government work, which is suggestive of the larger problems with the Sanders manifesto. It would be cruel to say the column goes downhill from there, but it wouldn’t be wrong.
