Blackstone CEO Surprised American Voters Are Unhappy With Economy, Politics, Life

Erik Sherman , 

At a gathering of the world’s elite, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman wonders why U.S. voters are so unhappy.

Sometimes you come across a headline and story that is stunning in its implications. Not that you expect people who live in a modern version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis rarefied atmosphere to get how it must be for the great masses below.

Billionaire Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzmann apparently finds the anger of voters both on the right and left bewildering, according to a report from theInternational Business Times.

“I find the whole thing astonishing and what’s remarkable is the amount of anger whether it’s on the Republican side or the Democratic side,” the Wall Street mogul said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Bernie Sanders, to me, is almost more stunning than some of what’s going on in the Republican side. How is that happening, why is that happening?”

America is the richest and most unequal nation in the world — at least when you look at the wealth in 55 of the more conventionally developed countries. Median income has largely fallen behind economic growth as corporations continue to retain a bigger share of the benefits, turning into a reverse of what is usually claimed as the danger of income redistribution. Perhaps that will change, asTim Worstall has argued elsewhere on Forbes, because real-world economics is a lot more subtle than most of us remember and we have hit global peak labor which will eventually mean companies have to pay more to get help (though it’s hard to see how that happens when regional and global populations, even in Europe, are either flat or growing to varying degrees).

But whether there are long term changes coming or not of their own accord is immaterial in this case. People in the U.S. don’t tend to think that way. What many perceive now is a basic economic unfairness. They work hard, play by the rules as they’ve learned them, and keep getting further behind. The debt funding for college and large purchases seems to be never ending for large portions of the populace, which cements in a sense of unending inequality.

Then there is the realm of politics. Elected officials on the left and right are acknowledging what has been obvious for many years: Money owns influence. Large corporations and wealthy individuals pour cash into campaign coffers and it’s generally not out of the goodness of their hearts. As Donald Trump said to the Wall Street Journal, “As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”

There’s social unrest over historic treatment of minorities, fear of the “other” (immigrants, refugees, overseas competition, and even those with opposing views), and worry about being marginalized. How could anyone expect anything other than anger?

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2016/01/21/blackstone-ceo-surprised-american-voters-are-unhappy-with-economy-politics-life/#4e36552170d9