Leon Cooperman’s feelings were hurt. You see, on October 23, Senator Elizabeth Warren, responding to a comment the 76-year-old hedge fund manager made that her tax policies are “shitting on” the American dream, tweeted something extremely hurtful. (Cooperman isn’t on Twitter, but several friends told him about it.) It’s almost too painful to repeat here, but we‘re going to be strong and do it anyway. Okay, here we go. Warren wrote: “Leon, you were able to succeed because of the opportunities this country gave you. Now why don’t you pitch in a bit more so everyone else has a chance at the American dream, too?” For a hedge fund billionaire these words are like 1 million daggers to the heart. A drive-by shooting. A late-night beating in the park by a bunch of thugs in ski masks after which they’re left for dead. (Not really, but, y’know.) Most people, in all honesty, wouldn’t be able to recover after such a vicious attack. Some might never walk again! But not Leon. Instead, he started mentally composing a letter, which we assume was then dictated to a secretary, letting Warren know that her cruelty would not stand. Letting her know, in no uncertain terms, that billionaires are a protected class, and so long as he lives and breathes, no longer will politicians be allowed to kick them around.
Responding to, again, a tweet, Cooperman wrote, “You proceeded to admonish me (as if a parent chiding an ungrateful child) to ‘pitch in a bit more so everyone else has a chance at the American dream.’” That horror out of the way, he went on, telling Warren, “Your tweet demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of who I am, what I stand for, and why I believe so many of your economic policy initiatives are misguided.” For nearly an entire page, he listed a bunch of fellow billionaires, and the fact that they have made considerable charitable, tax-deductible donations in their lifetimes, and should therefore be applauded. Turning to the senator’s tax policies, or what Cooperman dubbed “soak-the-rich positions,” he laid out his analysis for why—surprise—he thinks they’re bad for America. With that out of the way, he got back to the real matter at hand: Why Warren should be much nicer and deferential to the wealthy:
For those unfamiliar with Cooperman’s history of bitching and moaning, this isn’t the first time he’s complained about being treated just sooo unfairly by a politician. During the Obama years, he claimed that the president’s description of Wall Street leaders as “fat cat bankers”—made in the immediate wake of the financial crisis before he would go on to be extremely business friendly—was encouraging “class warfare,” and that Obama’s “polarizing tone” was “cleaving a widening gulf…between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them,” i.e. the rich. Speaking of tones, Cooperman, like many of his brethren, chose to liken Obama to Adolf Hitler, and also got his knickers in a major twist over the fact that the president had the audacity not to write a thank-you note to Cooperman’s 14-year-old granddaughter for her unsolicited book of poems. So Liz Warren better shape up, and fast.
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