Bloomberg on Bloomberg: The Selected Sayings of the Much-Awaited Establishment Messiah

“If you want to know if somebody’s a good salesman, give them the job of going to the Midwest, and picking a town, and selling to that town the concept that some man wearing a dress should be in a locker room with their daughter. If you can sell that, you can sell anything. They just look at you, and they say, What on earth are you talking about? And you say, Well, this person identifies his or her gender as different than what’s on their birth certificate. And they say, What do you mean? You’re either born this, or you’re born that. In our prison system in New York City, we have the policy, when you walk in, drop your trousers, you go this way, and you go that way, that’s it, because you can’t sit there and mix things in jail, that’s a practical case of where you have to make a decision.” (Against transgender bathrooms, 2016)

“The Harvard graduate on average will never catch up to a plumber. Partly because the first four years instead of spending $60,000 you make $60,000.” (A Harvard education versus being a plumber, 2015)

“If you want to drive out the 1 percent of the people that pay roughly 50 percent of the taxes, or the 10 percent of the people that pay 70-odd percent of the taxes, that’s as good a strategy as I know. We wouldn’t be able to have cops to keep us safe, firefighters to rescue us, teachers to educate our kids….You saw in France people moving out when they raised the tax rates. Whether you like it or not, the wealthy are mobile.” (Against raising taxes on the wealthy, 2012)

“What are we going to say in 10 years when we see all these kids whose IQs are 5 to 10 points lower than they would have been? I couldn’t feel more strongly about it, and my girlfriend says it’s no different than alcohol. It is different than alcohol. This is one of the stupider things that’s happening across our country.” (Against legalizing pot, 2015)

“What we really should have is fingerprinting to get in. And of course there’s an allegation that some of these apartments aren’t occupied by the people who originally have the lease.” (Fingerprinting public housing residents, 2013)

“The protesters are protesting against people who make $40–50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet….Those are the people that work on Wall Street or in the finance sector….We need the banks, if the banks don’t go out and make loans we will not come out of our economic problems, we will not have jobs….We always tend to blame the wrong people. We blame the banks.” (Against Occupy protestors, 2011)

“Complying with it is really impossible, which means you’re not going to comply with it. The world adjusts to stupid laws, they don’t pay any attention to them and you get burned later on, like a 25 mile per hour speed limit….Some of these fines are outrageous and shouldn’t be allowed to take place.” (Against banking fines and regulations, 2014)

“I want to thank President Bush for leading the global war on terrorism. The president deserves our support. We are here to support him. And I am here to support him.” (Supporting the Iraq War, 2004)

“Great, No. 16!” (Commenting on the number of pregnant employees in the company, upon hearing an employee tell him she was pregnant, 1995)

“I think the Fire Department union should probably step back and look in the mirror….We will not tolerate turning a firehouse into a brothel….We’re not going to tolerate firefighters drinking when they’re on the job. We absolutely will not let anybody who’s on drugs drive a fire engine.” (Attacking firefighters, 2004)

“Friday night when I was informed that, of the situation of this teacher saying that she had been a sex worker—I think was the term she might have used—I said, Well, you know, call her, tell her she is being removed from the classroom….We’re just not going to have this woman in front of a class.” (Firing a former sex worker from her teaching position)

“You don’t solve the problem, as the populists would argue, by taking things away from the rich. I, for example, am not in favor, have never been in favor, of raising the minimum wage.” (Opposing a rise in the minimum wage, 2015)

“So if that’s what you describe as income inequality—that’s just not an apt description. One of the things that’s different today is the poor—80 percent have air-conditioning. Seventy percent have cars. When we grew up we didn’t have air-conditioning. Air-conditioning in the schools, the subways. Are you crazy? Now, by most of the world’s standards, you ain’t poor.” (Denying income inequality, 2013)

“Who’s paying our taxes?….We want these people to come here, and it’s not our job to say that they’re over or underpaid….Wouldn’t it be great if we could get all the Russian billionaires to move here?” (Arguing against inequality in NYC, 2013)

“If New York City is a business, it isn’t Walmart—it isn’t trying to be the lowest-priced product in the market….It’s a high-end product, maybe even a luxury product. New York offers tremendous value, but only for those companies able to capitalize on it.” (Branding NYC, 2003)

“You can arrive in your private jet at Kennedy Airport, take a private limousine and go straight to the shelter system and walk in the door and we’ve got to give you shelter” (Deploring homeless shelters, 2013)

“Some people say, taxes are regressive. In this case, yes they are. That’s the good thing about them because the problem is in people that don’t have a lot of money. And so, higher taxes should have a bigger impact on their behavior and how they deal with themselves….And that’s why you do want to do exactly what a lot of people say you don’t want to do. (Justifying regressive taxes, 2018)

Anis Shivani is the author of many critically-acclaimed books of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism. His recent political books include Why Did Trump Win?, A Radical Human Rights Approach to Immigration, and Confronting American Fascism