NEW YORK CITY – “I was wrong,” former mayor and presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg admitted in a shocking apology this week, “I now realize that over-regulation of normal citizens just trying to make a living through high-risk speculative investments was detrimental to society.”
Bloomberg Terminals, workstations and software through which users can analyze real-time market information and place trades, have since reversed a policy that stopped and interrogated many attempting to buy or sell stocks. Although Bloomberg had championed the use of such tactics as late as last year, his reversal appears to be attempt to sway key demographics voters in his presidential campaign, Wall Street financiers.
“I pray that he’s seen the error of his ways,” said Keith DiPalma, a managing director or Merrill Lynch’s wealth management division, “but the institutional damage Mike did can’t be undone overnight. I had to wait a whole extra year to buy another place in Sag Harbor because my BBT held up a mortgage-backed security swap in ‘07 due to ‘suspicious circumstances.’”
Despite the obvious political motives, some constituents believe Bloomberg is genuinely contrite about the harms of financial regulations. “I value the communities affected most by my decisions in the past,” Bloomberg said at a closed-door fundraiser hosted by Goldman Sachs, “and I will do everything in my power as President to ensure that every financial transaction, regardless of risk or suspicious intent, is treated with dignity and respect.”