--- title: Bernie Slams Wall Street Fraud description: The presidential contender told bankers “greed is not good” in Manhattan speech. authors: - name: Denver Nicks url: https://money.com/author/denver-nicks/ at_money_since: 2015 articles: 60 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit Cards - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Personal Finance - Pets - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes social: - https://x.com/DenverNicks - https://plus.google.com/105122198911201917932 former_staff: true published: '2016-01-05T22:04:47.000Z' modified: '2016-01-05T22:04:47.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - '2016' - 2016 Election - Bernie Sanders - campaign - democrats - Election - Election 2016 - Hillary Clinton - presidential election - pubdesk - wall street word_count: 259 canonical: https://money.com/bernie-sanders-wall-street-fraud/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, speaks in New York, on January 5, 2016. Sanders lambasted the power the biggest lenders have and the Wall Street and corporate greed he said is destroying the nations fabric.](https://img.money.com/2016/01/160105_em_berniebanks.jpg?crop=338px%2C535px%2C1538px%2C866px&quality=85) *Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, speaks in New York, on January 5, 2016. Sanders lambasted the power the biggest lenders have and the Wall Street and corporate greed he said is destroying the nations fabric.* Vermont senator and contender for the 2016 Democratic contender for president Bernie Sanders in a major speech Tuesday delivered a stark [rebuke](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/01/05/bernie-sanders-wall-street-clinton/78301532/) to Wall Street and his chief rival Hillary Clinton, delivering the message that “greed is not good.” “If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist,” Sanders said to an invitation only crowd in Manhattan, slamming the financial industry by saying that “fraud is the business of Wall Street.” Sanders also had unambiguous language for his chief competitor for the Democratic nomination for president Hillary Clinton, whose husband Bill Clinton signed legislation repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, which had barred commercial banks from involvement in risky investment banking. “My opponent says that, as a senator, she told bankers to 'cut it out' and end their destructive behavior,” Sanders said. “But, in my view, establishment politicians are the ones who need to cut it out. The reality is that Congress does not regulate Wall Street….” A raucous crowd finished his sentence with “Wall Street regulates Congress,” USA Today reports. Among other proposed reforms to the financial sector, Sanders promised to break up big banks whose size poses “a grave threat to the economy” within a year. How exactly he would accomplish that is difficult to sort out, however, since, as [pointed](http://qz.com/586884/bernie-sanders-says-he-can-break-up-the-banks-in-a-year-is-that-even-possible/) out by Tim Fernholz at Quartz, the current authority to break up too-big-to-fail banks requires support of two-thirds of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, a seven-member body with only five members currently, all of whom were appointed by President Obama. \[[USA Today](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/01/05/bernie-sanders-wall-street-clinton/78301532/)\] ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/bernie-sanders-wall-street-fraud/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Politics", "item": "https://money.com/politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Bernie Slams Wall Street Fraud" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/bernie-sanders-wall-street-fraud/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/bernie-sanders-wall-street-fraud/", "name": "Bernie Slams Wall Street Fraud", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-01-05T22:04:47.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/bernie-sanders-wall-street-fraud/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/bernie-sanders-wall-street-fraud/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2016-01-05T22:04:47.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Bernie Slams Wall Street Fraud", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/01/160105_em_berniebanks.jpg?crop=338px%2C535px%2C1538px%2C866px&quality=85", "width": 1012, "height": 569, "caption": "160105_EM_BernieBanks" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Denver Nicks", "url": "https://money.com/author/denver-nicks/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/denver-nicks/#author", "image": "https://img.money.com/2012/09/09_1165862081.jpg?quality=85&w=640&h=640&crop=1", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/DenverNicks", "https://plus.google.com/105122198911201917932" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-01-05T22:04:47.000Z", "description": "The presidential contender told bankers “greed is not good” in Manhattan speech.", "abstract": "The presidential contender told bankers “greed is not good” in Manhattan speech.", "@id": "https://money.com/bernie-sanders-wall-street-fraud/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2016-01-05T22:04:47.000Z", "wordCount": 259, "keywords": [ "2016", "2016 Election", "Bernie Sanders", "campaign", "democrats", "Election", "Election 2016", "Hillary Clinton", "presidential election", "pubdesk", "wall street" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Political economy", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Politics", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics" ] } ] } ] } ```