Yes, Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci, a multimillionaire and top economic adviser to the Donald, just compared stockbrokers to African American slaves. Apparently the Mooch feels like a new rule that protects the savings of working people is so hard on stockbrokers that it’s like that time the Supreme Court said people of African descent could never claim U.S. citizenship! Poor little rich guy.
What he said: the Mooch said a new financial rule (the Department of Labor fiduciary rule) “could be the dumbest decision to come out of the U.S. government in the last 50 to 60 years….It’s about like the Dred Scott decision.” Following up, he defended the comparison, arguing that the DOL “has made a decision to discriminate against a class of people who they deem to be adding no value.”
To review some policy and some history: The DOL fiduciary rule says when powerful stockbrokers put themselves in a position of trust by providing investment advice to working people for their retirement money, they have to act in their client’s best interest. It protects savers from self-interested financial advisers and, according to the White House, could save Americans $17 billion a year.
In the Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court said Scott, as someone of African descent, could not claim American citizenship in the United States, and his emancipation would be unconstitutional because it would “improperly deprive Scott’s owner of his legal property.”
This is just the latest example of Trump wanting to take America back to a terrible time in our past. After all, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Wise words to take to the polls with you.