Bernie Sanders’ entire campaign is based on the central themes of honesty, integrity, and trust. Sanders and his surrogates have carefully crafted his image as the only honest politician in the race, as the only person you should trust to elect as President. The argument is that while Hillary Clinton is corrupt, and beholden to big money interests, Sanders is not—he frequently touts that he doesn’t even have a Super PAC.

Perhaps Sanders biggest campaign issue is Wall Street. In the November debate, he went on record saying he believes Wall Street’s business model is illegitimate, that it is actually “fraud.” Sanders has campaigned on massive Wall Street reform, and a break-up of the big banks.


With such an anti-Wall Street platform, one would think that Sanders didn’t own any stock at all. But not only does Sanders own stock, he actually is invested in several industries that he’s heavily criticized.


Sanders has railed against the “Big Banks,” “Big Pharma,” and “Big Oil” but that hasn’t stopped him from investing in and profiting from any of those industries. I went to OpenSecrets.org to take a look at the assets Bernie Sanders reported in 2014. You can take a look at some of the funds he is invested in below:

Credit: Center For Responsive Politics
Credit: Center For Responsive Politics


I looked into the holdings of several of these funds to see what kinds of companies he decided to invest in. It turns out that while Sanders is railing against Wall Street on the campaign trail, he’s actually profiting from his investments in some of the biggest corporations in America.

 

Big Banks

One of Sanders’ most well-known policies is his push to break up the big banks. Sanders has given America’s biggest banks the notorious “too big to fail” label, and he has pushed the idea that their profits are coming at the expense of American workers. I was surprised, then, to find that Sanders himself owned funds with holdings in some of America’s biggest banking institutions, including JP Morgan & Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, US Bancorp, Wells Fargo, and Bank United. Bank United is particularly interesting, seeing as the federal government actually had to seize the bank in 2009 in part because “it was critically undercapitalized and in an unsafe condition to conduct business.

Here are some of the funds Bernie owns, and their corresponding banking holdings:

Credit: Open Secrets.org
Credit: OpenSecrets.org
Credit: OpenSecrets.org
Credit: OpenSecrets.org
Credit: OpenSecrets.org
Credit: OpenSecrets.org

 

Big Pharma

Bernie Sanders has made attacking Big Pharma and their drug price hikes a regular part of his campaign speeches. Last fall, Sanders heavily criticized Turing Pharma and its massive price hike of the drug Daraprim, which is used to treat parasitic infections.


What we didn’t know at the time is that Sanders is invested in and profiting from several pharmaceutical companies that have made major price hikes recently.


Sanders owns Pfizer, which has come under fire for raising prices for more than 100 of its drugs, some by more than 20 percent in 2016.  Sanders is also invested in Novartis, whose cancer drug Gleevec costs $76,000 annually. Some estimate that the annual cost is significantly higher, possibly into the six figures. When pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Novartis can increase the prices of their drugs or shut out low-cost generic competition, their stock price increases. Those price increases make Sanders money.

Credit: OpenSecrets.org
Credit: OpenSecrets.org
Credit: OpenSecrets.org
Credit: OpenSecrets.org

 

Fracking

Sanders has repeatedly knocked the fossil fuel industry, and he’s attacked Hillary Clinton for supposed donations from lobbyists who have oil and gas companies as clients. What Sanders omitted was that his mutual funds are invested in fracking, and he is profiting from it. Let’s take a look at Sanders’ Valic Aggressive Growth Fund.

We can see that the fund holds a variety of other mutual funds, including Valic Company II Mid Cap. You can check out the Mid Cap holdings below:

Credit: OpenSecrets.org
Credit: OpenSecrets.org

Diamondback Energy* (see below) is a top holding in the Valic Company II Mid Cap fund, so I looked them up. They are a fracking company based in Texas:

Credit: OpenSecrets.org
Credit: OpenSecrets.org

On his campaign website, Sanders states that he wants the rest of the country to “stand with Vermont and other states to ban fracking.” So why is Sanders invested in mutual funds that own fracking companies? How can Sanders attack fracking industry contributions when he is actually profiting from the fracking industry?

 

Honesty, Integrity, and Trust

Senator Sanders has built a fairly successful campaign on idea that he is the most honest and trustworthy candidate in the race. He’s won 15 states and has pulled within single digits of Hillary Clinton nationally in several polls. By all metrics, he’s become far more than the protest candidate that he was believed to be last summer. But is Sanders being completely honest with the voters about his investments? From all of the publically disclosed information found on OpenSecrets.org, the answer would appear to be no.


A full release of his tax returns and the assets within could clarify some of his holdings and bring more light to the other stocks, bonds, mutual funds, retirement accounts, or real estate holdings that Sanders owns.


Through mutual funds, Sanders is invested in several of the industries that he’s regularly attacked. Outside of Big Pharma, Big Oil, and the Big Banks, he owns funds that hold Nestlé, which is leaving American workers behind to build factories in Mexico, as well as Amazon, which has become notorious for pushing its workers beyond their physical and mental limits.


To his credit, Sanders does have two socially conscious funds listed: the Valic Social Awareness Fund and the Valic Socially Resp Fund, but these are the exception, not the norm.


It will be interesting to see if Sanders’ assets become a bigger issue in the race, especially given the fact that the media has begun questioning him about releasing his tax returns. A full release of his tax returns and the assets within could clarify some of his holdings and bring more light to the other stocks, bonds, mutual funds, retirement accounts, or real estate holdings that Sanders owns. If Sanders does release his full tax returns, will the types of assets he owns call his integrity into question? That’s something the American public will have to decide for themselves.

 By Marcus Johnson

Photo Credit

Photo License

 


 

*Clarification:

There has been some confusion about the mutual funds disclosed by Sanders. For example, Diamondback Energy is held by VMCVX, the Valic Mid Cap Value Fund. The Valic Mid Cap Value Fund is not to be confused with the Valic Mid Cap Index Fund, VMIDX, as they are different funds. Sanders directly lists ownership of the VMIDX fund, and not the VMCVX fund. However, while Sanders does not list the VMCVX fund directly, he still owns it indirectly. Sanders does list ownership of the Valic Aggressive Growth Fund, or VAGLX. If you look at VAGLX’s holdings, the fund owns the Valic Mid Cap Value Fund. Even though the Valic Mid Cap Value Fund is not listed directly by Sanders, he still owns it by holding the Valic Aggressive Growth Fund. The Valic Mid Cap Value Fund, of course, holds Diamondback Energy. This investment is not as direct as Sanders other holdings in mutual funds. Sanders does have further investments in funds that hold oil/natural gas companies, such as the Valic Company I Stock Index Fund. This fund holds Exxon Mobil as one of its top ten holdings, as you can see below:

Credit: OpenSecrets.org
Credit: OpenSecrets.org

 


 

Marcus is an author, investor, entrepreneur and has degrees in political science from Florida State University and Oberlin. He also has a website, Weekendpolitics.com.  @smoothkobra

Full Disclosure, Marcus Johnson writes:

I am a Hillary Clinton supporter and believe that she is the best choice to lead the United States. I believe that Secretary Clinton could break barriers as the first woman President and create positive change for marginalized communities in the United States, as well as help spur domestic job growth.

 

102 COMMENTS

  1. Gee… is there a gun or defense company in there as well? hmm…
    Corporations are evil. (unless they advertise assault rifles to teens or if I invest in them ~ BS)

    • Bernie left his first wife and children, regrets at his age 75 years old now is making all these promises to us that cannot to be made only he wants to go out from this world in glory. Remember you cannot take the billions with you, oh yes, Bernie loves the attention!

          • But Hillary does not rail against wealth like Bernie. That’s why he won’t release his tax returns because they will show his wealth, his holdings, his properties, etc. He’s one of the 1% he rails against and has investments in some of the other Wall Street and anti-environmental companies he also rails against. Once he’s shown to be such a hypocrite he’ll be dead in the water. That’s why he’s putting off showing his tax returns.

          • no mere millions and she worked for every million. Bernie on the other hand….LAZY. All socialist are effing lazy

          • you people will go down in flames because you feel the BERN you can’t be told you mess with fire you get burnt. HE’S NOT WHO YOU PEOPLE THINK HE IS HE’S A FRAUD, look him up from his beginning and his communist ties and beliefs and see who has scammed you.

      • You are clueles Bernie doesn’t even have a million, much less billions, & at least he does I declare that oligarchy is a nc essay evil from which we cannot be free, as does HRC

        • He SAYS he doesn’t have a million, but won’t release his tax information, even though Clinton has released hers for the last several years. He SAYS he’s against big Pharma, big Oil, big Banks, Wall Street etc, but clearly this article shows that 1. he’s lying, or 2. he’s clueless. Definitely NOT someone you want in the highest office in the land. Sorry, but he’s either a fraud or suffering dementia.

          • His pHD wife says she does his tax returns, but can’t find them. Yeah, uh uhhh! I’ve been self-employed for over 20 years and I can locate any of my past 10 years of tax returns by walking to my file cabinet and looking for the year. Hillary has posted full tax returns for 8 years. All he’s posted is 2014 Summary page.

            You would think with all the lawyers he sends to caucuses to debate the results, one of them might be able to do taxes, too. Are they doctoring their returns? Is that why they are delaying posting the returns. What are they hiding? Bernie, it seems is not so transparent, afterall.

          • He DID say he will release his tax returns as soon as possible. That’s a big difference from stating that he won’t release them. He has nothing to hide and when he realizes his mutual funds (which his wife managed for him) are tied to fracking (and/or other industries he’s against) I’m confident he will drop them like a hot potato asap.

          • Those tax returns are out now…. Quarter mil, the same amount that Hillary made in a single speech. Gtfoutta here.

          • I agree wholeheartedly with you Jane Austin! This character is fruadent lying scumbag Con-Man and Bonified Liar and living in fantasy Land world! He’s not a true Democrat, he’s such a Reckless scandalist politician Con-Man and Bonified Liar and can’t stand rejection, talking corrupted he the all the listing investment that he trying to get rid is belongs to what a phony propaganda hypocritical Smh!

    • “(unless they advertise assault rifles to teens or if I invest in them ~ BS)”

      I really have no idea which piece of legislation you’re referring to in this fictional quote. Here’s the voting records on guns for Clinton and Sanders:
      Clinton https://votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/55463/hillary-clinton/37/guns#
      Sanders https://votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/27110/bernie-sanders/37/guns#.VwMRxceRAtQ

      My best guess as to what you’re referring to in your comment is the Firearms Manufacturers Protection Bill. The synopsis of this bill is: “Vote to pass a bill that provides liability protection for manufacturers, dealers or importers of firearms or ammunition products, as well as their trade associations, for harm caused by criminal or unlawful misuse.”

      This has nothing to do with advertising or teenagers. This has to do with liability protection for the firearm industry. If you shoot me with a Remington rifle, loaded with Winchester ammo, purchased at XYZ Gun Shop, why should any of those organizations be held responsible for your criminal actions? Should alcohol manufacturers be held responsible for drunk driving?

      Sanders also voted Yea on Senate Amendment 711 (Prohibits the Sale of Assault Weapons)

      • Bernie chose to support the gun manufacturers and still does. It is key to his success in Vermont not to be too anti gun because he won’t re-elected. So he panders just like every other politician.

    • He of course must have guns, the NRA gave him the Mayor of Burlington and many of his other campaigns, wouldn’t be surprised if the NRA isn’t in there someplace! AS for defense companies of course he is connected with them, he is the one who got them to move the boondoggle F-35 to Burlington and other military sites as well!!

      • He lost a campaign in VT bcuz he was against assault rifles.

        The only thing the NRA “gave” him was a D- rating

        • Sorry, that is another BS lie. They grade you every year. Some years he got a C. As in satisfactory. They gave his campaign twenty grand one year too.

      • Just donated another $15 to Bernie Sanders in your honor for finding this article as laughable as it is. Her people are truly grasping at straws now. I love the smell of desperation in the afternoon.

    • You go right ahead and give all of your money to Bernie’s Campaign, but IRA account or not…..this article raises an incredibly valid point!! Senator Sanders has a Guns Blazing attitude about Wall Street and all of it’s dealings without ANY thought as to the actual affect the “dismantling” of Wall Street and Big Banks would have on ALL of us with Retirement accounts and simple stock holdings. Hillary is proposing reform and accountability for our Big Banks and Wall Street WORKERS!! Yes….they are actually PEOPLE running “Wall Street”…our fellow Americans that need to be regulated and held accountable, not DEMONIZED!!

      • His guns are blazing about Wall Street donating massive sums to candidates and thus controlling them. He’s not railing against people investing in mutual funds, that’s what retirement accounts are made of. This is not valid. It’s insipid.

  2. Wow, an old man has investments for stock? That’s so evil and dubious! There’s hardly enough information here to make any real case against Mr. sanders. He’s not funding his campaign with a measly 700,000 dollars that he’s likely invested little by little over the years in stock. Everyone in the country plays the stock market, ME-I PLAY THE STOCK MARKET AND I’M A 23 YR OLD COLLEGE STUDENT WITH NO $$. This is a petty attempt at trying to smear a proper and honest candidate from the conservative democratic side because their afraid of a grassroots movement actually succeeding in this country.

    • Nothing wrong with it… except if your whole campaign is based on what’s wrong with Wall Street! Ever hear of hypocrisy?

    • Nothing wrong with it… except if your whole campaign is based on the evils of Wall Street. Ever hear of hypocrisy?

    • What is “telling” about this “list” is that it is almost entirely comprised of Mutual Funds which are part of a Retirement Plan for a Public Servant (anything that says TIAA or Cref most certainly is. Also, anything saying “Fund” most likely is as well.

    • I invest in stock too but I do it consciously.
      It’s easy enough to not invest in big pharma or big oil, one can make money on the stock market and respect one’s own ethics.
      The big returns on investments in drug companies and fracking must outweigh his principles.
      I, personally, would not be able to sleep well at night if my money was invested within some of the companies he owns stock.

      • It’s easy enough…if you have either the time to make all your individual investments yourself or a large enough amount of money to make it worthwhile to get your own financial adviser. The man’s 74, has a total portfolio well under a million (which, for those of you who want to complain that it’s as large as it is, is not at all unreasonable for a couple of professionals who are, you might note, WELL INTO their careers. In fact, by some measures they’ve under-prepared for retirement, so it’s a good thing he’s not planning to retire soon). I’m sure you purists would like to say that he should spend vastly more time managing his retirement nest egg and probably lose money doing so, just so he wouldn’t be a so-called hypocrite for owning a few thousand dollars worth of bank stocks and a few thousand dollars worth of oil stocks. I’m sure every one of you would be willing to give up probably a couple of weeks a year in order to earn less on your retirement income. You missed the “Social Awareness Fund” and the “Socially Responsible Fund” and the money market fund and so forth. Get lives, people. You’d do no better in his circumstances, and you bloody well know it.

    • Come off it, one of his homes is worth over 700,000. Bernie is a millionaire. You all don’t do your research. He and Jane are both thieves. She had to resign from Burlington College with a “Parachute Package”, of $200,000 dollars which Bernie is against. She was under investigation for loan fraud.

  3. About Sanders’ opposition to fracking: There is a 43-mile fracked gas pipeline currently under construction in Vermont. (http://vtdigger.org/tag/vermont-gas/) This is pretty ironic since fracking was declared illegal in Vermont back in 2012. Part of the pipeline was supposed to go under Lake Champlain to the International Paper Mill in Ticonderoga, NY, but that plan canceled due to cost overruns and public pressure. The pipeline is not specifically for Vermont but to get Vermont residents to subsidize a pipeline to go through the state.

    Why hasn’t Bernie gone on record as opposing the pipeline in his own back yard? That’s a very good question. Whenever I raise this point, Sanders supporters insist that a) he’s not governor of Vermont and b) as a US senator he would have no influence. Invariably someone will give me the link to an article that states Bernie has not taken a position on the pipeline, now or at any time. What they conveniently omit is that Bernie opposes a similar pipeline in NH, and wrote a letter of praise in 2013 to Vermont Gas, the utility building the pipeline (http://www.wmur.com/politics/-sanders-praised-utility-building-natural-gas-pipeline-in-vermont/37013918).

    The argument that the only way Bernie could oppose the pipeline is if he were governor or a state legislator is risible. How could Bernie not protest a fracked gas pipeline in his state if he opposes fracking everywhere else? I suspect it’s the same reason Bernie rails against military contractors yet supports the financial boondoggle known as the F-35: It brings jobs and money to the state.

    • All this is really like comparing a molehill to Mt. Everest — the latter being the height of the rap sheet on Hillary.

      • Rap sheet? lol - that’s rich. She’s been investigates, excoriated, pilloried and condemned for 30 yrs. Nine Benghazi hearings. Why has she NEVER been indicted or convicted of anything. NO ONE is that lucky or powerful. It’s because it’s all ginned up conspiracy theories and bullcrap.

        • She has never been indicted because she has major influence, and plays the game of politics. She is being investigated right now. She will most likely be indicted soon. This is obviously a hit piece. Why should a person that has been investigated and is rated with very low trust ratings become president.

          • Bullshit…no one is above the law. No one. But you’re convinced still, because you want to be, not because of any truth. Pathetic really… And clearly the “trust ratings” to which you refer are not proving to be true in the People’s choice. Hillary has received over 2 1/2 million more votes over Bernie Sanders. What does that tell you? I’m pretty sure were trusting her just fine

    • No. People are pointing out the hypocrisy of having a 401k made up of personal investments in all of the things he has built his campaign on rallying against. He has been pummeling Hillary Clinton with negative attack ads for taking donations from people who work for the industries from which he is personally profiting. For someone who throws around an attitude of such superior morality, you would think he would have chosen investments which mirrored his convictions, but that’s politics. I support Bernie, but I am not one of those supporters who drinks so much kool-aid as to be rendered incapable of objectivity. People get so zombiefied during election season. Politicians are human just like us. They do good stuff and bad stuff just like we do. Nobody’s perfect. Not even Bernie Sanders.

      • He rallies against large corporations donating huge sums to campaigns and thus controlling candidates. He is not railing against people investing in mutual funds. This is the most pathetic and desperate article I have read attacking Bernie yet. It’s suitable for the Onion. Next thing you’ll do is accuse him of having a relationship with Verizon because he pays his phone bill.

  4. You went a little too easy on him. The Valic Socially Resp Fund actually owns 25,999 shares of Goldman Sachs (worth several million dollars) along with shares of other big banks & financial companies.

    And his Valic Strat. Bond Fund owns approximately $23 million worth of bonds that helped fund Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup.

    You can see a lot of the current Valic holdings on the SEC’s website at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1062374/000119312516442117/d105160dnq.htm

  5. What a fraud he is!! Everyone should read this article. I plan to share it in every way I can. He has touted himself as the most honest candidate running. If people knew who he really is, they would question their undying belief in him. He doesn’t fool me. He has done little in Congress, except rename two post offices. After 28 years that is not much of an accomplishment. He is not Presidential material!

  6. Come on, seriously? The guy is barely worth $1million dollars. So he has investments big deal. He’s got a modest portfolio… nor does he say you can’t invest in 401K. “Considering that the average senate net worth over time generally tends to hover over and around $10 million, Bernie’s half-a-million average net worth is definitely decent and can actually work in his favor—some would argue that him not being richer than most of the other senators improves his trust among the working class, making him a part of a more average income group.” http://www.earnthenecklace.com/bernie-sanders-net-worth-among-lowest-of-all-presidential-candidates/

  7. This is silly. You can’t invest money in ANYTHING without being involved with Wall Street. It touches all money. The point is that his involvement is not personal, and he has no influence on what goes on there. He can’t influence Wall Street for his own profit the way Hillary Clinton routinely does. Fortunately, no one reads this, so no harm done. I have never seen this outlet in my news feed before today.

  8. This is a really silly hit piece on a man of great integrity. You have to really dig to find out what general funds like this invest in; no one who invests anything in Wall St has completely clean hands; most peoples’ retirement funds are dependent on dirty Wall St companies. These dollar amounts are so small, too! Most are under $15K! Please. Go try your desperate dirt digging on Trump, not on a once in a lifetime candidate like Bernie Sanders.

    • There are many socially conscious mutual funds, they aren’t hard to find.
      I would never invest in big pharma or fracking, if your broker never mentioned socially conscious funds, you should get a new broker. Just look online at all the options, no one has to invest in anything they don’t want to support.
      Many people in the investment class find the big payoffs from investing in those companies are worth giving up their principles.

  9. He has his money in
    his wife’s name because the wife doesn’t have to disclose..He’s a liar and a fraud..

  10. Yeah, I’ve got mutuals with oil and other reprehensible earners. But neither Bernie nor I have been corrupted by owning bits of these corporations. So how, exactly, has Hillary been corrupted by them? Are owners purer than employees?

  11. WOW..just wow…some of you here that posted ” what’s wrong with Bernie having investments..401K..an IRA…omg..OMG..SERIOUSLY…do you not know how hypocritical his statements on Wall street are now??? Big Banks?? BWAHAHAHAHAHA I guess I’m right…you #BernieBitches are ridiculously STUPID!! HAHAHAHAHAAAA!

  12. Can any Bernie supporter please show me any time Clinton has be indicted for anything? Let me save you some time. No, you can’t because she has never been indicted for anything, ever. The GOP has wasted millions of our tax dollars investigating her and come up empty every time.

  13. So, as a former Financial Planner let me tell you what I found in a cursory examination of the listed “investments”. First off, anything that says either TIAA or Cref are most likely part of someone’s (my guess would be Jane (as these Funds are very often found in the Retirement Plans of Educators-but they could be Bernie’s-as a Public Servant).

    In fact, my guess is that anything that says “Fund” is most likely part of the Retirement plan for them. Retirement Plans may be “investments”, but most often they are actually the basis for Retirement Plans over which the participants have little actual control and are mostly offered with only a few actual choices .

    If one wants to actually view “investments” you are more usually looking for individual Stocks , not Mutual Funds (which in the world of “High Finance” are recognized as the vehicles chosen by The Middle Class as a retirement Vehicle.

    • These are mutual funds for retirement, which nobody has personal knowledge or control over.

      Also, just donated $27 to counter Mike Drescher’s incredible gullibility.

  14. Stupid article. Anyone would have to be crazy to think mutual funds for retirement, which nobody has personal knowledge or control over, should defame any of the suckers that are led to believe will be a retirement. Maybe we should do away with 401k plans of deception and truely fund Social Security like Bernie proposed! That would stop all this foolish banter about hypocrisy and dishonest politicians.

  15. Here is the link within the article that shows that Sanders is not even the owner of the above listed assets. They belong to his spouse, and are identified so clearly in the reports. One wonders why the author of this article didn’t even bother to check these facts. New title please. “Bernie Shows no Evidence of Relationship with Wall St.” Check the link yourself. Nothing to see. Just lies.
    http://pfds.opensecrets.org/N00000528_2014.pdf

  16. His account looks just like any typical retirement mutual fund for most government employees. Same as yours or mine. When he breaks up big banks his same funds will be spread between many more competing banks. We consumers lose nothing. But GAIN better faster services, have our fees lowered or dropped, & way more opportunities & perks!!! It’s wonderful! Thanks Bernie! Please break them up & regulate Wall Street first! That way all retirement funds will be safer for everyone!

  17. he is an american senetor living in the U.S.A !!! WHO IS THE GREAT ROCKET SCIENCETIST THAT THINKS HE HAS NOTHING???
    I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOME THING TO SURFACE BUT THIS IS A JOKE ! AND REALY NOTHING COMPARED TO HILLARYS LONG RECORD OF EVIL ACTS ……………… GO HOME LET THIS MAN BE IF THE PEOPLE WANT HIM HE IS THE BEST OPTION TIME TO TRY SOMTHING NEW COMPASSION AND HONNOR RESPECT ARE THINGS THAT AMERICA HAS LOST LETS DO THE RIGHT THING FOR ONCE PRIDE AND EGO ARE FOR THE GAME PLAYERS , OUR LIVES ARE NOT A GAME ! WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS COME ON PEOPLE WE CAN DO THIS !

  18. The author keeps writing “Sanders” when speaking about these investments, not mentioning that the owner of these funds is JANE SANDERS, and that these funds are typically found in the 401K plans of educational employees.

    Here is the author’s source, where it clearly shows that Bernie’s SPOUSE is the owner of these investments: http://pfds.opensecrets.org/N00000528_2014.pdf

  19. Holy crap, this is supposed to be some kind of smoking gun piece that will expose Sanders as an evil hypocrite? What a laughable and lame attempt…as someone in this feed said previously, this is a desperate grasping of straws that truly is a mere molehill compared to the hundreds of other mountainous political scandals associated with each and everyone one of the other candidates….smh. This piece about his wife’s retirement portfolio does nothing whatsoever to dismiss Bernie as a man of integrity-he is still the most honest candidate out there, fighting the good fight for the working/middle class folk.

    • Kim, are you blind? Most honest candidate out there says nothing, especially when you claim the others don’t have integrity or honesty. It’s like saying, well, he only tells little WHITE lies, so he must be honest. Are you kidding? The man is hiding his tax information from the public. I remember not to long ago how Romney was raked over the coals and called all manner of things for doing the same, yet this angry old git gets a free pass. Please Kim, grow up!

  20. Interesting! So the meat of the matter here is that if Sen. Sanders owns stock while at the same time is pushing for regulation of all this companies, then he is hypocritical? IF anything, this indicates that he is TRULY putting his money behind his message. By pushing for regulation of wall street, which focuses in speculation more than anything, he is assuring that we can prevent another meltdown like that of 2008, at which time then Sen. Clinton could have done more to prevent this, since that was her constituency, and still all she did was to tell them to “cut it out”. If you are not only not getting in bed, but pushing for further regulation of companies whose stock you own, you are clearly saying demonstrating that as a leader you can do the right thing, even if can go against your financial self interests. THat is the opposite of conflict of interest, unlike what Sec. Clinton can sy for herself. I think this piece of “journalism” is low, inept and very clumsy. Better luck next time.

  21. To criticize wall street as he has done, and then invest in a “corrupt” system, as this article proves, is hypocrisy at best, and stupidity at worst.
    If he had any credibility, he would control his holdings (as a federal worker, he owns the equivalent of a 401) but it’s called the Thrift Savings Plan. People with integrity who doubt or mistrust wall street don’t invest. See “Krugman, Paul” for instance. He has his money in money market funds. The problem with that? The market does better.
    Bernie is a big ole fraud, BECAUSE he doesn’t have a lot of money, not in spite of it.
    If he really believed what he says, he’d invest his money not in the market, but in government securities. And he has the control to do that.

    • Of course he say’s he doesn’t have a million dollars in the bank. I wouldn’t want the taxable income on that either. Check his wife’s returns. Bet she is worth more than a million.

      • Actually, they filed a joint return. As you’ll no doubt have seen on the news today, they made-together-less than $206k in 2014.

  22. Bernie is a fraud. And this IS a smoking gun. He and his wife, if they felt wall street was corrupt, would invest in government securities, as does Paul Krugman, for instance. You would not make a decision to participate in a fraud. The problem with gov. funds? They don’t pay like the Market. The old bastard is a fraud AND greedy.
    To say what he says, the only way to maintain credibility is to avoid stocks. And he does not. And it’s a conscious decision.
    You Bernie Sanders supporters are like Trumpsters: you’d support him if he shot someone in the middle of 5th Ave.

    • This not a smoking gun. These are mutual funds for retirement, which nobody has personal knowledge or control over.

      The only fraud here is the author, and possibly in a round-about way, you, for being so got-damn stupid that you believe such obvious bullshit.

      Seriously. You may very well be of low intelligence if you take this at face value & don’t realize it is bullshit. At the very least, you’re EXTREMELY gullible or DESPERATE to fit ANY information, even blatant misinformation, to affirm what you want to believe. (It’s called confirmation bias. You’re looking for information to confirm your preset belief that Sanders is a bad guy. When no actual evidence is found, you accept lies because the truth plays second fiddle to your need to confirm your bias.)

  23. Wow! You mean Bernie Sanders actual has a 401K account and some mutual fund investments???!!! You are the next Sherlock Holmes!

  24. Everyone has a choice of what to do with their money. If you want “ethical” investments tailored to your particular tastes - you can do that. The Catholic church does it. I have a 401K and I have a sway over the funds in which I invest. To say or imply that Bernie Sanders is at the mercy of a particular retirement account is ridiculous. The truth is - he probably never really thought about it. I believe he is man of conviction - but I also believe his level of awareness of the financial system is not what I once believed it to be. He is not E. Warren. And I don’t think he prepared to run a successful campaign. Any competent campaign manager would have sat him down and talked to him about his holdings.Remember when it was revealed Nader had positions in all those petroleum funds?

  25. This is exactly the point dear Klingons. If you have some accumulation, you need to invest to somewhere however, you have not much choice because 0.1% holds whatever that can be invested. #Bernie is a hero by fighting against what he owns that is less than a $million. On the other hand, you have a candidate who is totally corrupt playing with many many millions of dollars. Don’t you see all these? What is wrong with you? #Bernieorbust

  26. Yes it is not much money in comparison to the other candidates. But he absolutely could move it to socially responsible funds or govt securities - he chose to go for where he could get a high return and forget about any moral commitment he may otherwise have or loudly put out there. The reality is when you purchase stock in a company you own a bit of it. By buying stock in a company you are in fact supporting that company to do what it does. Just as many of the people posting here are giving money to the candidates in mostly small amounts, you are putting your money where your mouth is. You all in my opinion have a higher moral compass than Bernie.

  27. Wait, so your argument is that because Bernue owns mutual fund shares that hold stocks across a diverse portfolio including (banks, oil companies etc) as all mutual funds do that we should somehow believe that Bernie doesn’t have integrity? You must be having a good time fooling the dull minded but most Bernie supporters don’t sway so easily. Every person in their right mind who wants to live out their elderly years with integrity is taught by financial advisors to buy into mutual funds with diverse portfolios. Give me a break

  28. This criticism makes no sense. Those are investments he made, just like most Americans do, in mutual funds. WHERE DO YOU THINK YOUR RETIREMENT ACCOUNT IS INVESTED BY YOUR EMPLOYER? It’s not money corporations gave to his campaign. It’s not giant payments they gave him in exchange for a 1-hour speech. Next thing you know you’ll call him a hypocrite for having an AT&T or Verizon telephone bill. “He gave money to Verizon!” I can hear it now. This is pathetic and ridiculous.

  29. As James VanCise pointed out, these are retirement accounts. I repost his post below. People arguing against Bernie based on this might as well argue against him for paying his electric bill or for paying his phone bill. “He has a close relationship with Verizon!” It is the single stupidest attack against Bernie I have ever seen, heard, read, smelled, you name it. Dumb! According this author he has to live off the grid in the woods in a tent to avoid being a hypocrite, but he better not buy that tent at LL Bean!

    James VanCise wrote:
    So, as a former Financial Planner let me tell you what I found in a cursory examination of the listed “investments”. First off, anything that says either TIAA or Cref are most likely part of someone’s (my guess would be Jane (as these Funds are very often found in the Retirement Plans of Educators-but they could be Bernie’s-as a Public Servant).

    In fact, my guess is that anything that says “Fund” is most likely part of the Retirement plan for them. Retirement Plans may be “investments”, but most often they are actually the basis for Retirement Plans over which the participants have little actual control and are mostly offered with only a few actual choices .

    If one wants to actually view “investments” you are more usually looking for individual Stocks , not Mutual Funds (which in the world of “High Finance” are recognized as the vehicles chosen by The Middle Class as a retirement Vehicle.

  30. Under ‘owner’ it says ‘spouse’. Clearly this is his wife’s pension fund. What a ridiculous non-story.

    I hope Hillary’s check clears.

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