Hedge Fund Adviser Leon Cooperman Tells Obama What He Thinks of Him and His Policies

The letter arrived just as Obama hit the all time worst president poll ratings…

“Omega Advisors Founder Leon Cooperman sent a scathing letter to President Obama yesterday, [via @andrewrsorkin] and its contents are just short of being outright brutal.

In the three page letter, Cooperman outlines his grievances with Obama’s administration, calling his policy decisions “profligate and largely ineffectual” and calling Obama out for using a political rhetoric that promotes the ideas of class warfare.

Cooperman came from very humble roots (his dad was a plumber in the South Bronx) but is now worth around $1.8 billion after rising through the ranks at Goldman Sachs in the 1980s and 1990s and starting Omega Advisors, a hedge fund sponsor.

The letter has clear and eloquent prose, but that only adds a sharper edge to the biting statements made by Cooperman. We picked out the best parts…

Cooperman’s biggest gripe with Obama is his policitizing of class division, which he feels exacerbates the problems facing Amercia.

I can justifiably hold you accountable for is your and your minions’ role in setting the tenor of the rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as “class warfare”. Whether this reflects your principled belief that the eternal divide between the haves and have-nots is at the root of all the evils that afflict our society or just a cynical, populist appeal to his base by a president struggling in the polls is of little importance. What does matter is that the divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them.”

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