Michael Bloomberg

Michael Rubens Bloomberg,born February 14, 1942 is a American businessman, philanthropist and politician.

Since 2002, he has been the Mayor of New York City and, with a net worth of $18.1 billion in 2011, he is also the 13th-richest person in the United States. He is the founder and eighty-eight percent owner of Bloomberg L.P., a financial news and information services media company.

A lifelong Democrat before seeking elective office, Bloomberg switched his registration in 2001 and ran for mayor as a Republican, winning the election that year and a second term in 2005. He left the Republican Party over policy and philosophical disagreements with national party leadership in 2007 and ran for his third term in 2009 as an independent candidate. He was frequently mentioned as a possible independent candidate for the 2008 presidential election, which fueled further speculation when he left the Republican Party. There was also speculation that he would run as a vice-presidential candidate. Bloomberg did not, however, seek the presidency nor was he selected as a running mate by any of the presidential candidates.

In the fall of 2008, Bloomberg successfully campaigned for an amendment to New York City's term limits law, in order to allow him to run for a third term in 2009. Bloomberg won the election on November 3, 2009.

Early life

He was born at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston on February 14, 1942. His father, William Henry Bloomberg (1906–1963), was a real estate agent, and the son of Alexander "Elick" Bloomberg, a Russian Jewish immigrant. His mother, Charlotte Rubens Bloomberg, was born on January 2, 1909 in New Jersey, the daughter of a Russian immigrant and a New Jersey–born mother. She died, aged 102, on June 19, 2011. The family lived in Allston, until Michael Bloomberg was two years old; they then moved Brookline for the next two years, finally settling in Medford, a Boston suburb, where Bloomberg lived until after he graduated from college. His younger sister, Marjorie Tiven, has been Commissioner of the New York City Commission for the United Nations, Consular Corps and Protocol, since February 2002.

Bloomberg attended Johns Hopkins University, where he joined Phi Kappa Psi, and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in electrical engineering. Later he received his MBA degree from Harvard Business School. In 2007, he received an honorary doctorate of public service from Tufts University, and in 2009 received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Fordham University. In 2011, Bloomberg also received an Honorary Doctorate of Public Service from George Washington University.

Bloomberg married Yorkshire-born Susan Brown in 1975. Their marriage produced two daughters: Emma (b. ca. 1979) and Georgina (b. 1983), who were featured on Born Rich, a documentary film about the children of the extremely wealthy. Bloomberg divorced Brown and is currently romantically linked with former New York state banking superintendent Diana Taylor.

Business career

In 1973, Bloomberg became a general partner at Salomon Brothers where he headed equity trading, and later, systems development. In 1981, he was fired from Salomon Brothers and was given a $10 million severance package. Using this money, Bloomberg went on to set up a company named Innovative Market Systems. In 1982, Merrill Lynch became the new company's first customer, installing 22 of the company's Market Master terminals and investing $30 million in the company. The company was renamed Bloomberg L.P. in 1986. By 1987, it had installed 5,000 terminals. Within a few years, ancillary products including Bloomberg Tradebook (a trading platform), the Bloomberg Messaging Service, and the Bloomberg newswire were launched. As of 2009, the company had more than 250,000 terminals worldwide. His company also has a radio network which currently has its flagship station as 1130 WBBR-AM in New York City. He left the position of CEO to pursue a political career as the mayor of New York. He was replaced as CEO by Lex Fenwick. The company is now led by president Daniel Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor under Bloomberg.

As mayor of New York, Bloomberg declines to receive a city salary, accepting remuneration of $1.00 annually for his services. He maintains a public listing in the New York City phone directory, residing not in Gracie Mansion – the official mayor's mansion – but instead at his own home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, at 17 East 79th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues. He owns additional homes in London, Bermuda and Vail.

Bloomberg is, by his own accounts at least, a frequent rider of the New York City Subway, particularly in the commute from his 79th Street home to his office at City Hall. An August 2007 story in The New York Times contradicted this notion, suggesting instead that he often was chauffeured by two New York Police Department-owned SUVs to an express train station to avoid having to change from the local to the express trains on the Lexington Avenue line.

He wrote an autobiography, with help from a ghost writer, called Bloomberg by Bloomberg (1997, ISBN 0-471-15545-4).

Awards and honors

At the 2007 Commencement exercises for Tufts University, Bloomberg delivered the commencement address. He was awarded an honorary degree in Public Service from the university. Likewise, Bloomberg delivered the 2007 commencement address at Bard College, where he was also awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. In February 2003, he received the "Award for Distinguished Leadership in Global Capital Markets" from the Yale School of Management. He was named the 39th most influential person in the world in the 2007 Time 100. In September 2007, Vanity Fair ranked him #9 in its "Vanity Fair 100: The 2007 New Establishment. In May 2008, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws by the University of Pennsylvania, where he delivered the commencement speech to the class of 2008. Bloomberg also delivered the commencement address to the class of 2008 at Barnard College after receiving the Barnard Medal of Distinction, the College's highest honor. It was announced on January 14, 2011, that Bloomberg had been selected as the speaker for Princeton University's 2011 Baccalaureate ceremony.

He was also awarded a tribute award at the 2007 Gotham Awards, a New York based celebrator of Independent Film. On November 19, 2008, Mr. Bloomberg received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York." Additionally, he was awarded an honorary doctorate at Fordham University's 2009 commencement ceremonies.

In 2009, he received a Healthy Communities Leadership Award from Leadership for Healthy Communities – a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation national program – for his policies and programs that increase access to healthy foods and physical activity options in the city. For instance, to increase access to grocery stores in underserved areas, the Bloomberg administration developed a program called FRESH that offers zoning and financial incentives to developers, grocery store operators and land owners. His administration also created a Healthy Bodega initiative, which provides healthy food samples and promotional support to grocers in lower-income areas to encourage them to carry 1% milk and fruits and vegetables. Under Bloomberg’s leadership, the city also: passed a Green Carts bill, which supports mobile produce vendors in lower-income areas; expanded farmers’ markets using the city’s Health Bucks program which provides coupons to eligible individuals to buy produce at farmers’ markets in lower-income areas; and committed $111 million in capital funding for playground improvements. New York also was one of the first cities in the nation to help patrons make more informed decisions about their food choices by requiring fast-food and chain restaurants to label their menus with calorie information.

Harassment controversies

Bloomberg has previously been accused of sexually harassing women under his employment, which he has denied. In 1997, a former Bloomberg L.P. employee who became pregnant while employed filed a lawsuit accusing Bloomberg of saying "Kill it!" and "great, No. 16", which may have been a reference to the number of pregnant women in the company. In December 2008, Portfolio magazine published a story: "Mayor Bloomberg's Delicate Condition", which reported that in September 2007, the EEOC filed a class-action lawsuit against Bloomberg's company on behalf of three women who worked on the business side, plus a group of women who worked at Bloomberg's company between 2002 and the present. The article said the plaintiffs "now total 72, out of about 500 women who took maternity leave during that time, a high percentage, according to the agency".

Mayoralty

Bloomberg assumed office as the 108th Mayor of New York City on January 1, 2002. He won re-election in 2005. As mayor, Bloomberg initially struggled to gain high approval levels from the public; however, he subsequently developed and maintained high approval ratings.

Bloomberg's re-election means the Republicans have won the previous four mayoral elections (although Bloomberg's decision to leave the Republican Party and be declared an independent on June 19, 2007, resulted in the Republican Party's losing the mayor's seat prior to the expiration of his second term). Bloomberg joins Rudy Giuliani and Fiorello La Guardia as re-elected Republican mayors in this mostly Democratic city. (John Lindsay was also elected mayor of New York twice while a registered Republican; however, Lindsay did not receive the Republican Party nomination during his 1969 campaign for re-election but ran successfully on the Liberal ticket and joined the Democratic Party during his second term.)

Bloomberg has said he wants reforming public education to be the legacy of his first term and addressing poverty to be the legacy of his second.

Political stands

Some of the policies Bloomberg advocates parallel those of either the Democratic or the Republican party platform. He is socially liberal, supporting abortion rights, gay marriage, gun control, and amnesty for illegal immigrants, for example. On economics, foreign, and domestic issues, he tends to be conservative. He opposes a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq, and criticizes those who favor one. Economically, he supports government involvement in issues such as public welfare and climate change, while being strongly in favor of free trade, pro-business, and describing himself as a fiscal conservative because he balanced the city's budget.

Economic issues

Michael Bloomberg characterizes himself as a fiscal conservative for turning the city's $6-billion deficit into a $3-billion surplus; however, conservative PAC Club for Growth has criticized him because he increased property taxes and spending while doing so.

Being a fiscal conservative is not about slashing programs that help the poor, or improve health care, or ensure a social safety net. It's about insisting services are provided efficiently, get to only the people that need them, and achieve the desired results. Fiscal conservatives have hearts too — but we also insist on using our brains, and that means demanding results and holding government accountable for producing them.

To me, fiscal conservatism means balancing budgets — not running deficits that the next generation can't afford. It means improving the efficiency of delivering services by finding innovative ways to do more with less. It means cutting taxes when possible and prudent to do so, raising them overall only when necessary to balance the budget, and only in combination with spending cuts. It means when you run a surplus, you save it; you don't squander it. And most importantly, being a fiscal conservative means preparing for the inevitable economic downturns — and by all indications, we've got one coming.

—Michael Bloomberg, speech to UK Conservative Party, September 30, 2007

Bloomberg has expressed a distaste of taxes, stating, "Taxes are not good things, but if you want services, somebody's got to pay for them, so they're a necessary evil.

Foreign policy

As mayor, Bloomberg made trips to Mexico, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Israel in the first four months of 2007. In late 2007 he conducted an Asia trip that brought him to China, where he called for greater freedom of information to promote innovation. He attended the United Nations Climate Conference in Bali.

Initially, Bloomberg strongly supported the war in Iraq and the rationale for going in. He stated, "Don't forget that the war started not very many blocks from here" alluding to Ground Zero. In regard to the global War on Terrorism including Iraq he said, "It's not only to protect Americans. It's America's responsibility to protect people around the world who want to be free." During the 2004 presidential election campaign, New York City hosted the Republican National Convention at which Bloomberg endorsed President George W. Bush for President of the United States.

His enthusiasm seemed to have lessened somewhat over the course of the war. In August 2005 he said, "I think everybody has very mixed emotions about the war that was started to find weapons of mass destruction and then they were not found."[99] Bloomberg expressed criticism of Democrats in Congress who wanted to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq calling them, "irresponsible".

Preservation and development issues

Mayor Bloomberg is a proponent of large-scale development. He has repeatedly come down in favor of projects such as the Atlantic Yards mega-development, the Hudson Yards redevelopment, and the Harlem rezoning proposal. This support has led to a negative response from the preservationist community.[citation needed] On smaller-scale issues, Bloomberg usually takes the side of development as well. He favors the demolition of Admiral's Row in order to build a supermarket parking lot. However, Bloomberg has occasionally come down on the side of preservation, most notably in vetoing landmark revocation for the Austin Nichols warehouse. This move was widely applauded by architectural historians. The City Council overruled the veto shortly thereafter, however.

2012 presidential campaign speculation

In March 2010, Bloomberg's top political strategist Kevin Sheekey resigned from his mayoral advisory position and returned to Bloomberg LP, Bloomberg's company. It is speculated that the move will allow Sheekey to begin preliminary efforts for a Bloomberg presidential campaign in the 2012 election. An individual close to Bloomberg said, "the idea of continuing onward is not far from Bloomberg's mind".

In October 2010, The Committee to Draft Michael Bloomberg – which had attempted to recruit Bloomberg to run for the presidency in 2008 – announced it was relaunching its effort to persuade Bloomberg to wage a presidential campaign in 2012. The committee members insisted that they would persist in the effort in spite of Bloomberg's repeated denials of interest in seeking the presidency.

While on the December 12, 2010 episode of Meet the Press, Bloomberg ruled out a run for the Presidency in 2012, stating: "I'm not going to run for president," further adding "I'm not looking at the possibility of running, (...) no way, no how.