U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is drawing a sharp line between young Americans’ skepticism of capitalism and their lack of market participation, arguing that attitudes toward socialism are inseparable from whether people actually own stocks.
In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC’s Squawk on the Street anchor Sara Eisen on the sidelines of the Treasury Department’s Trump Accounts Summit in Washington, Bessent was asked about a Gallup poll finding that 39% of Americans have a favorable view of socialism, while just over half view capitalism positively. He immediately connected that sentiment to another statistic: about 38% of American households have no exposure to equities.
