Morgan Stanley CEO had some harsh words about the US election process

Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman is not very pleased with the US presidential election process.

At Bloomberg's The Year Ahead conference in New York on Tuesday, Gorman said that it would be more productive to focus on issues that impact people's lives the most, rather than on the most opinionated thing either candidate said.

"I'm looking forward to a time when we can get past the rhetoric and we can talk about real substance and how real things get changed," Gorman said.

He is originally from Australia, and registered as a US citizen in time for the 2004 election.

Gorman suggested that much of the criticism of the US economy heard on the campaign trail is far from reality.

"The fundamental truth that has come out, to my mind, is the country has done much better than the population, meaning the aggregate performance has done better than the individual," Gorman said.

Gorman said he does not believe much of the campaign rhetoric represents views that would be held in "all circumstances."

"So many things have been said that are so absurd that the good part of me just wants to believe that they're not truly held beliefs," Gorman said.

"This is the world's leading democracy, and all of us want to see it continue to be that way."