No plan emerges through Congressional hearings unscathed, and you can bet K Street lobbyists will work overtime to protect the nation’s 607 billionaires.
The Times said:
When Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975, the top marginal tax rate on personal income was 70 percent, tax rates on capital gains and corporate income were significantly higher than at present, and the estate tax was a much more formidable levy. None of that dissuaded Mr. Gates from pouring himself into his business, nor discouraged his investors from pouring in their money.
Yet he is now the latest affluent American to warn that Senator Elizabeth Warren’s plan for much higher taxes on the rich would be bad not just for the wealthy but for the rest of America, too.
Mr. Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, suggested on Wednesday that a big tax increase would result in less economic growth. “I do think if you tax too much you do risk the capital formation, innovation, U.S. as the desirable place to do innovative companies — I do think you risk that,” he said.
Other perturbed plutocrats have made the same point with less finesse. The billionaire investor Leon Cooperman was downright crude when he declared that Ms. Warren was wrecking the American dream. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, complained on CNBC that Ms. Warren “uses some pretty harsh words” about the rich. He added, “Some would say vilifies successful people.”
Gates says the wealthy should pay higher taxes? Has he lobbied the state Legislature in Washington State to impose either income taxes or corporate taxes? That would certainly help the state’s underfunded public schools far more than Gates’ flailing charter schools.
Bernie’s been talking about this for years but now it’s a big idea when Liz the darling of the liberal elites proposes it. Let’s be honest Bernie is the only one running who will fight for just tax reform. Liz is another Obama. Progressive candidate centrist office holder.
Stuart, I will vote for anyone on the Democratic line. At present, I think it’s a very bad idea for supporters of Bernie to attack Warren. That’s called a circular firing squad. You will end up with neither.
I disagree. The whole point of the primaries is to fine the best candidate. Any candidate who can’t stand up to scrutiny in the primary isn’t going to do very well in the general. Warren has a lot of weaknesses and baggage that might as well come out now before Trump gets his hands on her. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/10/why-criticize-warren
When progressives attack progressives, it’s great for non-progressives. Trump won’t criticize Warren for being mainstream. He will call her Pocahontas and accuse her of being a wild-eyed socialist.
Agreed. The very fact that the press is exploding with interviews with Wall Streeters and CEOs who are totally freaked out about Warren’s rise in popularity speaks very, very highly of her candidacy. And Bernie and Liz are pals.
Sorry, Diane, but that didn’t work in 2016 and it’s not going to work in 2020. Because no one was allowed to criticize Her Royal Clintonness, we ended up with the worst possible candidate who couldn’t even defeat the Orange Monster.
It’s ridiculous to pretend that criticizing Democrats gives fuel to Republicans, as if Republicans are somehow incapable of finding that fuel on their own. Best to get everything out in the open so it’s all “been there, done that” when Trump tries to trot out all the garbage. Sunshine is always the best disinfectant.
Oh, you think that Hillary was never criticized? I think we live in different universes. The NY Times was obsessed with her emails. By the way, about 10 days ago the State Department concluded a review of her emails and completely cleared her of any wrongdoing.
“Trump won’t criticize Warren for being mainstream. He will call her Pocahontas and accuse her of being a wild-eyed socialist.”
The Pocahontas thing is her own fault in that she tried to use her alleged (false) Native heritage for her own gain. Refusing to acknowledge that now is not going to prevent Trump from using that against her.
Many European nations are “democratic socialist,” especially the Scandinavian nations, where people get excellent healthcare and education.
But the GOP will equate “socialism” with “totalitarianism” and the loss of all freedom.
I grew up in the 1950s. I thought we were past that infantile version of politics.
But Trump and leading Republicans refer to all Democrats as “socialists” who want to take away the little you have and give it to the undeserving “others.”
You just proved that the mainstream Democrats that you disdain are actually far more upright and honorable than some of the self-described progressives like you who keep insisting that the far right propaganda and hatred spewed against mainstream Democrat is absolutely true.
Mainstream Dems have not spewed the kind of nasty dishonest attacks on Bernie that you spew on Democrats (like your blatant lie that the corrupt Democrats completely manufactured the Russia charges to “get” Trump). You just managed to repeat the right wing propaganda to smear Elizabeth Warren’s character 3 times.
The mainstream Dems want to have a discussion on the ISSUES instead of dong what you are doing and making character attacks — which just coincidentally just happens to exactly match what the far right wants. dienne77 wants a discussion is is about how you can’t trust the Democrat (in this case Warren) who is a lying, dishonest, corrupt fraud.
Bernie’s wife should not have bankrupted the college and she certainly should not have been given a $200,000 “severance” after it. Bernie’s unqualified stepson should not have been paid $100,000/year to run the Sanders Institute. You have not heard those attacks (and many others) in full because the right wing’s attempt to make them an issue were NOT repeated ad nauseam by Democrats.
What I find appalling and disgusting is that dienne77 is advocating for moderate Democrats to start repeating that nasty anti-Bernie propaganda because “The whole point of the primaries is to find the best candidate. Any candidate who can’t stand up to scrutiny in the primary isn’t going to do very well in the general. [Bernie] has a lot of weaknesses and baggage that might as well come out now before Trump gets his hands on him…”
Is that really what you believe must happen, dienne77? Every Democrat in the primary other than Bernie should start repeating those nasty attacks that they have refrained from doing (and refrained in 2016) because dienne77 insists that those nasty attacks need to be given a lot of credibility (“even the Democrats know they are true”) and if we make sure to convince voters that even the Democrats know that propaganda is true, that will help Bernie win the general election again Trump, since Trump is certain to use them against him anyway?
dienne77’s post demonstrate why Democrats lose and why they win. The right wing can make those attacks but those attacks ONLY work when people who claim to be from the same party insist that the facts are true, the candidate really is corrupt, but “it’s important to get that airing out so people know how corrupt Bernie and Sanders really are”.
We all know that if there were endless interviews with “mainstream Democrat voters” who expressed concern about how Bernie and his wife really just “are liars who are running to get rich and you can’t trust him and he’ll sell you out”, Bernie would lose to Trump. That gives credibility to lies. Your ridiculous excuse that Democrats should give those lies credibility by flinging them and insisting they are a huge problem for Bernie and Sanders is simply right wing propaganda.
I don’t know why dienne77 would insist that Democrats start talking about how it’s all Bernie’s fault because he and his wife should not have been such greedy people and I don’t know why dienne77 wants us all to repeat the right wing propaganda that Bernie used money raised for his think tank to give his unqualified stepson $100,000 year — why does dienne77 insist that if we all talk about how worried we are about Bernie’s corrupt actions and make sure to bring them all in the light, it will help Bernie in the long run because “Trump can’t use it against him” if Bernie wins the nomination.
Mainstream Dems are so much more honest are than people like dienne77 who attack Warren with far more venom and repeat of smears while she rabidly defends Trump from anyone pointing out honest facts. And mainstream Dems don’t have the chutzpah dienne77 does to insist that they should attack Bernie as corrupt and dishonest to “help” him win the nomination by airing all of his dirty laundry and making sure the public knows that all the Democrats are very, very concerned about all of Bernie’s dirty laundry and how corrupt it makes him look.
But if that’s really what dienne77 wants, then she should start bashing Bernie, too, since she insists she is only trying to help when she gives credibility to all the right wing attacks against him.
Repeating right wing propaganda attacks against Warren and giving them credibility is the way to defeat Trump because Trump will use them anyway, so giving them credibility now by repeating them ad nauseam and insisting that it is so worrisome and concerning that the candidate would be that corrupt is necessary.
Can you imagine what dienne77 will do if Bernie wins the nomination? She’ll start repeating the right wing propaganda that Bernie’s stepson was paid $100,000 from the money raised by the Sanders Institute while Bernie’s wife walked away with $200,000 for bankrupting a college because she had Bernie’s connections and dienne77 will want to bring that up in every discussion so she can talk about how corrupt and greedy that makes Bernie look and she say she is only bringing up the fraud that Bernie’s wife got away with and his stepson’s $100,000 compensation because she is “just so worried” that those corrupt and greedy actions will be used by Trump to attack Bernie.
Dienne77 will say that she wants to talk about how corrupt and greedy Bernie is in order to “help” the Democrats defeat Trump because she insists that Trump will say it anyway.
We all know that “I just want to air the right wing propaganda and give it lots of credibility before Trump does” is a ridiculous justification for smearing a candidate with the very same attacks the far right uses. It’s done by people who want Trump to win, not those who pretend they are “helping” to defeat him by giving credibility to the lies Trump will be using against whoever wins the nomination.
It is notable that the smears on Democrats come from those who insist that Trump is being victimized by the evil Democrats because he’s done nothing improper or illegal.
If you believe that, then believe those people when they smear Warren or Bernie and insist that they need to repeat the right wing smears on Warren or Bernie and insist those smears are true because Trump is going to do so anyway.
I suppose that because of past Wall Street Democrats I will always be wary of any progressive candidate who does not have the support of Justice Democrats. Sanders is the high bar of reliability, but I would give Warren a skepticism pass. It’s hard to see the likes of any Gates or Broad Foundations, as they have in the past, being on the other side of a revolving door to a Warren administration. They Billionaire Boys do not like her — for a reason; Sanders himself publicly respects the heck out of Warren, though. I’d be very pleased to fully support her if she beats Sanders.
I think it is notable that in her speech endorsing Bernie Sanders, AOC stated that
“We right now have one of the best Democratic presidential primary fields in a generation,”…. “and much of that is thanks to the work that Bernie Sanders has done in his entire life.”
REAL progressives do not smear the other good candidates with right wing lies. AOC is a real progressive. She is honest. And it takes someone patently dishonest to repeat right wing character attacks against the other candidates and claim those candidates are no better than poor, victimized Trump. And imply that those candidates can’t be trusted and neither can AOC for ever supporting the woman they claim has “tried to use her alleged (false) Native heritage for her own gain. ” It’s notable that is a lie similar to the other lie they often repeat — that President Trump was completely exonerated by the Mueller Report.
When someone works so hard to convince us that the “facts” offered by far right wing racists and their favorite Republican politicians are true, and it’s the Dems who are the untrustworthy liars, then their biases are clear.
I am not convinced that the whole “Pocahontas gate” was a deliberate attempt to deceive. Warren is from Oklahoma, and she was merely relying on the family lore of her background. I watch “Finding Your Roots” with Henry Louis Gates on PBS. Many people discover through DNA testing that they are not who they thought they were. People often confirm or refute family identity lore all the time.
Of course you are right — the right wing is on a desperate quest to smear Elizabeth Warren. So far none of the Democrats nor their supporters are helping them do it by expressing faux “concern” about Warren the way dienne77 claims we should all be doing.
Do you believe that the way to defeat Trump is to repeat the right wing propaganda character attacks against to smear the Democrats and progressives before Trump does, so that when he starts up it will have a lot of credibility?
It’s like dienne77 justifying her smearing of the Democrats who are investigating Trump and her insistence that the Mueller Report totally exonerated Trump. I have no doubt those kinds of lies will be turned on Bernie if he is the nominee. People like dienne77 will insist that we need to talk loudly about how corrupt and dishonest Bernie is and repeat the attacks against Bernie non-stop “because Trump will just use it against Bernie if we don’t first admit that it is all true.”
Why don’t you and Dienne exchange email addresses and take your disputes off the blog?
I favor all Democratic candidates, some more than others. I have sent small contributions to several.
But I will support ANY Democratic candidate against Trump.
I respectfully request that readers not engage in attacks on any of the Democratic candidates. Respectfully disagree. Worry about who they will choose as Secretary of Education. Complain if they support privatization or high-stakes testing.
But please, no smear tactics.
Bernie doesn’t smear Elizabeth. Elizabeth doesn’t smear Bernie.
Follow their example.
When you write “I respectfully request that readers not engage in attacks on any of the Democratic candidates. Respectfully disagree.”
that’s exactly what I think, too. I hope it doesn’t appear as if I don’t.
There are candidates whose positions on some issues I like less, but they are still, as AOC points out, very acceptable candidates if they win more primary votes than my chosen candidate (who will likely be Bernie or Warren).
When someone is posting right wing character attacks against one of the Democratic candidates instead of criticisms of their actual platforms and policies, I try to call it out because I think it is dangerous to let those right wing character attacks be given any legitimacy. I could not believe I saw a repeat of the dishonest “Pocahontas” meme posted here to smear Warren in exactly the way that the right wing Republicans do — implying that Warren has been claiming to be of Native American ancestry all her life in order to get jobs that she wasn’t qualified to get. It’s clear she was proud of it and earned every single job she got on her own merits. Why would anyone insist that Warren is “refusing to acknowledge” that she has been using her ancestry for personal gain all her life? that’s such a right wing trope like asking Al Gore to just admit that he was lying when he claimed he was the sole inventor of the internet (which he never claimed) or asking John Kerry to just admit that he was a coward in Viet Nam and apologize to the American people for lying about how cowardly he has been.
I did not say that it is wrong to disagree with Democratic candidates. I dislike Booker’s past support for charters (even vouchers), I dislike his association with DeVos and her AFC. But I think he is an honorable man and I would vote for him if he is the Democratic candidate. I don’t like Senator Michael Bennett because of his role in the DFER plan for Denver; but again, I would vote for him if he were the candidate. I don’t like Pete B.’s reliance on John King and James Shelton as consultants because that sounds like Duncan Redux, and I think he lacks the experience for the Presidency, but I would vote for him and I would never disparage him. Etc.
Please disagree without smearing the candidates you disagree with. Trump will do that.
dienne, Let’s get Warren’s Native American ancestry claim right.
In 1986– after passing the Texas bar– Warren claimed the ancestry on a Texas bar form that gathered ethnicity data for statistical purposes (no indication it was used for professional advancement). Eastern Band of Cherokee Nations stated, when this came to light in early 2019 [after Warren’s DNA test & apology] “Like many other Americans, she has a family story of Cherokee and Delaware ancestry and evidence of Native ancestry”–which is insufficient to call oneself Cherokee, w/o a documented ancestor, hence her apology. There is also however her identifying herself as minority in mid-’90’s faculty directories at Penn– again, after her appointment, which has been stated by Penn as based solely on merit– explained [weakly] by Warren as an attempt to connect w/other minority faculty. That ID was carried over into some later Harvard course descriptions, apparently w/o action or knowledge by Warren [more likely PC-plumping by Harvard course-describers].
My take: a couple of self-indulgent moves by Warren based on pride & family tales. She must have benefited in some infinitesimal way, but did not overtly seek to or in fact gain professionally. Tempest in a teapot.
“[smears] * instead of criticisms of their actual platforms and policies”: hear, hear, NYCPSP. Henceforth I will be looking to both dienne77 and nycpsp to discuss any Dem candidate on their merits, i.e., platform, policies, proposals– not repeating ad nauseum minor peccadillos touted/ elevated to “smear” level by opposition– unless you’ve got a serious axe to grind against that Dem candidate which you’re ready to discuss, w/ facts, v-à-v some other better (in yr view) Dem candidate.
frighteningly close to home: we may show our enthusiasm in this election — much as we did for Barack Obama — only to find that the new leader then appoints a deadly trojan horse to the office of sec. of education
dienne, “Any candidate who can’t stand up to scrutiny in the primary isn’t going to do very well in the general.” Really? You’re forgetting we live in unprecedented times. Incumbent can’t stand up to scrutiny at a thousand yards. There are already bumper stickers to this effect: “Any Functioning Adult 2020,” “The Democrat 2020.”
Gee, and here I thought you got innovation by having small- and medium-sized companies competing with one another. Good thing I have the tiny group of overlords who own US media to ‘splain this stuff to me!!! Otherwise, I might attempt to rise above my station in The New Feudal Order.
The interview with Bill Gates by the Times’s Andrew Sorkin reached heights of sycophancy scaled only by such masters of toadying as Mike Pence, who at the recent cabinet meeting, spent his time praising the Fearless Leader in terms that would make Kim Jong-il blush.
I’m surprised that the New York Times allowed a piece critical of the billionaires to run. And ofc this Times piece, even has it takes on wealth and income disparity, questions the “constitutionality” of Warren’s proposals and claims “that several European nations tried a similar approach and found it unworkable.” Expect a lot more of that in the months to come.
I laugh a bitter laugh every time I hear people like Gates and Dimon talk about the “free market” and “free enterprise.” There is nothing “free” about markets that only the wealthy few can participate in. There is nothing “free” about enterprise dominated by monopolists.
Sorkin: “Every time that we spend time together, I learn so much, and I know that so many of you are going to learn so much from Bill. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that Bill Gates is singularly, I would argue, the most consequential individual of our generation. I mean that.”
No, Bob, this is the way it works. The small and medium size companies come up with the innovative ideas. Then, the big companies come in and buy them and bring the idea(s) “to scale” or bury them to prevent the losses their own products would face.
Yes and no. It really depends on how the govt is viewing monopoly/ implementing anti-trust laws – balancing the threat on one hand to squelching innovation, which leads to economic stagnation, vs encouraging competitive innovation, which can [in an era of ‘too big to fail]– upset apple carts/ Wall St stability.
I was giving Bob the snarky answer. Obviously, any blanket condemnation of large corporations is slanted, just like labeling any group, as if they operate lockstep, is. Just like all people of a Republican bent should not be condemned or, to take an example from the past, all unions were not mafia controlled, we need to be careful how we stereotype each other. However, we have too many examples of corporate malfeasance that make clear that the laws to control the power they have have been weakened to such an extent that real harm is being done.
The oligarchs have enjoyed a customized government that gets out of their way and allows them generous tax rates, tax incentives and research and development subsidies. Billionaires are nervous because they do not want their advantage to end, and they certainly do not want to pay their fair share. The “economy will suffer” is the ace card they have played too many times. This is a stale card trick that impresses nobody.
Currently, people in several South American countries are protesting and revolting. Chile and Ecuador have been joined by Bolivia which just ousted the Morales government. These countries show us the future if we continue a neo-liberal economic policies that destroy the middle class and labor unions. People eventually reach their boiling point. I hope our country can address our inequities by voting for and supporting a progressive candidate that can help us avoid the violent clash of our South American neighbors.
Evo Morales wanted to become a dictator. The Bolivian constitution allows for only three terms and Morales declared that he was a winner for a fourth term. It was the public outcries against him that finally won his resignation.
When I lived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia it was the wealthy who controlled everything. They had huge homes with very high walls surrounding them. The entrance to these homes usually had a guard sitting by the gate holding a big gun. [Often the guards would be sleeping but I imagine that job would be very boring.]
Places like jewelry stores or banks always had an armed guard holding very visibly a big gun.
Public schools had no supplies and teachers with little education. One large brick library was built and no books were allowed to be signed out. They most likely wouldn’t be returned.
Sometimes the water would come out dirty brown. Roads in parts of the cities, when it rained, would have mud so deep that it would come to the top of tires on the taxis. It was a frightening experience to have someone live in that area and have to drive on that type of road.
The wealthy could bribe journalists to print anything.
One wealthy family had a son who killed someone. That child was sent away to college and by the time he returned it all had been covered up.
There was only one restaurant that was open when I wanted to eat lunch or dinner. The name of it was “Hawaii”. The locals had a totally different schedule from what I was used to. They would have an long nap and the stores would close. They they’d open later. People would go out partying until the wee hours of the morning.
Teenage girls would often have face jobs done. There was high competition to look beautiful. Mothers in their 40’s would work to look as attractive as women in their 20’s. It was assumed that a macho man would have a second woman.
Stores mostly had nothing to sell. Rich families would go to Florida and fill up their suitcases with clothes and sell them in the clothing stores.
The president who was running for re-election when I lived there had his enemies drugged and dropped out of airplanes.
One of my friends had a car with a radio that didn’t work. She said that she didn’t want to take the car to a repair shop because it would return with something worse broken.
There was only one US board certified doctor for the country. I had to have a physical in one medical center and had it sent to Malaysia. The bathroom was filthy with dark stuff all over that had been there for a long time.
90% of the wealthy who sent their child to my school made at least part of their money from the sale of cocaine.
Living in a third world country was not for me. It seemed like I was living in a twilight zone and that my two year contract would never end.
Trump is working to make the US a third world country.
Wise words, carolmalaysia, & some of what you writs has aleady slithered its way into US life via conservative/ libertarian pressure on Rep party to relax regs & underfund oversight/ implementation of laws on the books. It’s a constant battle between dark & loght: dark forces here promote rich-poor divide, then enfold the fools among the poor into battles over the crumbs,while whispering that govt– law enforcement– is their enemy.
You folks all knew this about Campbell Brown- that her ed reform “news” outlet attacks Elizabeth Warren and so does her Facebook news outlet, but now the people outside ed reform noticed it too:
“Former NBC News anchor Campbell Brown is a top Facebook executive who was hired in January 2017 to lead the company’s “news partnerships team.” That means Brown is in charge of “Facebook News,” the company’s high-profile new effort to feature “quality news” in a dedicated tab. She is also a co-founder and director of her own media outlet that, in recent weeks, has harshly attacked one of the leading Democratic candidates for president, Elizabeth Warren. ”
I’ll just take a wild guess that “Facebook” news is as vehemently anti-public school and anti-union as Campbell’s other platform.
If ed reform is so great on the merits why did they have to develop this echo chamber that repeats the gospel and banishes all dissenters? It is THE SAME 150 elites over and over and over. They are indistinguishable. Duncan is DeVos is Brown is Bush.
Who are the big losers in this? The vast, vast majority of US students who attend the disfavored and unfashionable public schools. They’re being sacrificed to reach this ideological goal. It’s appalling and brutally unfair and it’s also a rip-off. If you are hiring public employees who are opposed to the schools 90% of kids attend then you are paying people for nothing. Stop doing that.
Warren and Bernie’s tax plan threatens billionaires’ wealth. Their education plans jeopardize prospective profits for the K-12 schemes of the richest 0.1%. And, the platforms thwart the billionaire plot to eliminate taxes that support schools.
Andy Smarick, who Diane has mentioned in posts before, wrote a call for Catholic schools which was posted in the billionaires and AEI’s favorite publication for the “gifting” that screws the middle class and poor, Philanthropy Roundtable. Smarick erases any doubt that the “parallel schools” of Paul Weyrich, intended to destroy public education include Catholic schools, as part of the plutocrat’s government policy maneuver.
The article, Catholic School Renaissance, includes prescriptions for citywide common enrollment systems. Smarick elaborates by identifying the One App system in New Orleans bankrolled by the Walton Family. New Orleans recently closed its last remaining public school, putting an end to a system with democratically elected school boards and to a workforce from the community that was largely unionized.
Smarick praises TNTP, TFA, and Relay. He advocates for faith inspired charter schools and describes the ideal as “a neutral selection of learning environment”. We all know the scheme is the opposite of neutral. Public schools have been trashed, verbally and financially, by the wealthy. And, K-12 privatization has been advanced by the advocacy of top clerics in the Catholic Church, by the rich spending to defeat separation of church and state, by the donor class’ tax avoided contributions, by political and media spending and, by a host of organizations self-appointed (funded by the rich) to dismantle public education.
Yes. I think Bernie Sanders has an excellent chance to win the nomination but if he doesn’t, I will vote for whichever candidate does.
I note that the “never Trumpers” like Bloomberg and Republicans who insist they could never vote for Trump – except if Bernie or Warren is the candidate – are clearly not really bothered by Trump very much. Anyone who would not vote for Bernie or Warren to defeat Trump is clearly someone who isn’t bothered by racism nor attacks on our Constitution and democracy.
And the same goes for anyone who doesn’t vote for any other candidate currently running as a Democrat to defeat Trump if that candidate is the nominee. I include Bloomberg but he doesn’t have any chance of being the Democratic nominee. But Biden, Warren, Bernie, and even Pete Buttigieg are far better candidates than Trump.
Bloomberg, Dimon and Gates call liberal tax ideas unfair. But excessive wealth is the real threat.
…Because any democracy needs a robust and thriving middle class, and we have spent the last 30 or so years transferring trillions of dollars from the middle class to the people at the very top. Just one set of numbers, from the University of California, Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman: The 400 richest Americans — the top .00025 percent of the population — now own more of the country’s riches than the 150 million adults in the bottom 60 percent of wealth distribution. The 400’s share has tripled since the 1980s.
This is carnage, plain and simple. No democratic society can let that keep happening and expect to stay a democracy. It will produce a middle and working classes with no sense of security, and when people have no sense that the system is providing them with basic security, they’ll make some odd and desperate choices….
Funny how all the guys who are defending excessive wealth just happen to have excessive wealth!
Which they were able to accumulate because throughout most of the second half of the twentieth century, excessively wealthy Americans paid much higher tax rates.
They now claim it’s “unfair” if they pay the same tax rates as excessively wealthy Americans in the past.
I haven’t heard Warren Buffett lately. I wonder if he’s joining the excessively wealthy in their wish to make America a greedier country, or if he actually likes Warren or Bernie.
The wealth gap in the U.S. continues to widen, with the top 1% of Americans close to amassing more wealth than the entire middle class, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve, Bloomberg reports. Part of that growing divide is fueled by President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and his relentless drive for lower interest rates.
“In 2018, following the Trump tax reform, and for the first time in the last 100 years, billionaires have paid” a lower tax rate than “steel workers, school teachers and retirees,” the economists write in their new book “Triumph of Injustice.” The “wealthy have seen their taxes rolled back to rate last seen in the 1910s, then government was only a quarter of the size it is today.”
As the “inequality spiral” continues, the economists have argued, the wealthiest have even more resources to further influence and skew the system to benefit them
Our food is becoming more and more contaminated and isn’t as healthy as it was when I was a child. Gates, a billionaire who works to destroy education, also has his money into promoting Monsanto.
………………
Bill Gates Still Shilling for Bayer
November 12, 2019
In a compelling interview with France 24, Vandana Shiva, environmental activist and anti-globalization author, reveals the nefarious influence multinational corporations like Monsanto have on agriculture. Rather than helping farmers to grow their land, the corporation’s chemicals and patented genetically engineered (GE) seeds force farmers to become dependent on them.
According to Shiva, when villages in India are able to save seeds and engage in organic agriculture, the wealth is maintained in the village instead of by corporations, and the local economy jumps tenfold. She also calls out Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ “charitable endeavors,” which she compares to the piracy of Christopher Columbus.
Shiva’s analogy paints Gates as the Christopher Columbus of modern times, with a mission to impose genetically modified organisms (GMOS) on small farmers around the world. “When Bill Gates pours money into Africa for feeding the poor in Africa and preventing famine, he’s pushing the failed Green Revolution, he’s pushing chemicals, pushing GMOs,” Shiva said…
Sen Warren is not going to get the Dem nomination for president. Fahgeddaboutit.
Her ideas, and especially her “wealth tax”, are looney-tunes, and will never clear congress.
Other nation’s experiences with a tax of this nature, have shown that many people who would be subject to the tax, simply relocate their assets off-shore, or else move them into tax shelters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That’s the NYT I know and love!
Thank you, Editorial board.
Bernie’s been talking about this for years but now it’s a big idea when Liz the darling of the liberal elites proposes it. Let’s be honest Bernie is the only one running who will fight for just tax reform. Liz is another Obama. Progressive candidate centrist office holder.
Stuart, I will vote for anyone on the Democratic line. At present, I think it’s a very bad idea for supporters of Bernie to attack Warren. That’s called a circular firing squad. You will end up with neither.
I disagree. The whole point of the primaries is to fine the best candidate. Any candidate who can’t stand up to scrutiny in the primary isn’t going to do very well in the general. Warren has a lot of weaknesses and baggage that might as well come out now before Trump gets his hands on her. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/10/why-criticize-warren
When progressives attack progressives, it’s great for non-progressives. Trump won’t criticize Warren for being mainstream. He will call her Pocahontas and accuse her of being a wild-eyed socialist.
Agreed. The very fact that the press is exploding with interviews with Wall Streeters and CEOs who are totally freaked out about Warren’s rise in popularity speaks very, very highly of her candidacy. And Bernie and Liz are pals.
Sorry, Diane, but that didn’t work in 2016 and it’s not going to work in 2020. Because no one was allowed to criticize Her Royal Clintonness, we ended up with the worst possible candidate who couldn’t even defeat the Orange Monster.
It’s ridiculous to pretend that criticizing Democrats gives fuel to Republicans, as if Republicans are somehow incapable of finding that fuel on their own. Best to get everything out in the open so it’s all “been there, done that” when Trump tries to trot out all the garbage. Sunshine is always the best disinfectant.
Oh, you think that Hillary was never criticized? I think we live in different universes. The NY Times was obsessed with her emails. By the way, about 10 days ago the State Department concluded a review of her emails and completely cleared her of any wrongdoing.
“Trump won’t criticize Warren for being mainstream. He will call her Pocahontas and accuse her of being a wild-eyed socialist.”
The Pocahontas thing is her own fault in that she tried to use her alleged (false) Native heritage for her own gain. Refusing to acknowledge that now is not going to prevent Trump from using that against her.
As far as socialism, let’s get that on the table too. What does “socialism” mean and in what way (if any) is Warren actually a socialist? https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/11/ownership-control
Many European nations are “democratic socialist,” especially the Scandinavian nations, where people get excellent healthcare and education.
But the GOP will equate “socialism” with “totalitarianism” and the loss of all freedom.
I grew up in the 1950s. I thought we were past that infantile version of politics.
But Trump and leading Republicans refer to all Democrats as “socialists” who want to take away the little you have and give it to the undeserving “others.”
dienne77,
You just proved that the mainstream Democrats that you disdain are actually far more upright and honorable than some of the self-described progressives like you who keep insisting that the far right propaganda and hatred spewed against mainstream Democrat is absolutely true.
Mainstream Dems have not spewed the kind of nasty dishonest attacks on Bernie that you spew on Democrats (like your blatant lie that the corrupt Democrats completely manufactured the Russia charges to “get” Trump). You just managed to repeat the right wing propaganda to smear Elizabeth Warren’s character 3 times.
The mainstream Dems want to have a discussion on the ISSUES instead of dong what you are doing and making character attacks — which just coincidentally just happens to exactly match what the far right wants. dienne77 wants a discussion is is about how you can’t trust the Democrat (in this case Warren) who is a lying, dishonest, corrupt fraud.
Bernie’s wife should not have bankrupted the college and she certainly should not have been given a $200,000 “severance” after it. Bernie’s unqualified stepson should not have been paid $100,000/year to run the Sanders Institute. You have not heard those attacks (and many others) in full because the right wing’s attempt to make them an issue were NOT repeated ad nauseam by Democrats.
What I find appalling and disgusting is that dienne77 is advocating for moderate Democrats to start repeating that nasty anti-Bernie propaganda because “The whole point of the primaries is to find the best candidate. Any candidate who can’t stand up to scrutiny in the primary isn’t going to do very well in the general. [Bernie] has a lot of weaknesses and baggage that might as well come out now before Trump gets his hands on him…”
Is that really what you believe must happen, dienne77? Every Democrat in the primary other than Bernie should start repeating those nasty attacks that they have refrained from doing (and refrained in 2016) because dienne77 insists that those nasty attacks need to be given a lot of credibility (“even the Democrats know they are true”) and if we make sure to convince voters that even the Democrats know that propaganda is true, that will help Bernie win the general election again Trump, since Trump is certain to use them against him anyway?
dienne77’s post demonstrate why Democrats lose and why they win. The right wing can make those attacks but those attacks ONLY work when people who claim to be from the same party insist that the facts are true, the candidate really is corrupt, but “it’s important to get that airing out so people know how corrupt Bernie and Sanders really are”.
We all know that if there were endless interviews with “mainstream Democrat voters” who expressed concern about how Bernie and his wife really just “are liars who are running to get rich and you can’t trust him and he’ll sell you out”, Bernie would lose to Trump. That gives credibility to lies. Your ridiculous excuse that Democrats should give those lies credibility by flinging them and insisting they are a huge problem for Bernie and Sanders is simply right wing propaganda.
I don’t know why dienne77 would insist that Democrats start talking about how it’s all Bernie’s fault because he and his wife should not have been such greedy people and I don’t know why dienne77 wants us all to repeat the right wing propaganda that Bernie used money raised for his think tank to give his unqualified stepson $100,000 year — why does dienne77 insist that if we all talk about how worried we are about Bernie’s corrupt actions and make sure to bring them all in the light, it will help Bernie in the long run because “Trump can’t use it against him” if Bernie wins the nomination.
Mainstream Dems are so much more honest are than people like dienne77 who attack Warren with far more venom and repeat of smears while she rabidly defends Trump from anyone pointing out honest facts. And mainstream Dems don’t have the chutzpah dienne77 does to insist that they should attack Bernie as corrupt and dishonest to “help” him win the nomination by airing all of his dirty laundry and making sure the public knows that all the Democrats are very, very concerned about all of Bernie’s dirty laundry and how corrupt it makes him look.
But if that’s really what dienne77 wants, then she should start bashing Bernie, too, since she insists she is only trying to help when she gives credibility to all the right wing attacks against him.
Please do not rekindle the NYCPSP-Dienne battle from the 2016 election!
Take it offline!
To me, this is what dienne77 is claiming:
Repeating right wing propaganda attacks against Warren and giving them credibility is the way to defeat Trump because Trump will use them anyway, so giving them credibility now by repeating them ad nauseam and insisting that it is so worrisome and concerning that the candidate would be that corrupt is necessary.
Can you imagine what dienne77 will do if Bernie wins the nomination? She’ll start repeating the right wing propaganda that Bernie’s stepson was paid $100,000 from the money raised by the Sanders Institute while Bernie’s wife walked away with $200,000 for bankrupting a college because she had Bernie’s connections and dienne77 will want to bring that up in every discussion so she can talk about how corrupt and greedy that makes Bernie look and she say she is only bringing up the fraud that Bernie’s wife got away with and his stepson’s $100,000 compensation because she is “just so worried” that those corrupt and greedy actions will be used by Trump to attack Bernie.
Dienne77 will say that she wants to talk about how corrupt and greedy Bernie is in order to “help” the Democrats defeat Trump because she insists that Trump will say it anyway.
We all know that “I just want to air the right wing propaganda and give it lots of credibility before Trump does” is a ridiculous justification for smearing a candidate with the very same attacks the far right uses. It’s done by people who want Trump to win, not those who pretend they are “helping” to defeat him by giving credibility to the lies Trump will be using against whoever wins the nomination.
It is notable that the smears on Democrats come from those who insist that Trump is being victimized by the evil Democrats because he’s done nothing improper or illegal.
If you believe that, then believe those people when they smear Warren or Bernie and insist that they need to repeat the right wing smears on Warren or Bernie and insist those smears are true because Trump is going to do so anyway.
I suppose that because of past Wall Street Democrats I will always be wary of any progressive candidate who does not have the support of Justice Democrats. Sanders is the high bar of reliability, but I would give Warren a skepticism pass. It’s hard to see the likes of any Gates or Broad Foundations, as they have in the past, being on the other side of a revolving door to a Warren administration. They Billionaire Boys do not like her — for a reason; Sanders himself publicly respects the heck out of Warren, though. I’d be very pleased to fully support her if she beats Sanders.
Sanders and Warren appear to have an “entente cordial,” an agreement not to take the other down with vicious attacks.
I think it is notable that in her speech endorsing Bernie Sanders, AOC stated that
“We right now have one of the best Democratic presidential primary fields in a generation,”…. “and much of that is thanks to the work that Bernie Sanders has done in his entire life.”
REAL progressives do not smear the other good candidates with right wing lies. AOC is a real progressive. She is honest. And it takes someone patently dishonest to repeat right wing character attacks against the other candidates and claim those candidates are no better than poor, victimized Trump. And imply that those candidates can’t be trusted and neither can AOC for ever supporting the woman they claim has “tried to use her alleged (false) Native heritage for her own gain. ” It’s notable that is a lie similar to the other lie they often repeat — that President Trump was completely exonerated by the Mueller Report.
When someone works so hard to convince us that the “facts” offered by far right wing racists and their favorite Republican politicians are true, and it’s the Dems who are the untrustworthy liars, then their biases are clear.
I am not convinced that the whole “Pocahontas gate” was a deliberate attempt to deceive. Warren is from Oklahoma, and she was merely relying on the family lore of her background. I watch “Finding Your Roots” with Henry Louis Gates on PBS. Many people discover through DNA testing that they are not who they thought they were. People often confirm or refute family identity lore all the time.
retired teacher,
Of course you are right — the right wing is on a desperate quest to smear Elizabeth Warren. So far none of the Democrats nor their supporters are helping them do it by expressing faux “concern” about Warren the way dienne77 claims we should all be doing.
Do you believe that the way to defeat Trump is to repeat the right wing propaganda character attacks against to smear the Democrats and progressives before Trump does, so that when he starts up it will have a lot of credibility?
It’s like dienne77 justifying her smearing of the Democrats who are investigating Trump and her insistence that the Mueller Report totally exonerated Trump. I have no doubt those kinds of lies will be turned on Bernie if he is the nominee. People like dienne77 will insist that we need to talk loudly about how corrupt and dishonest Bernie is and repeat the attacks against Bernie non-stop “because Trump will just use it against Bernie if we don’t first admit that it is all true.”
Why don’t you and Dienne exchange email addresses and take your disputes off the blog?
I favor all Democratic candidates, some more than others. I have sent small contributions to several.
But I will support ANY Democratic candidate against Trump.
I respectfully request that readers not engage in attacks on any of the Democratic candidates. Respectfully disagree. Worry about who they will choose as Secretary of Education. Complain if they support privatization or high-stakes testing.
But please, no smear tactics.
Bernie doesn’t smear Elizabeth. Elizabeth doesn’t smear Bernie.
Follow their example.
Diane,
When you write “I respectfully request that readers not engage in attacks on any of the Democratic candidates. Respectfully disagree.”
that’s exactly what I think, too. I hope it doesn’t appear as if I don’t.
There are candidates whose positions on some issues I like less, but they are still, as AOC points out, very acceptable candidates if they win more primary votes than my chosen candidate (who will likely be Bernie or Warren).
When someone is posting right wing character attacks against one of the Democratic candidates instead of criticisms of their actual platforms and policies, I try to call it out because I think it is dangerous to let those right wing character attacks be given any legitimacy. I could not believe I saw a repeat of the dishonest “Pocahontas” meme posted here to smear Warren in exactly the way that the right wing Republicans do — implying that Warren has been claiming to be of Native American ancestry all her life in order to get jobs that she wasn’t qualified to get. It’s clear she was proud of it and earned every single job she got on her own merits. Why would anyone insist that Warren is “refusing to acknowledge” that she has been using her ancestry for personal gain all her life? that’s such a right wing trope like asking Al Gore to just admit that he was lying when he claimed he was the sole inventor of the internet (which he never claimed) or asking John Kerry to just admit that he was a coward in Viet Nam and apologize to the American people for lying about how cowardly he has been.
I did not say that it is wrong to disagree with Democratic candidates. I dislike Booker’s past support for charters (even vouchers), I dislike his association with DeVos and her AFC. But I think he is an honorable man and I would vote for him if he is the Democratic candidate. I don’t like Senator Michael Bennett because of his role in the DFER plan for Denver; but again, I would vote for him if he were the candidate. I don’t like Pete B.’s reliance on John King and James Shelton as consultants because that sounds like Duncan Redux, and I think he lacks the experience for the Presidency, but I would vote for him and I would never disparage him. Etc.
Please disagree without smearing the candidates you disagree with. Trump will do that.
dienne, Let’s get Warren’s Native American ancestry claim right.
In 1986– after passing the Texas bar– Warren claimed the ancestry on a Texas bar form that gathered ethnicity data for statistical purposes (no indication it was used for professional advancement). Eastern Band of Cherokee Nations stated, when this came to light in early 2019 [after Warren’s DNA test & apology] “Like many other Americans, she has a family story of Cherokee and Delaware ancestry and evidence of Native ancestry”–which is insufficient to call oneself Cherokee, w/o a documented ancestor, hence her apology. There is also however her identifying herself as minority in mid-’90’s faculty directories at Penn– again, after her appointment, which has been stated by Penn as based solely on merit– explained [weakly] by Warren as an attempt to connect w/other minority faculty. That ID was carried over into some later Harvard course descriptions, apparently w/o action or knowledge by Warren [more likely PC-plumping by Harvard course-describers].
My take: a couple of self-indulgent moves by Warren based on pride & family tales. She must have benefited in some infinitesimal way, but did not overtly seek to or in fact gain professionally. Tempest in a teapot.
“[smears] * instead of criticisms of their actual platforms and policies”: hear, hear, NYCPSP. Henceforth I will be looking to both dienne77 and nycpsp to discuss any Dem candidate on their merits, i.e., platform, policies, proposals– not repeating ad nauseum minor peccadillos touted/ elevated to “smear” level by opposition– unless you’ve got a serious axe to grind against that Dem candidate which you’re ready to discuss, w/ facts, v-à-v some other better (in yr view) Dem candidate.
frighteningly close to home: we may show our enthusiasm in this election — much as we did for Barack Obama — only to find that the new leader then appoints a deadly trojan horse to the office of sec. of education
dienne, “Any candidate who can’t stand up to scrutiny in the primary isn’t going to do very well in the general.” Really? You’re forgetting we live in unprecedented times. Incumbent can’t stand up to scrutiny at a thousand yards. There are already bumper stickers to this effect: “Any Functioning Adult 2020,” “The Democrat 2020.”
I love those bumper stickers! Where do I get one?
Any Functioning Adult 2020! The Democrat 2020
Gee, and here I thought you got innovation by having small- and medium-sized companies competing with one another. Good thing I have the tiny group of overlords who own US media to ‘splain this stuff to me!!! Otherwise, I might attempt to rise above my station in The New Feudal Order.
The interview with Bill Gates by the Times’s Andrew Sorkin reached heights of sycophancy scaled only by such masters of toadying as Mike Pence, who at the recent cabinet meeting, spent his time praising the Fearless Leader in terms that would make Kim Jong-il blush.
I’m surprised that the New York Times allowed a piece critical of the billionaires to run. And ofc this Times piece, even has it takes on wealth and income disparity, questions the “constitutionality” of Warren’s proposals and claims “that several European nations tried a similar approach and found it unworkable.” Expect a lot more of that in the months to come.
I laugh a bitter laugh every time I hear people like Gates and Dimon talk about the “free market” and “free enterprise.” There is nothing “free” about markets that only the wealthy few can participate in. There is nothing “free” about enterprise dominated by monopolists.
Sorkin: “Every time that we spend time together, I learn so much, and I know that so many of you are going to learn so much from Bill. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that Bill Gates is singularly, I would argue, the most consequential individual of our generation. I mean that.”
gag me
No, Bob, this is the way it works. The small and medium size companies come up with the innovative ideas. Then, the big companies come in and buy them and bring the idea(s) “to scale” or bury them to prevent the losses their own products would face.
Yes and no. It really depends on how the govt is viewing monopoly/ implementing anti-trust laws – balancing the threat on one hand to squelching innovation, which leads to economic stagnation, vs encouraging competitive innovation, which can [in an era of ‘too big to fail]– upset apple carts/ Wall St stability.
I was giving Bob the snarky answer. Obviously, any blanket condemnation of large corporations is slanted, just like labeling any group, as if they operate lockstep, is. Just like all people of a Republican bent should not be condemned or, to take an example from the past, all unions were not mafia controlled, we need to be careful how we stereotype each other. However, we have too many examples of corporate malfeasance that make clear that the laws to control the power they have have been weakened to such an extent that real harm is being done.
The oligarchs have enjoyed a customized government that gets out of their way and allows them generous tax rates, tax incentives and research and development subsidies. Billionaires are nervous because they do not want their advantage to end, and they certainly do not want to pay their fair share. The “economy will suffer” is the ace card they have played too many times. This is a stale card trick that impresses nobody.
Currently, people in several South American countries are protesting and revolting. Chile and Ecuador have been joined by Bolivia which just ousted the Morales government. These countries show us the future if we continue a neo-liberal economic policies that destroy the middle class and labor unions. People eventually reach their boiling point. I hope our country can address our inequities by voting for and supporting a progressive candidate that can help us avoid the violent clash of our South American neighbors.
Evo Morales wanted to become a dictator. The Bolivian constitution allows for only three terms and Morales declared that he was a winner for a fourth term. It was the public outcries against him that finally won his resignation.
When I lived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia it was the wealthy who controlled everything. They had huge homes with very high walls surrounding them. The entrance to these homes usually had a guard sitting by the gate holding a big gun. [Often the guards would be sleeping but I imagine that job would be very boring.]
Places like jewelry stores or banks always had an armed guard holding very visibly a big gun.
Public schools had no supplies and teachers with little education. One large brick library was built and no books were allowed to be signed out. They most likely wouldn’t be returned.
Sometimes the water would come out dirty brown. Roads in parts of the cities, when it rained, would have mud so deep that it would come to the top of tires on the taxis. It was a frightening experience to have someone live in that area and have to drive on that type of road.
The wealthy could bribe journalists to print anything.
One wealthy family had a son who killed someone. That child was sent away to college and by the time he returned it all had been covered up.
There was only one restaurant that was open when I wanted to eat lunch or dinner. The name of it was “Hawaii”. The locals had a totally different schedule from what I was used to. They would have an long nap and the stores would close. They they’d open later. People would go out partying until the wee hours of the morning.
Teenage girls would often have face jobs done. There was high competition to look beautiful. Mothers in their 40’s would work to look as attractive as women in their 20’s. It was assumed that a macho man would have a second woman.
Stores mostly had nothing to sell. Rich families would go to Florida and fill up their suitcases with clothes and sell them in the clothing stores.
The president who was running for re-election when I lived there had his enemies drugged and dropped out of airplanes.
One of my friends had a car with a radio that didn’t work. She said that she didn’t want to take the car to a repair shop because it would return with something worse broken.
There was only one US board certified doctor for the country. I had to have a physical in one medical center and had it sent to Malaysia. The bathroom was filthy with dark stuff all over that had been there for a long time.
90% of the wealthy who sent their child to my school made at least part of their money from the sale of cocaine.
Living in a third world country was not for me. It seemed like I was living in a twilight zone and that my two year contract would never end.
Trump is working to make the US a third world country.
Wise words, carolmalaysia, & some of what you writs has aleady slithered its way into US life via conservative/ libertarian pressure on Rep party to relax regs & underfund oversight/ implementation of laws on the books. It’s a constant battle between dark & loght: dark forces here promote rich-poor divide, then enfold the fools among the poor into battles over the crumbs,while whispering that govt– law enforcement– is their enemy.
You folks all knew this about Campbell Brown- that her ed reform “news” outlet attacks Elizabeth Warren and so does her Facebook news outlet, but now the people outside ed reform noticed it too:
“Former NBC News anchor Campbell Brown is a top Facebook executive who was hired in January 2017 to lead the company’s “news partnerships team.” That means Brown is in charge of “Facebook News,” the company’s high-profile new effort to feature “quality news” in a dedicated tab. She is also a co-founder and director of her own media outlet that, in recent weeks, has harshly attacked one of the leading Democratic candidates for president, Elizabeth Warren. ”
I’ll just take a wild guess that “Facebook” news is as vehemently anti-public school and anti-union as Campbell’s other platform.
If ed reform is so great on the merits why did they have to develop this echo chamber that repeats the gospel and banishes all dissenters? It is THE SAME 150 elites over and over and over. They are indistinguishable. Duncan is DeVos is Brown is Bush.
Who are the big losers in this? The vast, vast majority of US students who attend the disfavored and unfashionable public schools. They’re being sacrificed to reach this ideological goal. It’s appalling and brutally unfair and it’s also a rip-off. If you are hiring public employees who are opposed to the schools 90% of kids attend then you are paying people for nothing. Stop doing that.
https://popular.info/p/facebooks-top-news-executive-has
Zuckerberg would not have offered Brown the job unless she shared his goal of riding the privatization gravy train.
I’ll just take a wild guess that “Facebook” news is as vehemently anti-public school and anti-union as Campbell’s other platform.
Not a wild guess at all. Astute observation, as usual.
Nothing quite so galling as having Campbell Brown curate the Facebook “news.” She is very opinionated and is close close close to Betsy DeVos.
Warren and Bernie’s tax plan threatens billionaires’ wealth. Their education plans jeopardize prospective profits for the K-12 schemes of the richest 0.1%. And, the platforms thwart the billionaire plot to eliminate taxes that support schools.
Andy Smarick, who Diane has mentioned in posts before, wrote a call for Catholic schools which was posted in the billionaires and AEI’s favorite publication for the “gifting” that screws the middle class and poor, Philanthropy Roundtable. Smarick erases any doubt that the “parallel schools” of Paul Weyrich, intended to destroy public education include Catholic schools, as part of the plutocrat’s government policy maneuver.
The article, Catholic School Renaissance, includes prescriptions for citywide common enrollment systems. Smarick elaborates by identifying the One App system in New Orleans bankrolled by the Walton Family. New Orleans recently closed its last remaining public school, putting an end to a system with democratically elected school boards and to a workforce from the community that was largely unionized.
Smarick praises TNTP, TFA, and Relay. He advocates for faith inspired charter schools and describes the ideal as “a neutral selection of learning environment”. We all know the scheme is the opposite of neutral. Public schools have been trashed, verbally and financially, by the wealthy. And, K-12 privatization has been advanced by the advocacy of top clerics in the Catholic Church, by the rich spending to defeat separation of church and state, by the donor class’ tax avoided contributions, by political and media spending and, by a host of organizations self-appointed (funded by the rich) to dismantle public education.
I’m voting for Elizabeth Warren!
I’m voting for the original…. Bernie Sanders in the primary and whichever Democrat is on the Nov. ballot.
Yes. I think Bernie Sanders has an excellent chance to win the nomination but if he doesn’t, I will vote for whichever candidate does.
I note that the “never Trumpers” like Bloomberg and Republicans who insist they could never vote for Trump – except if Bernie or Warren is the candidate – are clearly not really bothered by Trump very much. Anyone who would not vote for Bernie or Warren to defeat Trump is clearly someone who isn’t bothered by racism nor attacks on our Constitution and democracy.
And the same goes for anyone who doesn’t vote for any other candidate currently running as a Democrat to defeat Trump if that candidate is the nominee. I include Bloomberg but he doesn’t have any chance of being the Democratic nominee. But Biden, Warren, Bernie, and even Pete Buttigieg are far better candidates than Trump.
If Republican voters cross over in the primary, Bloomberg has a chance, which is the goal.
Bill Gates, I Implore You to Connect Some Dots
Bloomberg, Dimon and Gates call liberal tax ideas unfair. But excessive wealth is the real threat.
…Because any democracy needs a robust and thriving middle class, and we have spent the last 30 or so years transferring trillions of dollars from the middle class to the people at the very top. Just one set of numbers, from the University of California, Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman: The 400 richest Americans — the top .00025 percent of the population — now own more of the country’s riches than the 150 million adults in the bottom 60 percent of wealth distribution. The 400’s share has tripled since the 1980s.
This is carnage, plain and simple. No democratic society can let that keep happening and expect to stay a democracy. It will produce a middle and working classes with no sense of security, and when people have no sense that the system is providing them with basic security, they’ll make some odd and desperate choices….
Funny how all the guys who are defending excessive wealth just happen to have excessive wealth!
Which they were able to accumulate because throughout most of the second half of the twentieth century, excessively wealthy Americans paid much higher tax rates.
They now claim it’s “unfair” if they pay the same tax rates as excessively wealthy Americans in the past.
I haven’t heard Warren Buffett lately. I wonder if he’s joining the excessively wealthy in their wish to make America a greedier country, or if he actually likes Warren or Bernie.
The wealth gap in the U.S. continues to widen, with the top 1% of Americans close to amassing more wealth than the entire middle class, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve, Bloomberg reports. Part of that growing divide is fueled by President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and his relentless drive for lower interest rates.
“In 2018, following the Trump tax reform, and for the first time in the last 100 years, billionaires have paid” a lower tax rate than “steel workers, school teachers and retirees,” the economists write in their new book “Triumph of Injustice.” The “wealthy have seen their taxes rolled back to rate last seen in the 1910s, then government was only a quarter of the size it is today.”
As the “inequality spiral” continues, the economists have argued, the wealthiest have even more resources to further influence and skew the system to benefit them
Our food is becoming more and more contaminated and isn’t as healthy as it was when I was a child. Gates, a billionaire who works to destroy education, also has his money into promoting Monsanto.
………………
Bill Gates Still Shilling for Bayer
November 12, 2019
In a compelling interview with France 24, Vandana Shiva, environmental activist and anti-globalization author, reveals the nefarious influence multinational corporations like Monsanto have on agriculture. Rather than helping farmers to grow their land, the corporation’s chemicals and patented genetically engineered (GE) seeds force farmers to become dependent on them.
According to Shiva, when villages in India are able to save seeds and engage in organic agriculture, the wealth is maintained in the village instead of by corporations, and the local economy jumps tenfold. She also calls out Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ “charitable endeavors,” which she compares to the piracy of Christopher Columbus.
Shiva’s analogy paints Gates as the Christopher Columbus of modern times, with a mission to impose genetically modified organisms (GMOS) on small farmers around the world. “When Bill Gates pours money into Africa for feeding the poor in Africa and preventing famine, he’s pushing the failed Green Revolution, he’s pushing chemicals, pushing GMOs,” Shiva said…
Check out this story on Mercola.com: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/11/12/bill-gates-supports-gmos.aspx
Sen Warren is not going to get the Dem nomination for president. Fahgeddaboutit.
Her ideas, and especially her “wealth tax”, are looney-tunes, and will never clear congress.
Other nation’s experiences with a tax of this nature, have shown that many people who would be subject to the tax, simply relocate their assets off-shore, or else move them into tax shelters.
This entire discussion is academic.
This was sent to me by a friend in Canada. Florida doesn’t want Trump either.
NYC Bids Adieu To Donald Trump (In Song)
Nov 5, 2019
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Start spreading the news: Trump’s leaving today!