Alstein
6554
In a desperation move, Bloomberg is entering the race. The rich are determined to make sure they continue to get their way. This is pushing me more and harder towards Warren or Bernie (those two need to soak up every voter they can), and I wouldn’t be shocked if the Bloombergs of the world end up supporting Trump if Bernie or Warren wins.
At least Bloomberg won’t even make the debates. Steyer at least had the impeach Trump cred going for him, Bloomberg doesn’t have anything going for him other than money.
Yes we need billionaries, because only they can do … checks notes … moonshots. You do know that it was the US government that went to the moon, right?
Alstein
6557
I’d be fine with sending all 600 US billionaires on a one-way trip to the moon at this rate. I mean, we’d get new billionaires pretty quick, but they’d be humbler and more grateful.
Menzo
6559
Elizabeth Warren has a Michael Bloomberg button on her wealth tax calculator.
Oh the government can and has done great things, no question. The government funds much basic research. But they virtually only do things that are high visibility and, more importantly, impact the country. You also ignore the many barriers the government has erected to commercialization of technologies, especially anything to do with the defense. I was around in the late 70s and 80s for the beginning of the internet and I can tell you there was no organization that was more of a barrier for bringing the internet to the people than the US government and the various government funded research labs and university. DARPA was bound and determined to keep the internet (DARPAnet) free of commercial use. I have first-hand knowledge of this. There is nothing in today’s internet or computer world that wasn’t invented by commercial companies. The government has gotten better about commercializing technologies (e.g. GPS) but even there, they still put up lots of barriers.
As far as toilets, the proof is in history. The recent Neflix documentary on Bill Gate highlights the issue. The US and UN through programs like WHO and UNICEF have been going on since 1950. The US and UN are happy to conduct science projects, find a cure for cancer, AIDs, and help eradicate smallpox and polio. It is entirely understandable,why we would prioritize diseases that affect the US and Europe like AIDs or scary disease like Ebola, rather than guinea worm, We are also happy dumping our excess food into 3rd world countries, since it is a lot easier to do that (and good for American farmers) than helping the countries develop more efficient farming. Even though everyone has know that sanitation is a major source of death and illness in developing countries for a generation. The work has been at either a micro level, sending in the peace crop volunteer to dig well and hand out water purification tablets or a big ticket item level. We build a fancy water treatment plant, hold a grand opening, slap gift of the American, Chinese, or British people sticker and pat ourself on our back, We just ignore that none of the poor people in the country have plumbing, and the country doesn’t have the technical expertise to run the water treatment facilities or the money. So who cares that two years later the plant has been shut down. There is no market in the western world for toilet that doesn’t need a hook up to a sewer system, so no research was done before the Gates foundation got involved.
Yup that was, check’s calendar, 50 years ago. the interstate highway system was 65 years ago, and Hoover damn was more than 80 years ago. The last moon shoot (other than defense) was Healthcare.gov and that was something that a dozen private companies could have done in 1/2 the time for fraction of the cost.
The interstate wasn’t completed until 1992.
Nesrie
6563
Oracle managed to screw up Oregon’s healthcare site. That was a private company. I mean come on Strollen. I even share some of your views here. The government can contract out the work so it’s still private companies in some cases.
There are times and places for government and private led projects and goals, but the key here is being ultra rich does not automatically make people evil or wrong. What we lost was those top tier and large brackets. We can just bring those back without all this other fuss about wealth taxes and whether or not some people think it’s a good idea to chase away companies and their creators who make a lot of money.
Actually, fantastic amounts of wealth might just make you evil. Or at least immoral.
Let me find the studies. I believe I have sited them before.
Nesrie
6565
There’s no hard fast rule that says wealth makes someone evil or immoral, so maybe we can stop treating everyone at the top as if they are enemies. This is not how you make positive change. We can, however, raise their taxes and we can do it at rates that aren’t even unheard of because… we had them before.
Again, there actually are. It’s not all that surprising.
There are some good studies on the subject.
It’s not surprising that Greed is one of the 7 deadly sins or that the rich make the best villians. Artists usually lead the way that science follows.
Nesrie
6567
Neither the words evil nor immoral shows up on that page.
Look, if we actually thought all we had to do is sit back and wait for the ultra rich to give back, we wouldn’t actually need to be talking about raising their taxes. But we aren’t we? We’re talking about adding more and typically larger percentages back into the tax code. So yes, tax them more and let the public do good with it, but deciding to do that does not mean the ultra rich are the enemies nor are they necessarily evil or immoral.
Healthcare.gov was actually developed by (wait for it)…private companies. Whether those private companies could have done it in half the time of…private companies, and whether those private companies could have done it for a fraction of the cost of…private companies is left as an exercise for the reader to determine.
Just a response to @Strollen early comments.
I think that’s a general symptom of government contractor management, the Federal government damn near always gets the worse pricing from a contractor. Hell NASA actually encouraged Lockheed and Boeing to partner and there by set themselves as sole contractor . NASA was content when the combined company, United Launch Alliance, screw them every year and raised prices (instead of lower them which used expect to see for a new technology.) Even today after, SpaceX delivers better service for a 1/3 the cost, NASA still has contracted with ULA for roughly 1/2 their launchs. While companies launching commercial satellites have almost entirely abandon ULA.
I agree with you their is plenty of room to raise income taxes on the top (I’d say some room to raise estate taxes also). But virtually none of the tech billionaire oppose raising income tax rates, and some folks like Buffett, Blloomberg actually advocate for it.
I bet if you ask Zuckerberg, which he would prefer Facebook stock tripling over the next 10 years, but seeing your ownership in Facebook cut from 30% to 15%. Meaning he’d worth $105 billion Or seeing the market crash and Facebook stock drop by 50% and retaining his full 30% and seeing his net worth drop from $70 billion to $35 billion He take the higher ownership stake.
We could easily see weird situation where founders tried to get their stock price to fall not raise in order to retain control of their companies.
Menzo
6573
Billionaires would not sell their shares to pay for a wealth tax. They’d get sweetheart loans to cover them. And banks would line up to give them the best rates.
