Experts Expound

“Is the push by the wealthy to tax the wealthy gathering steam? The Band of Billionaires wants to raise $10 billion at the ballot,  a hedge-fund guru wants to raise $1.1 billion and, of course, Warren Buffet says he is woefully under-taxed and has denounced no-tax Republicans. What’s going on here?”

The One Percent strikes back.

There is a leadership void and since the Governor and the labor folks cannot decide on a path then this allows for the band of billionaires to play.  

Buffett is full of beans. He invests in companies that lay off workers to cut labor costs, makes a zillion dollars, and wants sainthood because he’s giving away half. But why did he create all that unemployment in the first place? And, no, Republicans don’t care.

Not steam, but it’s warming up.  Initiative consultants are the only ones that will get wealthier.  Maybe we should tax initiatives.

I get you’re trying to generalize for effect and for sake of humor, I’m not sure “Band of Billionaires” is an accurate description of the Think Long Committee – which in addition to Nicolas, Broad and Schmidt – has 13 other members, including Antonia Hernandez, who runs the largest philanthropic foundation serving low-income families in Southern California, as well as Maria Elena Durazo.  Not to mention a group of public servants.

Nothing effects the accumulation of wealth more than instability in a society. If society crumbles, the rich guys crumble, too. If I had a billion dollars, I’d give a lot of it away as insurance against the attack of the unwashed masses.

We’ll see. Given the Republicans’ maniacal allegiance to the Grover Norquist no-new-taxes pledge, nothing will happen until the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire. The prospect of those tax cuts going away automatically is reason enough in itself to re-elect Obama.

The key thing happening here is that these ideas are floating around in theory.  In the end, when voters are given the opportunity to pass these measures they will vote against them.
If these buffoons want to write a big check to the government that is their business, but don’t tax me.  I suppose next year we will have a campaign of my tax increase is better than your tax increase.

It’s harder to get city permits to build really tall walls around your compound.  They are just hedging.

People are feeling guilty, or trying to assuage public opinion. The plan put forth in California lowers taxes at the upper limits.

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