Rep. Ro Khanna justifiably slams the new billionaire space travel. Let's end our gullibility!

[egbertowillies]

Rep. Ro Khanna was on point about these billionaire astronauts being parasites to us all. And it is much deeper and exploitative.

https://egbertowillies.com/2021/07/20/rep-ro-khanna-justifiably-slams-the-new-billionaire-space-travel-lets-end-our-gullibility/

[NurseJackie]

1. Why is this guy so cynical and angry? This is NOT "something we did 60 years ago"...

Why is this guy so cynical and angry? This is NOT "something we did 60 years ago"... absolutely ridiculous. These are CIVILIANS going into space on private (non-NASA, non-Soviet, non-Chinese, etc) rockets.

It's not fraud. What nonsense! Totally ridiculous! The computer and mechanical technology advances and breakthroughs from space exploration have benefited us all, and have done so for many years. What's wrong with that? That's how it's always been... some are simply more successful at it than others. What's wrong with that?

This has nothing to do with space flight or civilian space travel or non-government entities working on the same... it's just irrational hatred for Amazon. Spare me. It's just another opportunity to shit on anything associated with Bezos.

PS: The "thumbnail" image for this youtube video makes it appear as though it's original content from MSNBC. That's deceptive. Why not include the overlay logo that is starting to appear (inconsistently) in other videos like this?

[Budi]

6. Ro is worth a cool 25+ million. Of Libertarian political philosophy,

..Of Libertarian political philosophy like that of Rand Paul & Jill Stein, he appears as a regular in FOX & is noted as being a regular recipient of campaign donations from Mr Peter Thiel, Trump's funder & supporter.

The tidy close nest of Silicon Valley Techies, the millionares & billionares , need to be pulled apart & the political money trail needs to be followed.

Silicon Valley is where the venom for Bezos comes from.
He's not one of 'them'.


Ask Ro Khanna why he accepted campaign donations from Corrupt Peter Thiel?
The same Peter Thiel who tied himself to Cambridge Analytica...
Ro is running as a Democrat. But as you can see from the list of names, moneyed support for Ro is a multi/post-partisan affair.

It's a big tent party that includes hardcore libertarians, Tea Party backers, Mitt Romney supporters, wealthy techno-Democrats, entertainment industry..

Even anti-government venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, a Senator Ted Cruz supporter who praised the recent government shutdown because it finally prevented D.C. pols from messing with the economy, is excited about electing Ro as Silicon Valley's next Congressman.[/b"
https://pando.com/2014/02/28/ro-khanna-silicon-valleys-owned-man/

Ask Ro anything....especially that connect to Silicon Valley's own Peter Thiel.
K? Thanks!

Another question for Ro Khanna
" Cool story bro. But don’t you have $7.5m invested in fossil fuel stocks?:

Link to tweet

Here's another question for Ro:
"You’re worth at least $25m. Did you claim the Child Tax Credit?"

Link to tweet

[George II]

10. He's now close to $30M, and he owns lots of tech and fossil fuel stocks according to his last....

....full personal financial disclosure.

https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-pdfs/2018/9115242.pdf

He also claims outstanding student debt.

[Budi]

13. Outstanding student debt! Him too? $30 mill & he hasn't paid back his loans??

So he made $5 mill since last reported.

No wonder he's a FOX regular 👎

[I_UndergroundPanther]

2. Fuck you bezos,fuck you

Authoritarian asshole.

When are we going to tax the parasitic rich?

There needs to be a wealth cap.

[NurseJackie]

3. Ridiculous. Absolutely preposterous.

There needs to be a wealth cap.

Ridiculous. Absolutely preposterous.

You're seriously suggesting that the United States government should set some arbitrary amount that would be the maximum that any one person could earn... and then tax the remaining at 100%??



Who decides how much that should be?

[Piratedog]

5. Give it a rest! He should pay his fair share snd no more.

Why should it be a crime to create an enterprise that makes money? As long as he is taxed fairly snd pays fairly, it’s up to him how he spends his money whether $1,000 or $1 billion.

[Budi]

8. K&R right! LOL.. HE is not the only Billionare on the planet NOT PAYING HIS "Fair Share"

Why is HE the only target of Silicon Valley's spite?

Ask Peter Thiel & Ro Khanna.

[TiberiusB]

16. Crime? Who said anything like that?

Who said anything about criminalizing profit?

This is about wealth inequality, not, as some assert, Bezos Derangement Syndrome. In the past, the maximum tax bracket was 90%. Somehow, maybe it was magic, the government decided it could "cap" wealth and limit the growth of the fortunes of the highest income earners to prevent dynastic fortunes from becoming so powerful that nearly all growth in the GDP would flow to just a handful of multi-generational plutocratic overlords.

But simply taxing them now won't fix the problem (though it's a start).

Will that tax be retroactive to repair the damage done by years of tax evasion, albeit often legal evasion, courtesy of the out-sized influence of his fortune? That massive imbalance is catastrophic to democracy. Neither he, nor Branson, nor Musk are acting in any way to benefit the common folk. They are targeting a business opportunity and the ultimate mark is the government and the tax payer, though Branson seems to be focused on sub-orbital joy rides for the .01%. If they were properly taxed we could invest in a proper space program with a greater emphasis on expanded access for everyone. This has the potential to play out just like the pharmaceutical industry capture of publicly funded health research. Look at the global disaster that private control of the Covid patents has turned into. That tech was built on NIH research and money from other sources abroad, yet the vaccine, along with many other drugs, is privately patented. That's the risk presented here, that by accruing fortunes built on the back of decades of tax evasion and political manipulation, billionaires could capture access to space and use that to further increase their economic dominance.

Does that mean that Bezos and the rest are always evil, profit mongering monsters? No, but you don't want to subject the fate of the public to the whims of one man or family. Better to tax him properly and he donate nothing.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/08/how-philanthropy-benefits-the-super-rich|

Ultimately, though, who is going to pass that tax reform? All efforts to tax the rich in the current administration have failed thanks to republican and blue dog..."centrist"...obstruction. The Supreme Court is now thoroughly captured by corporate interests and acts like it. This may be the last fully Democratically controlled government in our lifetime, and they can't get it done, or at least they haven't yet.

[Budi]

9. You're agreeing with Ro Khanna???

Wow.
You know who he's tied to in Silicon Valley? 😬

See Post #6.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017668692#post6

[Rebl2]

12. No wealth cap

But they do need to be taxed and not be allowed to hide their wealth so they can’t be taxed.

[Warpy]

7. I'm not really slamming it

because those guys are pushing the engineering along and hoping there are enough people with the money to take vanity joyrides to keep funding the R&D. I honestly don't think there's enough bang for the buck (10 minutes in Bezos's case) to justify the expebnse, but I only have enough money for one lifetime, not seventy thousand lifetimes...or more.

I look at them the way my grandparents looked at rich playboy pilots in the 1920s, they might be twits but their ground crews were learning a lot that pushed design and construction forward.

[Pobeka]

11. Do we really benefit from advances in private space missions? I think they've patents for all that.

If you want to benefit from some cool new technology, you probably are facing a patent hurdle if you are not the patent holder.

Big companies have known for a long time that intellectual property is the new battlefield, and have been protecting their property for over a decade now.

[ancianita]

15. This is the long term outcome of private money going into space -- benefits primarily for them.

If anyone in the future wants to be saved from climate change, they'd be the ones to charge admission to safety rather than join in to solve problems that for centuries, the non-billionaire humans didn't make.

No one's whining. A lot of people are describing the shitty corporate side of space exploration.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson got this one wrong.

[George II]

14. A 9:50 video and only about 2:45 of Khanna being interviewed?