Warren doesn't just frighten billionaires - she scares the whole establishment

[BlueMTexpat]

No wonder the wealth tax turns the Gray Lady white as a sheet: it will help the needy and its author is a good bet for president

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/17/elizabeth-warren-billionaires-wealth-tax-new-york-times

...
But wait. In order to arrive at their conclusion, the authors of the study make two bizarre leaps of economic logic. They assume, first, that wealthy Americans would save and invest less in order to avoid accumulating wealth that would be subject to the tax, and that this drop in investment would retard economic growth.

Baloney. If we’ve learned anything over the last 40 years it’s that the savings and investments of wealthy Americans do not necessarily trickle down in ways that grow the economy or benefit most Americans.
...
The study also assumes the revenue raised by a wealth tax will go toward reducing the federal debt. It totally disregards what the wealth tax would finance, such as Warren’s proposals for universal childcare, increased education funding, student loan forgiveness, green manufacturing and infrastructure.

This is no minor oversight. Warren has repeatedly argued that taxing the super rich is the fairest and most efficient way to pay for these critical needs.

Such spending, not incidentally, would spur growth. Enabling more parents to work, young people to become better educated, green technologies to take root, more access to healthcare, and the nation’s infrastructure to be upgraded, would improve productivity. ...

**********
This is an op-ed by Robert Reich. More at the link.

It is interesting to see how so many Dems seem to have forgotten how FDR's programs actually saved the country during some of its darkest days AND that his programs were not at all popular with the most powerful at the time.

[BlueMTexpat]

1. One quick addendum below:

... How can an analysis of the wealth tax focus only on its trickle-down effects and not consider these crucial bottom-up consequences? Just as peculiarly, why would the New York Times prominently report this one-sided study?

The answers to both questions, I fear, have less to do with economics than with where power is located in the American system. ...

[crazytown]

3. How can analysis of the wealth tax not consider the proceeds will be spent?

The study is bad faith - a dishonest hatchet job.

[BlueMTexpat]

4. Exactly - that is

Reich's point.

[BeyondGeography]

5. If that article doesn't tell people what Warren

or anyone who credibly and constructively challenges entrenched wealth in this country is up against, they either don’t want to know or don’t care.

As you know, the wealth tax is front-and-center at every Warren stump speech and she details exactly where the proceeds would go. Paying off the national debt never comes up.

Moreover, those points are made lower in the story by Saenz and Zucman, effectively undermining the whole premise of this “study.” But the point was to get the headline and it’s self-debunked findings into the info pipeline where it was picked up by every site that feeds off the NYT, and there are many.

An extremely crude exercise by our so-called liberal media.

[crazytown]

6. An exercise in 'Zombie Facts'

or, as the current administration might put it, alternative facts. As you say, there could not be a clearer case 'the wealth tax is front-and-center at every Warren stump speech and she details exactly where the proceeds would go.' So the NYT puts up an already mortally wounded headline, and summary, to see how far it will stagger onwards, urged on 'by our so-called liberal media' and more than a few, so-called well informed DU'ers.

It is a crude exercise - rinse and repeat.

[KPN]

2. K&R ...

[Farmer-Rick]

7. The filthy rich are not going to roll over and let us restore our democracy

They hate democracy. Dictatorships, kings, lords, theocracies and oligarchs are much more inclined to allow capitalism to prey on a nation's citizens.

The filthy rich always want to destroy democracy. Compare the wealth of our founding fathers to royalty back then. Our democracy was never about allowing a handful of filthy rich to control all of us.

[judeling]

8. Just the otherside of the equation

If revenue is on one side and spending on the other.

Campaigns are more then willing to promote the economic benefits of proposals. This is merely a look at the revenue side that attempts to isolate the costs going in.

Stupid in the context of a campaign. But essential in a budget process.

[turbinetree]

9. Yepper spot on.........and paraphrase FDR he welcomed the fight from the wealthy................

It is interesting to see how so many Dems seem to have forgotten how FDR's programs actually saved the country during some of its darkest days AND that his programs were not at all popular with the most powerful at the time.

[Lonestarblue]

10. I am convinced that Warren would be the best president.

I am not yet convinced that she can be elected, though I wish the media would do interviews with people who attend her rallies. Something is fueling her rise in the polls. What is it? But instead the media goes after the changes they say, erroneously I think, that we can’t afford.

Comments I’ve heard from friends—Democrats—is that she’s arrogant, flaps her hands around all the time, she’s too far left, she doesn’t appeal to black voters. I don’t agree, but impressions count with voters. Both NYT and WaPo have had unflattering articles about her over the past months. I can’t even imagine what conservative and rabid, right-wing media is saying. I think the media will be against her—sort of the devil we know is better than the one who scares us.

[BlueWI]

11. She and Sanders are the only two candidates

who fully acknowledge the negative economic and political consequences of wealth concentration. For the other candidates wealth concentration is more of a talking point than a fundamental concern. And certainly, no one but Warren has the policy chops to address the issue at a structural level.

Although to be fair, Yang gets some of this too, but he doesn't seem to have the commitment to insist on structural changes at the top.

[BlueMTexpat]

13. Too many of your friends'

descriptions are those that would NEVER - or rarely at best - be used to describe male candidates. The "too far left" BS is just that. All they need to know is that she is one of the most effective current Dem Senators wrt working with the other party and that she is currently the Vice-Chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus. One does NOT get to such a position without having a lot of respect from her fellow Senators.

As for her appeal to black voters, polls show that it is rising - steadily - as she and her proposals become better known.

I too am convinced that she would make the best President, which is why I support her candidacy!

The M$M is NOT our friend. That such a travesty of a human being as Trump could even be considered a credible candidate and then "win" in 2016 is largely due to their failures ... which are ongoing.

[BootinUp]

12. She just doesn't have the political instincts

To run and win the Presidency.

It’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.