Pro Tip

[DemocratSinceBirth]

The lion's share of Democrats hate Trump infinitely more than they hate billionaires which is an abstract and amorphous concept. If you literally redistributed the wealth of every billionaire in America life wouldn't change much. If you replaced Trump life would change a lot.

Carry on...

[unblock]

1. i get your point, but "billionaires" is actually a pretty well-defined concept.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. True. I rarely think about billionaires . I think about Trump a lot.

The closest I have ever got to a billionaire is when I saw Paul McCartney in concert.

[guillaumeb]

4. Recommended, simply for the Beatles reference. eom

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. 78 years old, loaded, and still working.

Getting paid to do something you love is a gift few enjoy.

[unblock]

8. cool! i met steve jobs once

but this was a few years before he became a billionaire. it was when he was rolling out the "NeXT" computer.

i saw a demo and afterwards a small number of us geeks gathered around to ask questions and get a better look at the toys. so i was within an arm's length of him talking tech for about 30 minutes.


which was cool, but i'm thinking i'd remember a macca concert better...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. My girlfriend's boss has a low nine figure real estate portfolio.

I have been to his home in the Hollywood Hills. It's down the street from Leonardo DiCaprio. He's not Trump rich but he's rich enough. He is nothing like Trump. He's low key and gracious.

I have seen Sir Paul four times, once in Miami, once in Orlando, once in DC, and once in Charlotte.

[unblock]

13. if online counts, i've played bridge with bill gates and warren buffett

of course i've also met ceos of the companies i've worked for, some of them are billionaires. but that almost feels like cheating.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

22. Please see post 21. I goofed.

[genxlib]

20. I would think...

That a home down the street from from Leo would BE a real estate portfolio in the low 8-figures by itself.

Go Heat!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. I am getting old. His portfolio is the low nine figures.

I am guessing the home is worth 10-12 m. I could be way off. You can see the Pacific Ocean and downtown from the hills his home is on. I think the specific area is Holmby Hills. I knew it took forever to get there.


As to the Heat I watch them on League Pass and never miss a game.

[TwilightZone]

3. The term is well-defined; the concept, not so much.

Everyone knows the definition, but there's really no consensus on what it represents beyond the numerical value.

[leftieNanner]

7. I know a woman in my old home town

She and her husband built a 12,000 square foot house!!!!

And I don't think they are billionaires.

So the scale of wealth of someone who has $1,000,000,000 is unimaginable to me.

[TwilightZone]

16. I lived in Omaha for about 20 years, home of Warren Buffett.

He drove an inexpensive car he bought used (a pickup, as I recall) and lived in a nice, but modest house in a middle-class neighborhood. He later bought a $40,000 Cadillac, his first new car in decades, as I recall. He routinely ate at Dairy Queen. He owned a local furniture store called Nebraska Furniture Mart and people would run into him there fairly often. He was one of the most unassuming people I've ever encountered.

At the time, he was the richest man in the country.

That made it even more difficult to comprehend those kinds of numbers. Utterly normal guy, worth the same as 45,000 millionaires.

[stopdiggin]

5. and if you redistributed the wealth of the top 1 or 2%

(or 3 or 4?) actually .. that kinda' would make a difference.
But I'm taking your point in the spirit intended. Trump is a MUCH bigger threat.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. You get into a philosophical

You get into a philosophical discussion on about how much a person can earn, why a teacher gets paid 50k a year while Lebron James gets paid 40m a year to bounce a ball, how much of a claim society has on your money et cetera.

I would set it at 50%.

[stopdiggin]

17. agree 100%

and I've never bought into arguments about what a person "SHOULD" earn. What nonsense! Reasonable "redistribution" on the other hand is not a high hurdle for me. And, incidentally, that is where this country was for much of the past century. (and in many cases it was higher than your 50% .. in theory of course)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. The effective tax rate has been higher.

There is an economic principle that no matter what the tax rate is the government takes in essentially the amount of money.

[Awsi Dooger]

11. Agreed

I remember reading Stan Greenberg's critique of Hillary's 2016 failure. He repeatedly emphasized that billionaires buying government was a big voting issue and should have been a central theme of Hillary's campaign.

I disagree with that. People I talk to are fascinated by billionaires or anyone of extraordinary wealth. They understand big money in politics based on the barrage of commercials every 2 years. They have heard the term lobbyists all their life. They don't associate it with Citizens United or have any false belief that it will stop or lessen.

I mentioned the anecdote of my aunt the Trump supporter who was astonished when I told her a few weeks ago that Bloomberg was much richer than Trump. She was flabbergasted. She said, "Richer than Trump? No, that can't be." Then when I detailed the self-made 60 billion my aunt was in awe. She said, "I'll have to pay attention to Bloomberg."

That ship has sailed but Bloomberg would have enjoyed incredible teflon in November.

That guy flipping pizzas wants to believe he can be a millionaire or even billionaire someday. This party does itself no good by even hinting at disdain or limitation. Rescue 1-2% of the white vote without a college degree and the math shifts wildly in our favor.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. Democrats aren't immune from the desires of other Americans.

Democrats aren't immune from the desires of other Americans. They aren't ascetic creatures who want to live like monks. There are the idealistic among us who do. I respect them. But most people want to be rich. It's the greed that rubs most of us the wrong way, not the wealth itself.

[pat_k]

12. Should have nothing to do with "hating" billionaires

It's about redressing a system that is rigged to make the rich absurdly richer; rigged to distribute an ever growing portion of our collective assets from the many to the few.

You don't need to have any personal animosity against those who are "winning" in the rigged game. You need to end the rigging. Even many of those who are the beneficiaries advocate the need for revolutionary change to deal with a system that has such morally indefeasible consequences.

I think the rhetoric of demonizing the billionaire class has done far more damage to the cause than good. And it is unnecessary. Simply base our case on solid grounds of fairness and morality. It should never be about expressing animosity. It should be about hammering away at realities and morally indefensible policies -- this approach can be very effective at evoking shame in those who benefit from the policies that have produced the immoral, anti-democratic, aristocracy this nation has become.

It should also be about instilling a sense of possibility. We CAN do this. Americans can accomplish the things we set our minds to. The notion that we can't afford change must be countered by sparking our sense of our own power. We cannot afford not to. Restoring a sense of pride demands it. (How much pride can you have in a county filled with people who walk by, and over, homeless people because they can't personally do anything about it and believe their country is so fucked up and poor that it is "impossible" to collectively do anything about it?)

A great book by Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century

And other to be released next week I'm looking forward to reading: Capital and Ideology

[treestar]

14. And you can have liberal billionaires

Our man Soros who does so much for us!

[TwilightZone]

19. Well, he does keep us all employed, so there is that.

At least "our" billionaires seem to have a social conscience. Buffett, Gates, even the hated Bloomberg have all donated billions to charity and have committed their fortunes to charity in the coming years.

You don't see that much on the other side of the aisle, unless they're building a "family-planning" center or a mega-church with the money or donating to their own foundations which never seem to distribute anything. Or putting up large buildings just to have a place to put that huge sign they bought that spells out their names.