Awesome. That’s the point. This is exactly ?@ewarren? is going to finance #bigstructuralchange #twocents #sheiswithus https://t.co/09CFfsBZxT
— Murshed Zaheed ?? (@murshedz) September 10, 2019
As someone in the financial services business, my theory has always been that what scares finance types most is that she understands the business better than they’d like and knows where the bodies are buried. THAT is what scares them, not the lefty policies.
— Arnold Layne (@arnielayne) September 11, 2019
"Eat the rich and elect President Warren" needs to go on some rogue merch immediately https://t.co/eyW9cTB8bI
— laura olin (@lauraolin) September 11, 2019
The New Yorker‘s economics correspondent John Cassidy, no wild-eyed radical:
As Senator Elizabeth Warren prepares for Thursday’s Democratic debate, in Houston, she is the first viable contender for the Presidency in decades to have proposed a direct tax on wealth. In January, she unveiled a plan to assess a two-per-cent levy on fortunes greater than fifty million dollars and to tax three cents on every dollar of wealth exceeding a billion dollars. Since then, economists have been debating the proposal’s practicality and desirability. During a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington last week, some of the main protagonists faced off. Many of the technical issues that they raised were important, but to me the main thing that came across was the groundbreaking nature of Warren’s proposal.
In theory, the United States already taxes wealth—the stock of cash, financial instruments, real estate, equity in private businesses, and consumer durables—through the estate tax. But this levy applies to wealth accumulated over a lifetime, and the high marginal rate on large bequests (currently forty per cent) has prompted a great deal of avoidance (some legal, some illegal) and political opposition. In 2001, a Republican-controlled Congress passed legislation to get rid of the estate tax completely. That law expired in 2010, and the tax was resurrected in an even weaker form. Trump and the G.O.P.’s tax reforms of 2017 further reduced the estate tax’s impact by doubling the exemption threshold.
Rather than trying to eliminate some of the estate tax’s loopholes, which the Obama Administration proposed, Warren put forward a new tax that has the dual political advantages of sounding modest (two cents on the dollar) and, if it works as advertised, bringing in a lot of revenue—$2.75 trillion over ten years, the campaign says. Unlike the estate tax, it would be paid annually and applied to a base—those with the largest fortunes in the country—that has grown enormously over the past four decades, driven by soaring asset prices and a sharp rise in wealth concentration, especially at the very top.
At the Brookings conference, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, two economists from Berkeley who advised Warren on her tax plan, presented a paper in which they estimated that the richest 0.1 per cent of U.S. households (there are about a hundred and seventy-five thousand of them) own about twenty per cent of over-all wealth, compared to less than ten per cent in 1980. In the past forty years, the wealth of the richest four hundred households has quadrupled to 3.5 per cent, Zucman calculated, in a study based on the current and post versions of the Forbes 400 list. This huge accumulation of riches has changed the fiscal calculus. A two-per-cent wealth tax applied to a family’s lifetime savings of a quarter of a million dollars raises five thousand dollars. The same tax applied to a billion-dollar fortune raises twenty million dollars. If it is applied every year for twenty years, it raises four hundred million dollars…Over time, the cumulative effect of the wealth tax would make a big difference in how wealth is distributed… “The wealth share of the top 400 has increased from less than 1% in 1982 to almost 3.5% in 2018,” Saez and Zucman noted in the lengthy paper they presented at the conference. “With a moderate wealth tax in place since 1982, their wealth share would have been around 2% in 2018.” According to the authors’ calculations, the impact on some of the very richest people in the country would be even more dramatic. If a version of the Warren tax had been in effect since 1982, Jeff Bezos would be worth $86.8 billion rather than a hundred and sixty billion. Bill Gates would be worth $36.4 billion rather than ninety-seven billion. And Buffett would be worth $29.6 billion rather than $88.3 billion…
… [T]o be effective, Warren’s wealth tax would need to be vigorously enforced, confined to the ultra-rich, and safeguarded from congressional attacks.
But for all these complications, the arguments for taxing wealth directly remain strong. If you believe, as Barack Obama said in 2013, that rising inequality is the defining issue of our time, you are obliged to try to do something about it. Warren has taken up the challenge, and the enactment of her wealth tax would be a historic step, akin to the introduction of the personal income tax, in 1913. Properly enforced and supported by other measures, such as meaningful campaign-finance reform and an effective antitrust policy, the new tax could help reverse America’s descent into plutocracy. At least, that is the argument that Warren will be making in Houston and beyond.
Numbers & charts detailed at the link.
watching dem leadership shambles, I am reminded that one of my absolutely favorite things about @ewarren is she is living in 2020
there's no sense that she wants to go back to 1996 or 2008 or even 2016
she understands the problems that we face today and it's pretty rare
— Dorothy "DC statehood now" Fortenberry (@Dorothy410berry) September 11, 2019
Baud
This shit turns me off to anything positive that might be said.
Baud
A CNN tweet earlier today said the most exciting candidate isn’t Warren but Yang.
Ohio Mom
She’s my first pick by a lot. I am not convinced she can overcome the misogynist vote but I didn’t think a Black candidate could ever win either.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I was just about to complain about that myself!
Not that we’re the most well-oiled machine in the world, but…
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
It happens a lot. Too many people can’t say something positive about someone without taking a potshot at someone else.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: it’s Cillizza, or however that’s spelled, fwiw
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s helpful context.
Patricia Kayden
The rich can afford to pay more taxes for the betterment of the country as a whole. They’ll survive President Warren’s taxes.
Cacti
@Baud:
I think Yang’s candidacy will be looked at as ahead of its time, when the age of the fully automated workforce starts to peak.
Probably in another decade or two.
Cheryl Rofer
This looks like good news.
Major Major Major Major
@Cacti: just because yang has mentioned robots doesn’t mean he’s doing any better a job addressing it than de blasio.
Baud
@Cacti:
Yeah, I don’t dislike him. But he shouldn’t be the nominee.
JPL
@Baud: Why not Marianne/
BlueDWarrior
@Major Major Major Major: I still don’t know how we deal policy-wise when automation (et al) renders, say, 15% of people un-employable.
If you can figure out a consistent policy that both keeps people whole financially and not wanting to burn everything to the ground, then you can scale and tweak it as we get further down the line.
Baud
@JPL:
I don’t really like her position on trade.
Another Scott
@Patricia Kayden: Not only that, but they’d be better off if the country did better. A lot more wealth is generated with 3% GDP growth than 1.5%…
But too many of the rich have bought into the mantra that all taxes are bad, and that them actually paying to support the country that gave them the benefits they enjoy is in their self-interest is unpossible.
Taxation is the price which we pay for civilization, for our social, civil and political institutions, for the security of life and property, and without which, we must resort to the law of force.
The rich have a lot more to lose than the rest of us…
Cheers,
Scott.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Cacti
@Baud:
Me neither. Most people don’t think much beyond next week, next paycheck, etc. Running on solutions to the problems of 10 years from now isn’t going to win the White House.
But he’d be a great choice to put in charge of Commerce.
Ohio Mom
The only thing I need to know about Yang is that he’s never held an elective office, not even as the proverbial dog catcher.
There’s lots of ways to spread good ideas (if you think his ideas are noteworthy). He can write a best seller, give a Ted Talk, start a foundation. Just get out of the way of the serious candidates please.
zzyzx
@BlueDWarrior:
I do wonder if not having humans involved could actually fix the reasons why socialism doesn’t work… but the humans will be in charge of the plants so probably not.
Even more than keeping them fed and housed, how do you deal with a new class of people who have nothing to do? It could be a new golden age of education or it could get ugly.
Jeffro
I hate the framing of that headline: “The rich could LOSE billions if Warren is…”
In a much better world, the headline reads, “The rich would have to resume paying their fair share of taxes, thanks to President Warren”
Actually in the best of all possible worlds, it would be “The rich will be back on track – but still nowhere close to what they really should be paying – towards their fair share of Capitalism Fees under President Warren”
Spanky
Kind of ironic that “Eat the Rich” is the title of righty P.J. O’Rourke’s 1999 book.
“Righty” because I can’t quite accuse him of being a full-blown wingnut.
zzyzx
@Another Scott:
The problem is that we were too effective in fixing a lot of the problems of the 20s. No one is scared about class riots anymore, so they’ve completely forgotten why we built the safety net in the first place.
Major Major Major Major
@BlueDWarrior: sure, and it’s great to talk about it. But I haven’t actually seen Yang do anything that makes me think he should be president, or that his discussion of the issue is significantly better-informed than like, random people I meet at parties.
JPL
@Baud: hahahaha also, too trading crystals can be lucrative.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I suspect the rich she’s aiming at would still be able to buy groceries.
Her cut-off point is high. I don’t what percentage it would affect, but it has to be small. I’m not objecting, just stating a fact that gets lost in the hyperventilating. She’s right. They’re hoarders.
Sab
@zzyzx: Perhaps consult the Saudis, or UAE or Qatar. Problematic in my opinion.
Eolirin
@zzyzx: Video games is about the best I can come up with to the lack of purpose problem. Some people will pursue creative or educational opportunities when freed from the constraints of having to work to survive, but not everyone is suited to that. But we have games, and especially social mmo style things where you can perform virtual labor in a virtual environment toward achieving virtual rewards that you can then show off to other people doing the same thing.
But I don’t really like that solution that much, much as I can’t think of anything better.
Major Major Major Major
@Eolirin: Video games are better than incel terrorism, that’s for sure. Maybe we could start a new religion for them.
JPL
@Baud: You really are good at this.
RAVEN
@Eolirin: How about a universal draft or public service to give people some sense of community?
zzyzx
@Eolirin:
it’s not the worst plan. Of course all of this assume that the robots don’t just make things for the rich and ignore everyone else, leaving us on our own.
RedDirtGirl
EAT the RICH
Elect Warren
That’ll be my newest button!
daryljfontaine
@Baud: It reminds me of the ascension of Boris Johnson (Ar-Flobatron? I can’t remember Tony Jay’s exact moniker for him), and the way that on the multiple ballots for Conservative Party leadership, the also-rans who would damage or hinder Jeremy Hunt just enough were getting promoted each time out.
Except in this case, it’s successive promotion of the “strongest” “weak” Dem. Williamson, Gabbard (*spit*), now Yang. We don’t have quite the media capture here as Rupert’s UK, but there’s still this effort to push worthless candidacies to the fore to draw attention away from the front lines.
EAT THE RICH is already on a tee shirt of mine, maybe it needs a Warren button accessory.
D
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Totally ? with you. Pisses me off royally.
Brachiator
@Ohio Mom:
Of course, we should remember that Hillary Clinton won more of the popular vote than did Trump. A good chunk of voters will choose the better candidate.
geg6
@Ohio Mom:
This. Just like Trump, he thinks being rich entitles him to start at the top. Fuck that shit. Go away, Andrew. Go do something for the greater good of your community and spend some time on the ground trying to get things done. Then come talk to me and we’ll see.
Anonymous At Work
What’s with this “and” shit?? Colon!
EAT THE RICH: ELECT ELIZABETH WARREN
Learn proper syntax…
Brachiator
@zzyzx:
Well, we had a recent thread about it, and most people are afraid of automation. But maybe one day we will find out whether AI beings prefer socialism.
Robots of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your restraining bolts!
trollhattan
The full Lisa Bloom email to Weinstein has been published, and it’s far worse than the excerpts released last week. She’s a piece of…work.
Sab
@Brachiator: Adam S. would say only the electoral college matters. I agree. I would respond that the electoral college follows the poplular vote in the state, so vote for who you love.
Baud
I worry that Eat the Rich will discourage vegan voters.
Jay
He’s up for reelection.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Fuckem. Nobody likes the vegans anyway.
JPL
@trollhattan: Money, money makes the world go round.
Spanky
@Baud: Fuck the vegans. Splitters.
Sab
@trollhattan: Her Mom must be proud.
I am in my mid-sixties and a professional, and I always tell young women, the older women who pretend to be your friend aren’t always. They just read you better as prey than the guys do. Many of them are your friend, but a significant number of them either want to feed on you, or see you as gullible competition.
Brachiator
Wealth taxes have not worked elsewhere when tried. I know that Warren’s advisors claim they have worked it all out, but most analyses suggest that these plans suffer from the same weaknesses as prior proposals. Valuing assets can be cumbersome and subject to error and fraud. Evasion was high in countries that tried this before. And it would be unfair and self-defeating if people are forced to liquidate assets in order to pay wealth taxes.
However, I’m glad to see that she is making the rich nervous.
Mary G
Yang’s big surprise at the debate tonight is that he’s going to spend $120,000 giving 10 randomly-selected Democrats $1,000/month for a year. We live in a reality show world.
Baud
@Mary G:
Now I wish Oprah had run.
hitchhiker
@trollhattan:
I already downloaded and listened to that entire book. It’s absolutely terrific.
The stuff Lisa Bloom and David Boies were up to is enraging. I went and checked her twitter; she’s currently trying to ride it out by suggesting that she made a “colossal” mistake and that she’s now working for victims 100% of the time instead of just 95%, like she used to.
What she doesn’t say is that she was caught gleefully plotting to destroy the reputation of a rape victim, and that she sold herself to the rapist by mentioning that in the past she’d worked with other victims enough to know what the game was. The rapist in question was Harvey Weinstein, who did hire her for almost $900/hr to help him pretend to be a good guy. Her duties also included working with former Israeli spies to undermine reporters who were getting closer and closer to finding women who weren’t too scared to talk about Weinstein.
It’s a small miracle that this book exists, and that Weinstein is going to trial.
No mercy, Lisa. None at all.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Me too.
HRA
@Baud:
Baud @1
This is exactly how I feel, too. I am overly disgusted by it.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Me too. It’s the Villagers’ obligatory “Shit on Democrats” policy.
Leto
But please, let’s talk about how Obama and Warren really don’t like each other and they’re giving each other the stink eye…
@Anonymous At Work: I’m just happy they didn’t put “Elect the rich and eat Elizabeth Warren!”. I expect an opinion column from FTFNYT to be labeled as such.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Yep. I went immediately to annoyed on reading those words. It’s going to take time; people fucking need to deal.
Brachiator
This looks like a fun read:
Jeffro
@Spanky: Does that include vegan cross-fitters? Vegan Cross-fitters who don’t watch tv?
Jeffro
@Brachiator: Give me a fucking break, Piketty. How about we just get back to seriously progressive income tax rates, for starters? And making sure that teachers are paid well/schools are decent or better, billing the taxpayers after the fact and NOT by whether or not they passed a referendum on themselves?
A variable tax based on how ‘green’ you are? Decided by? Good luck selling THAT.
Spanky
@Brachiator: I might as well read it in the original French, for all I’d get out of it. And what could possibly fill 1200 pages that would be actually actionable?
Jeffro
@RedDirtGirl: Great button. Now don’t we have to decide between an Aerosmith or a Motorhead theme song for this campaign? (I think both did ‘Eat the Rich’)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator:
At 1200 pages, yeah.
schrodingers_cat
OT diversion: Fun times on Indian Twitter. Brahmin men defending their casteist and misogynist thread wearing by claiming that they have Dalit friends and other self-owning tweets.
Thread here:
My contribution:
Some background, its a coming of age ceremony like the Catholic Holy communion, upper caste boys wear a thread signifying that they are twice born but unlike the Catholics, this rite of passage is exclusive to boys. Its particularly important for Brahmins.
Brachiator
This just in:
And of course Republicans will still talk shit about “tax and spend” Democrats.
The Democrats need to kick the GOP’s ass over their lack of fiscal responsibility.
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I suspect the rich she’s aiming at haven’t done their own grocery shopping in decades.
“Jeeves! Would you take the old Rolls Royce to the market?”
Jay
Mezz
I have been trying to address to my community college students the scale of numbers. I don’t remember where I saw it, but to contextualize a billion dollars, I explain if they burned $1000 every single day in commemoration (and since) the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, they would still have like $300 million literally to burn.
And Bezos would still have $86 billion leftover after Warren’s tax?
I’ve used that slogan in my some of my classes before (“Eat the rich”) when we get to the Gilded Age or if ever to Reagan. I like the addition. Though we’d miss her in the Commonwealth
Leto
So Yang opens by saying, “If you believe you can fix your problems better than politicians…” Does he know that the Republican primaries are closed? That the Libertarian primary is sometime next year? GTFOff the stage, you worthless twat!
Jay
Chip Daniels
@mrmoshpotato:
“Its a banana, Michael, how much could it cost? Ten dollars?”
mrmoshpotato
Now that’s a WiFi password!
Also, PHub has an data crunching article site: https://mobile.twitter.com/JamieHolly/status/1172238361190371328
Jay
Jay
Jay
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Jay:
The top comment (or at least most recent) on that video is “Antifa has lost the PR war”. Another is a door-stopper that whines about they’re a Proud Boy and they’re a good person. A person claiming to be Christine Flowers also tried to clap back at a critical commenter. I can’t fucking even. These fucking people live in a dream world (Flowers AND the Proud Boys)
sdhays
@Major Major Major Major: I think it’s spelled Shitzilla.
mrmoshpotato
@Leto:
What the hell came after that? Dropping out? Sounds like the start of a tough guy taunt.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
It’s not twice born, like a born again Christian.
Better comparison is a Bar Mitzvah. A coming of age ceremony Jews had for their boys, when they turned 13.
You learn certain prayers, and move to the next stage of life before marriage.
Not sure why it’s a self-own.
In modern India, I don’t see how a Brahmin can avoid interacting with non-Brahmins for work, education, etc., and therefore possibly becoming friends with those non-Brahmins.
Ken
@zzyzx: Sort of like vaccination, then – it’s been so successful that people have forgotten why it’s important. One result of which is, we may all get a reminder someday soon.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: Upanayan sanskar is for dvija (twice born) males.
Just like you can be a racist even if you have a token black friend, you can be a casteist even if you have Dalit friends.
The guy who was saying he has Dalit friends was also boasting about his Brahmin identity.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: Dvija.
ETA: I have included a link to my Twitter thread where I have explained why it is a discriminatory symbol.
Raoul
I keep saying “Don’t eat the rich, they’re no doubt full of bile and bitterness.”
(This, by the way, is I think the second time this week I’ve thought of the movie Eating Raoul, which I know I saw way back when, but can’t remember much at all about. Not where my nym comes from, to be sure.)