This anti-tax campaign reeks of a conviction that the billionaire class needn’t contribute more to society because their very existence and all that comes with it is contribution enough. It’s not. Now pay up like the rest of us.
(This piece inspired me to write: calmatters.org/commentary/d...)
If I recall correctly, billionaire wealth has grown something like 7.5% annually on average for the last few decades. And projections under the CBTA bring that down to a still plenty positive 6.5%. (Hell, I’d take just 1% for one year and retire.)
Do you know what *really* kills startups and innovation? Extreme inequality, monopolies, and a social safety net that is so frayed that no one’s willing to take a chance lest they fall through.
But that's a familiar maneuver for a class of people with a strong track record of privatizing rewards and socializing risks. It’s probably why we hear so much nonsense about taxation “kill[ing] and eat[ing] the golden goose of technology startups in California” (as Y Combinator CEO Gary Tan said).
And if they think it is, they’re receiving bad legal advice: moving paper isn’t moving residence. More likely, they want to scare voters into *thinking* they’ll move. They want us to believe that a tax on the billionaires is, in actual fact, a tax on the rest of us.
All those billionaires “leaving” California? Yeah...Not quite.
The LLC in Miami or the pied-à-terre in Nevada is hardly an exodus, especially with regard to California residency requirements.
A purple cardboard box with the words “Crush Grape” on it, lying crushed on top of pavement
Nominative determinism
Trump talking about gas prices is like Lucile Bluth talking about banana prices.
The event, organized by Private Wealth and the Public Good (along with the Berkeley Economy & Society Initiative and the Economic Security Project @economicsecurityproject.org ) is free and open to the public.
Join us in room 820 of the Social Sciences Building on the UC Berkeley campus.
The conversation will focus on the relationship between taxation and democracy and will explore topics ranging from concrete wealth tax proposals to bigger-picture matters like extreme inequality’s role in the unraveling of democratic governance.
We’ve got quite the lineup:
- Brian Galle (UC Berkeley School of Law, @bdgesq.bsky.social)
- Ray Madoff (Boston College Law School)
- Emmanuel Saez (UC Berkeley Economics)
- Vanessa Williamson (Brookings Institution, @vanessawilliamson.bsky.social )
On March 10 at 4pm-5:30pm, I’ll be moderating a panel discussion at UC Berkeley on a question that’s been on many of our minds (and with increasing urgency) over the past year:
“What do the rich owe the rest of us?”
Details and registration:
besi.berkeley.edu/event/what-d...
"This is a verified page fundraising support for the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO and Working Partnerships' 2026 rapid response effort to meet the needs of impacted union members, worker center members, and their families..."
workingpartnerships.betterworld.org/campaigns/su...
I think U2's frontman might be a good first stop on this journey. Not sure he counts as a bro per se but always room for an alter ego.
What are we getting in exchange for the privileges we routinely extend to them? Because $250 doesn't cut it. Hell, that would barely cover two months of the *increase* in my already exorbitant healthcare premium.
Regardless, the tax cuts and Dell's philanthropy should raise serious questions about what the rich owe the rest of us.
I am genuinely curious to read policy analyses of the Trump accounts and what they mean for building wealth. I've got my guesses. And, amid the largest upward wealth transfer of wealth in American history, it's all a bit dubious--to say the least.
Perhaps this one?
This one?
I love how Michael Dell just did the math for Americans: 25,000,000 kids can receive $250 and that’s *only* 4% of his total wealth.
I can’t decide which meme is more appropriate here:
Thanks for the shout out!
getting on bluesky right now feels like stumbling into the middle of a model U.N. meeting
New in The Hedgehog Review, Stanford PACS Research Scholar @ahorvath.bsky.social tells the story of how, over the past 30 years, funders and philanthropy professionals recast civil society as objective, pragmatic, and above the fray of politics.
Folks unsubscribing from the Washington Post might also consider boycotting…Amazon…AWS…WholeFoods…
Introduction of Timothy Snyders latest book, which reads: 1 Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
Timothy Snyder:
I’ve said as much before: Musk sucking all of the oxygen out of the “billionaires a reactionary shitheads” discourse really let people like Bezos and Zuckerberg fly under the radar. Nothing fundamentally has changed about any of them, ever
