Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Guardian author Kate Aronoff acknowledges the help to the climate cause Michael Bloomberg has provided, but she still wants to strip him of his wealth.
The problem with billionaires fighting climate change? The billionaires
Kate Aronoff
Tue 11 Jun 2019 16.00 AESTIt’s great that philanthropists are pouring money into environmental causes. But it would be better for the planet if billionaires didn’t exist at all
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The climate crisis isn’t going to be solved with the benevolence of a couple of billionaires, and their outsized control over our politics and economy stands in contradiction to our hopes for a liveable future. With rightwing populism on the rise around the world, having elites like Bloomberg as the public face of the climate fight is also risky politics. We don’t need their money to fund the Green New Deal – the US has more than enough for that – but we should take it anyway, with a far more progressive tax system than the one we’ve got.
If that sounds radical, it’s worth remembering that the top marginal tax rate during the time hailed as capitalism’s Golden Age floated somewhere north of 90% in the US. After it’d already fallen, Ronald Reagan’s administration collapsed it to 50% when he took office, and it would dip to just 28% by the time he left. The many billions that have been lost as a result are resources that have been captured out of democratic control, emboldening a handful of oligarchs to run roughshod over people and planet alike.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/10/billionaires-climate-change-michael-bloomberg
No amount of philanthropic money will satisfy the green movement. Feeding them just encourages them to demand more, and to resent the money they have not already received.
Once again, a blinding flash of honesty from the warm mongers. The Progressive billionaires do it because they think they’ll be spared.
If history has taught us anything, being on the winning side is important. Mr Bloomberg is betting he will keep his money.
Like Hitlers buddies he had killed, like Stalin’s buddies he had killed. Like all the communists who lost all their property. History is littered with corpses of those who thought they could control the fires they started. Figuratively and literally.
Or at least thought they could outrun the flames.
Just like with their eternal hope in socialism, they believe that it will be different this time.
As well as the hypocrisy – ‘but we’ll take the money’.
Of course ‘take the money’. We are entitled.
“We don’t need their money—–the US has more than enough for that—”
So the US gets to fund the GND. Got it.
And they never address the question of why the USA should fund the GND when the USA is already reducing CO2 emissions while China and India are still increasing emissions.
What they are really saying is we take everyones money and we distribute it … wait there was a name for that isn’t there?
Obviously, we are unable to redistribute all the money. There’s 7 figure salaries, overheads, bonuses, so we can redistribute about 10 % of the money we are given.
There is a gigantic pool of money they are eyeing that they don’t control. Personal 401ks of US citizens. Once, they establish that is OK to seize personal property they will grab this for our own good of course. They have already started talking about it. It is the only source large enough to start doing what they want. And, it serves two purposes funding and making more people reliant on the gov’t.
Progressive socialist’s definition of of wealthy; Anyone who earns a paycheck.o
The supposition that any real number of people actually paid the 90% tax rates persists on the left, the same sort of mythology as “subsidies” paid for fossil fuels. Once one gets even thinly into the details of either, the mirage goes away.
The type of tax provisions under the tax code at that time resulted in rich people actually paying roughly the same percentage of income as they did under the Reagan tax rates, with different rules as to what could be sheltered, but overall tax collections went up, as some unproductive tax shelters were abandoned.
Tom,
Maybe someone can send your comment to Kate Aronoff.
She knows not of what she speaks.
To accomplish what she wants the billionaires would have to be treated like Bernie Madoff. Call each a criminal and confiscate the wealth.
How is it possible that someone who writes for the Guardian doesn’t know that “climate” is not an environmental cause. Answer: Trained liar or truly dense person? I’m going with the former.
I’d suggest a bit of both!!! You’d have to be pretty dense to train yourself tofall for the lies!!!
It’s ALL about globul Socialism & wealth redistribution, only experience has demonstrated the “wealth” ends up coming from the man & woman in the street, not from those with the wherewithall to employ wiley tax accountants who can wring every penny from the system for their clients!!!
They never get that those rich people didn’t usually steal the money they got there by being useful and creative in the economy.
The interesting question to ask the stupids in the socialist left is how do you decide who is a toilet cleaner and who is a company executive in their brave new world. I mean both of those jobs carry the same pay under there rules and what about those who just decide to stay home and play computer games or grab a board and go fulltime surfing.
Marx already thought of that, he theorized that people would then be free to pursue whatever job they wanted for however long they wanted. Doctor for a year, carpenter for month… etc. I didnt say it was well thought out, only that he had thought of it.
Like they think that far ahead. As long as they kill the Big Bad Capitalist Guy, then pollution, poverty, inequality, and every other social ill, real or perceived, will magically go away. That this Disney-movie outcome never actually happens doesn’t seem to faze them.
First, the people in charge understood clearly that socialism and welfare state are totally incompatible. That is why working in USSR was duty – and non-working was punishable by jail time.
And when your monetary worth is the same, people use different methods to show value. Clearly, janitor has no access to useful resources, while CEO does. So good part of economy becomes barter based – and things to barter are goods, services, influence and power.
Ahh, the good old times of USSR socialism…
Another inconvenient fact – rich people pay a higher portion of actual tax receipts when their marginal tax rates are the lowest. Raising their tax rates simply encourages them to do something with their money that is tax “sheltered.”
Better to donate a few million here and there as protection money, it’s just the normal cost of doing business. They must have a good laugh when they see the tax deduction too.
Global warming underpins a multi trillion dollar, Enron created, carbon trading scam supported by carbon billionaires like Tom Steyer and Jeremy Grantham.
http://www.scrapthetrade.com
It was always about “the Benjamins” as AOC recently admitted.
(OK,OK,OK – she wasn’t meaning to impugn the climate carpetbaggers, but it still fits, n’est pas?)
I think that was Ilhan Omar.
Probably. Same noises from same empty vessels though.
The problem with your linked site is it still assumes that “climate change” is a “crisis” that needs to be “fixed” (the ultimate in arrogance and hubris), when that belief is what underpins what they are campaigning against (the carbon trading BS).
Good thing I didn’t have food in my mouth when they referred to James Hansen as the “World’s Top Climate Scientist” – TWICE!
ROTFLMAO, his “prediction” record would more appropriately earn the title “World’s Most Deluded Climate Fool.”
So long as rich people do not try to change social mores and laws in the liberal direction, I don’t care how much money they have.
I like flat earthers, not because of their beliefs but by the fact that they do not want everyone else on the planet to do things like kill the economy in the matter of climate change and other equally stupid and toxic things.
I therefore tolerate flat earthers – they can believe what they like – but climate change/ global warming maniacs are simply toxic to us all and they deny science absolutely?
How do I know this?
Well check out https://rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com/2018/05/09/ever-been-told-that-the-science-is-settled-with-global-warming-well-read-this-and-decide-for-yourself/ where you will see real science at work – not the type that is being forced down our collective throats!
When reptiles fall out…
The lady has left wing thinking. Up to some optimum point, personal income tax reductions cause more tax to be collected because cash in the bank is loaned out 10 times over by the banking system to other people who will end up paying tax. Suggesting tax departments are willfully reducing tax rates to bring in less tax revenue shows how out of touch with reality she is. They usually make these changes to collect more money, of course sometimes miscalculating…,
OK, so ctm – that wasn’t me. this is me. just to clear up any confusion.
If we’re going to strip the billionaires of their wealth, I vote we give it to their employees.
I wouldn’t turn down an extra million or two from Mike … 😉
I know it was you.
Rather than giving it away, Mike should invest ALL his billions in his vaunted renewable energy generation. If it will take $950B to do what he says needs to be done, and he truly believes it is necessary, he should immediately sell his media empire and other holdings and, pooling with numerous other like minded similarly wealth individuals, invest the funds in solar and wind production. He has $62B and so would only need about 12 times his wealth to do so or basically the 20 top wealthiest people in the US. Then he would be an 8% share owner of the largest renewable generation provider in the country and prove/disprove his beliefs. Of course we need to scrap the subsidies first so no guaranteed income unless he produces useful energy.
“If once you have paid him the Danegeld,
you never get rid of the Dane.” – R. Kipling
One constant with socialists. They don’t think anyone should be allowed to have more than they do.
As one young socialist once told me:
“We need a higher minimum wage, but more importantly we need a maximum wage. Ideally the two would be the same.”
And of course as per AOC, you should be entitled to this income whether or not you choose to work.
Thereby confusing wealth with income. There is no hope.
Healthcare is great when the schmuck that empties bed pans earns as much as the surgeon.
Yep, in that scenario, the surgeon decides he doesn’t want the stress, and takes a job emptying bed pans. Meanwhile, the guy who was emptying the bed pans decides it would be cool to cut someone open to see their brains. Medical schools? Why would anyone want that experience without the promise of a better future?
The surgeon leaves for better pay and conditions elsewhere or takes early retirement. The bedpan emptier gets promoted to do surgery……
No, in that scenario, surgeon will work if you pay him bribes.
And so is bed pan emptier. They’ll just get different amount of bribes. In the end, free market will work, except it’s a corrupt and horribly screwed up version of free market.
The weird thing is they always seem to their their wealth is the appropriate level of wealth – so they rarely feel any obligation to say give half their income to poor people in Africa, or even local poor people.
How telling. First off the notion that people are permitted to keep their own money becomes money that has been “captured out of democratic control”.
Secondly, they reveal that ultimately there goal is to have wealth controlled by government.
Which is why they will come after personal 401ks soon and foundations when they no longer are a useful tool for them, or become conservative.
Mark,
No only that, but they believe there is only so much wealth out there, and that if I “take” some, I am taking it from someone else – perhaps someone else that “needs it more” than I do. They don’t understand that wealth is created by human ingenuity and effort. Mostly that’s because they are dull and/or lazy.
In other words, there is no Law of Conservation of Wealth. New wealth CAN be created, and existing wealth CAN be destroyed.
I’ll believe CC is a problem when billionaires and multi-millionaires like Bloomberg, Steyer, Al Gore, and their ilk who harp about it actually alter their “livin’ large” lifestyles into the low-carbon life of energy poverty they want for 98% of humanity.
It’s worse they claim like the dead CEO of Apple that they should be taxed more then place all their money in a trust so their estate doesn’t have to pay the inheritance tax.
“Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.” – Theodore Roosevelt
It is in the character of very few men to honor, without envy, a friend who has prospered.
— Aeschylus
Has she never heard of the Laffer curve?
No dude, she’s like totally against fat jokes, totally.
😂
Spoken like a true advocate of Karl Marx.
When I was a kid, the orthodoxy was:
An English working guy would see someone driving a fancy car and say, “We’ll get him out of that.”
An American working guy would see someone driving a fancy car and say, “What do I have to do to get one of those?”
For sure, some folks didn’t earn the money they’ve got. On the other hand, I would say that most of the 1% are smarter and harder working than almost everyone else. The lefties always point at the undeserving rich and ignore the smart hard workers who produce great value for society and without whom we’d all be worse off.
When I was a kid, the orthodoxy was:
An English working guy would see someone driving a fancy car and say, “We’ll get him out of that.”
An American working guy would see someone driving a fancy car and say, “What do I have to do to get one of those?”
Bob, you cut the Englishman short. What he actually said was;
“We’ll get him out of that and build him something better.”
The best I can remember, the remark was by Michael Caine after he had his car vandalized by a workman he’d hired.
Indeed it was Mr Caine – from a 2016 Telegraph interview (which, if this was a childhood memory for you, makes you a little younger than I had imagined). He was commenting on the attitude of a very pro-American gentleman called Mr English that his mother worked for. It prompted him to go out and buy the better British car (at least Rolls Royce was British at the time) before he passed his driving test.
He also said on another occasion “We’re not Gods, we’re Englishmen – the next best thing”
To the many billions of poor people in the world, Kate Aronoff is far too wealthy and should have most of her wealth re-distributed to the less well off.
She would also prefer that we listen to and follow her guidance as to how we live our lives while at the same time complaining that billionaires have too much control. Hypocritical thinking at its best.
They really hate when you point out that, in global terms, they are part of the 1%.
We have pills for depression, bipolar, schizophrenia. Please lord give us a cure for the true psychosis of liberalism.
Actually we need liberals. Sometimes they’re right. We also need conservatives because sometimes they’re right. If we didn’t have both liberals and conservatives, we’d probably already be extinct.
Somebody has to try the crazy crap that occasionally works out and makes us all better off. Somebody also has to stand back and resist the crazy crap that will get us all killed.
Conservatives are also much more conscientious and somebody’s got to get the work done.
At least 90% of the stuff that has been accredited to liberals was either already happening, or the result of someone else’s efforts with the credit stolen by the liberals.
For most of the rest, they only appear successful because liberals either hide the failures or constantly change the terms by which their programs are to be judged.
The evidence is that liberals are higher in trait openness and conservatives are higher in trait conscientiousness. link Liberals are actually more willing to try crazy stuff.
In other words, conservatives want some evidence that what they are going to try might actually work.
While liberals will do anything for kicks.
Liberals have no understanding of economics or human nature, if they are right about anything worthwhile, it’s by accident.
That’s truer than most people would think. Philip Tetlock points out that experts are no better at predicting things than are dart-throwing chimps. link That’s because of the chaotic nature of the world.
Evolution’s way of coping with chaos is to create many mutations, most of which die. Some actually provide a solution to the changing environment and they survive and breed. Capitalism copes with chaos the same way. Most new businesses fail. link A few provide a valuable service for whatever conditions prevail, and those businesses survive, prosper, and are copied.
“Liberals have no understanding of economics or human nature”
That’s exactly right! The author of this article proves it once again.
Free Enterprise allows society to fine-tune itself. Socialism locks society into untenable situations.
Socialism was tried in the United States by some of its earliest colonies and failed miserably. The colonists found out that giving everyone an equal share of what the colony produced also produced lazy people who would not pull their own weight and a few individuals who worked hard and created the colonies’ wealth but soon got tired of all the freeloaders they had to support. Why should they bust their backs while others laid around and got the same share as the producers, they asked.
So the colony decided to give each colonist a parcel of land for their very own and whatever wealth they got was from their own work and they could keep it, not share it with the rest of the colony. No more welfare payments. And the colony flourished.
Human nature.
Kate Aronoff wrote, ”but we should take it away”.
While I loathe Bloomberg and Steyer, it is not because they are billionaires. It is because they are hypocrits.
Miss Kate simply exposes herself as a neo-Marxist. She’s a clear representation of and no different than any of the past horrific despotic supporters of Marxist communism. As such she deserves all the ridicule and scorn which can be heaped on her.
Kate Aronuff is absolutely bonkers on her Climate Hysteria and hatred for private savings and wealth.
Bloomberg as a liberal/Democrat is kinda crazed as well.
He thinks that $500 million will push the election his way.
Unlikely as the Popular Uprising will continue to win.
In Canada, PM Trudeau has pledged $500 million to Canada’s beleaguered media. Mainstream that is.
The funds are to be laid onto the media and directed by high-ups in journalist unions.
It will not BUY the October election.
Too many “white girls next door”… in the Olympics. Billionaires with too much money. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. A progressive theme of The Guardian’s special and peculiar perspective. How green do they think people are?
It’s a worry when someone else gets to tell you how much money you can earn or retain. Besides, if ever such a thing was enacted, those people would disappear to another country anyway, you still get no money from them. That’s why the system feeds off the little man, they can’t run away.
Sometimes, they make mistakes and show their true colors. It’s usually when they think they have the upper hand.
This is the same Guardian that almost doesn’t have any money?.
Well, at lest Grif likes the paper
On the other hand, griff keeps demanding that we stop reading the Guardian.
“We don’t need their money to fund the Green New Deal – the US has more than enough for that”.
Excuse me Kate, but the US is broke. We spend over $4 Trillion every year. That is over $10 Billion every day! Bezos (post divorce) could fund 1 week. Bill Gates could cover another week. Buffet almost a week and we still have 9 more days in January. These guys will not be around for the next year because they are now broke, like the Guardian.
I’m reminded of the person who proclaimed, how can I be broke, I still have checks in my checkbook.
(For those who can remember what checks and checkbooks are.)
That was my (ex) wife…
“Excuse me Kate, but the US is broke. We spend over $4 Trillion every year. That is over $10 Billion every day!”
Yes, and about a third of that spending is done with borrowed money. I think our interest payments on our debt are up somewhere around $600 million per year and rising. Our last defense budget was for $615 billion. So in the not-too-distant future the U.S. will be spending more on the debt than on the U.S. military.
We should be looking at something like the “Penny Plan” as a means of balancing our budget.
https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/dr-rand-paul-introduces-%E2%80%98penny-plan-balanced-budget%E2%80%99
“WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced his own “Penny Plan” federal budget that will balance within five years by assuming the repeal of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 and utilizing the “Penny Plan.” Dr. Paul’s budget includes instructions that would pave the way for the expansion of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to help Americans more easily cover their health care costs.
“I ran for office to put a stop to Washington’s out-of-control spending and skyrocketing debt. It’s time for conservatives to govern like conservatives, and my budget plan gives our Republican-controlled Congress a chance to prove to the American people that it is serious about getting our fiscal house in order,” said Dr. Paul.”
end excerpt
Waste and duplication probably amount to 10 percent of any federal bureaucracies’ budget. All of them can stand a one percent cut for five years, with the exception of the Defense Department, which has been underfuneded for years and needs a serious rebuild. Which it is getting now, but we need to continue it.
HSA’s are just another way to control people. Have you ever tried to figure out what it can legally be used for and what it can’t? The wording is intentionally vague. It pretty says these things should be covered unless we decide they aren’t. Don’t worry if you get it wrong it’s just a felony. I choose not to use them because someday I may choose to publically criticize the US president and since the IRS has already been weaponized I don’t want to go to prison.
Note that is all about the messaging – billionaires supporting the fight to save the world from climate change.
And I am so pleased that she has decided that the US has enough money to support the GND. I’d sure love to see her data and calculations that support such a conclusion.
Calculations?? Ha ha ha. From the ‘don’t give them any ideas” department – Pointing a $5 calculator at a warmist will soon be a hate crime punishable by 5 years in jail. Tack on another 3 if you switch it on first.
So let me ponder this for a moment……If she doesn’t need the billionaires money, as there is sufficient money in the US anyway – then all of THAT money will and can only come from the ‘average’ tax payer – who it may be argued, is already footing the majority of the cost of the government(s) already.
Hmmm…so, take MORE money off of those already paying more than their fair share….yep, sounds about right to me….if I were communist or socialist minded.
NO sarc intended – dead serious!!!
Most of us agree that too much power concentrated in hands of government officials is a bad thing. Dictators…tyrants…kings…Deep State bureaucrats…etc.
Too much concentrated power is risky even in the hands of individuals. Guys like Bloomberg, Steyer, Soros, Koch Brothers, Besos, Big Data and the like have the power to influence public policy and they use it. That power is illegitimate. This illegitimate power is a threat to individual freedom.
I’m libertarian, and don’t like the government getting involved in too many things. I’m also not too keen on super wealthy individuals affecting my life in ways I don’t like by their power and influence.
There are political insiders that believe that Big Data’s current and ongoing online targeted censorship of conservative voices could swing the 2020 elections. That may not happen, but it won’t be for lack of trying. (I hope this censorship backfires like it should)
Getting this concentrated money and power out of politics is something those on the right and left could agree on. It’ll never happen because it is the life’s blood of all politicians.
Similarly (speaking of illegitimate power), the MSM provides the Democrats with $Billions worth each year in free advertising by their 90% Leftist biased reporting and outright non-stop propaganda. They get around Campaign Contribution Limit regulations on the basis that they are journalists. They are propagandists…without this huge “advertising” advantage, the Democratic Party would not have very much power.
The problem is not with wealthy people, it is with government having too much power.
A weak government isn’t worth buying, no matter how much money you have.
“without this huge “advertising” advantage, the Democratic Party would not have very much power.”
I agree. Without the MSM the Democrats would be an also-ran, since they have nothing to offer but hate and fear and divisiveness and lunatic spending schemes. Of course, the MSM has a lot of help from the Entertainment Media and their leftwing propaganda efforts, and from the nations teachers and their leftwing propaganda efforts.
The Democrats have almost absolute control of society’s means of mass communications so should be doing a lot better but instead Trump got elected, so propaganda may not be enough to get the Democrats to the top. I suppose we must include the influence of the internet in all this in moderating the leftwing propaganda. A free internet is a bulwark against the brainwashing.
And since Trump was elected the MSM has taken a huge credibility hit from all the lies they have been spreading for the last two years about Trump, with many people now saying they consider the lies of the MSM to be a greater danger than climate change or terrorism.
And they are absolutely right! A People cannot govern themselves properly based on lies and leftwing lies are all we get out of the MSM. They have created a false leftwing reality in which they live, and want everyone else to live, that is detrimental to the future of the nation and the world. They are delusional and they are trying to spread their delusions to all of us, and they have the means to do so, yet they are failing, at least with a majority of people up to this point.
The election of 2020 will show us where everything stands.
Which is why citizen’s united Supreme Court ruling was critical. Previously, Bloomberg as an individual could buy as much adverts as he wanted. But, if 2 of us pool our resources we are corporation under the law and were limited by campaign finance laws. Meanwhile, Unions were exempted from the limits. Why do you think the liberals screamed so loud about it. It wasn’t because they were afraid of large companies money, they know how to control them.
“…We don’t need their money to fund the Green New Deal – the US has more than enough for that…”
LOL
Why do so many of these pseudo lefties always want to be corrupted by the fruits of capitalism and the free market? No more impure thoughts and out of the movement with these fifth columnists I say! Only then can the true workers paradise be fashioned by those left.
No pseudo here, Observa, these are still true Lefties.
Remember that while they are trying to build a ‘Worker’s Paradise’ very very few of them are actually workers. Maybe back sometime in the 19th century, but these days understand the concept that if they work better then they deserve to get paid better is understood by most ‘workers’. This is why the average tradie makes more than you.
Lefties rarely work. Lefties instead believe they belong to the educated elite who ‘Knows Best’ and want to reform the unfair world into a better one… one where they of course are in charge as sorts of community organisers making everything better.
Of course being a community organiser is hard work, so they only expect a few nice things as a reward. The workers of course can also have some nice things… once they have reached their quotas.
The problem is that Lefties don’t really understand where wealth comes from. They believe it exists and it is the evil selfish Rights that have stolen it from everyone else. A Right understands that wealth is created. If you want it, you have to make it. If you stop making it, then it starts to go away. (for those playing at home, name a South American country starting with V….).
“Manual Labor? Didn’t he march with Cesar Chavez?” is a true lefty attitude.
Leftists believe that their labor is worth more than they are being paid. Which is proof that capitalism doesn’t work, therefore they need to be in charge to make things right. (Especially for themselves.)
“buying off politicians and lobbying for their pet causes – namely, to let them keep doing more of the same.”
I guess even a clueless journalist in a lefty straight-jacket gets some things right. Bloomberg and fellow Champagne Socialists who benefited from the enabling political economy of the most productive nation on earth are the most treasoness vermin on earth. Nothing wrong with inventive, hardworking risk takers becoming billionaires. They have created manifold wealth that has been spread among 100s of millions of people. But to then grow their wealth once they have it by investment in politicians to create programs that double and redouble their wealth at the expense of ordinary folk is traitorous and evil.
All these billionaire “charities” are so dishonest and indecently profitable, the government should review their status and send them giant tax bills and even consider charging them under RICO or sedition. When Hillary released her income tax statements, what flabbergasted me was a lady bureaucrat with no productive employment whose taxable income was over 100 million a year! WUWT??
Probably. Same noises from same empty vessels though.
“…We don’t need their money to fund the Green New Deal – the US has more than enough for that…”
True, the US has more than enough for that but the assertion presumes that all the US money is ‘owned’ by the government and can be spent however the ‘government’ wants. Invalid assumption!
Wealth is created by me and thousands of others who sell things/services people want. I depend absolutely on the ability to ‘own’ a thing and the freedom to sell it (or not) as I see fit.
The wealth does NOT belong to the government, it is yours – mine – ours!
Yeah they don’t get that, they think they are entitled to a portion of the worlds wealth because their sad sorry butt was born. The rest of us normal folk would say you are entitled to have the ability to prosper beyond that you get what you earn.
“Feeding them just encourages them to demand more, and to resent the money they have not already received.”
And resent the money they already have been given.
The Guardian has become the equivalent of the Beano for the Left Wing. It is a publication for children that should be avoided by adults.
Reporting its latest lunacy article only gives it publicity. It lost its prime function a few years back when wrapping fish and chips in actual news paper, was banned. The other use the Guardian had was for lighting coal fires in the grate, that need also went away. Other that providing a place for barmy journalists to hang out, it is difficult to see what it is useful for or why is even exists?
The thing about those eye watering IT rates were that nobody actually paid them…
https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
We had rates up to 98% in the UK which resulted in widespread avoidance…
http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/history-of-tax-havens
which continues to the current century..
https://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=1731
Onre of the results was the so called “Brain Drain….
About half of what that bimbo said is true: mega-billionaires really don’t need all that money, but – they have to feed their silly, useless egos somehow. (Just as a note, Fed Ex has dumped Amazon. Bezos now has to find a new transporter.)
But there’s this: Kate Aronoff is a writing fellow at In These Times. She covers elections and the politics of climate change. – Grauniad
So she has away to make a living but compared to Mikey “the meddler” Bloomberg, it’s a pittance. Maybe she could get him to send her a check for her birthday or something. It must be just awful watching some directionless dork like Mikey B. give away his cash as a bribe to let him meddle in the affairs of the peasantry, when she could be spending that 1/2 billion on clothes from Lord & Taylor and Versace.
Miss Kate clearly has to schedule a priority-adjustment session with Mr. Mike, Sara. 🙂
I wouldn’t have a problem with billionaires using their money to try to convince the public on some issue by using advertising and explaining the issues, but I have a big problem with billionaires going behind the back of citizens and using their money to influence public policy without the public’s consent.
We need full disclosure on all billionaires public policy expenditures. We need to know if and/or who they are bribing and for what purpose. Buying your own prosecuting attorney in a state Attorney General’s office for a personal political agenda, using them to sue your political/policy opponents, should be at the top of the list.
I am in complete agreement with this author…We should take most of the money away from rich progressives who support AGW and use it for better purposes… (I get to define rich, so any progressive AGW supporter making more than say $100,000 a year!) (Better purposes = expanding parks, repairing infrastructure, and brewing more wine and beer).
“If that sounds radical, it’s worth remembering that ” no one has any bloody right to tell anyone else how much money they can make, own, or inherit for that matter.
Kate Aronoff is the standard progressive idiot who can’t think past her ideology.
“If that sounds radical, it’s worth remembering that the top marginal tax rate during the time hailed as capitalism’s Golden Age floated somewhere north of 90% in the US”
Nobody paid those high rates.
Until Reagan got it right, investing was predicated on avoiding taxes, nothing else.
Why do such idiots have a platform?
It’s simple: billionaires “fighting” climate change are using climate change to get richer, just as Al Gore has.
There is still opportunity in America. Dammit.
Still waiting for the evidence that any of this is necessary.
What makes Kate Aronoff think that billionaires have a lot of money? Most billionaires are not billionaires based on the amount of money they have but on the amount of voting stock they own. In order to recover money from them, they would have to sell stock to someone with money. They are billionaires on paper, and the disparity in their carbon footprints are not anywhere near as large as the paper wealth disparity. The last thing we want is the government taking and voting the shares instead. You would get true ownership of the means of production then. The government is not good at managing the money it already has. Leave the “money” in the hands of those who have proven they can manage it.
He’s the new Cecil B. DeMille….of climate theatrics.
The Guardian is so in the tank on the global warming fraud . Just feed them any ol BS and they will happily print it . People are already fed up with decades of failed climate doom . Might as well just finish it off .