So we are formal are we… well if that makes you feel better, I shall say “Mr. Tkachuk”. When I ran a company of 42,000 employees, I had them call me Mike. I have met many wealthy people including several billionaires… they always asked to be called by their first name. But as you wish.
As for who the “Billionaires” supported”, I can no longer find my source for that, but here is one on Millionaires and the other one had about the same numbers but slightly fewer Democrats and slightly more undetermined….
“CNBC’s “Millionaire Survey,” which in March surveyed 750 people with $1 million or more in investable assets, found that in a head-to-head contest between Clinton and Trump, 44 percent of millionaires would vote for Clinton in November, compared with 31 percent for Trump.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/11/millionaire-voters-back-hillary-over-trump.html
As for how many politicians become rich selling the poor… let’s start with their success at raising the poor out of poverty over the last 50 years.
The percentage in poverty is a relatively stable number overtime even as spending continues to climb rather dramatically… it goes up during recessions and comes down during recoveries. Matters not very much who is President.
And that is my point, politicians (I did not say Obama) become rich selling the poor on the ability of government to lift them out of poverty… but as the graph shows… government spending per person has steadily increased and poverty levels have remained stubbornly stable.
But the last four Democratic Presidents/Vice Presidents have all become very much richer. I said Democratic, not because they were Democrats, but because the Republican Presidents were already rich when they got elected… so they did not “become” rich as politicians.
Jobs
Trump actually did deliver on jobs… but that was not the point even though today there are more jobs than unemployed and Trump has done a better job at balancing college skilled job growth and blue collar job growth. But this was not the point.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-u-s-has-1-million-more-job-openings-than-unemployed-workers/
So even as a record number of unfilled jobs exist, more jobs than people. Part of the problem is as I stated the poor do not know how to access these jobs. There are plenty of programs out there for them to get training. I have worked with a number of “poor” and helped them to achieve dramatic increases in their income. I do think there is a massive shortage of mentors especially in the inner city.
I spoke with two successful black women on this topic recently. My daughter volunteered to go to one of the poorest inner city areas in Los Angeles to work with young girls and make them aware of opportunities in the various STEM fields. It is clear these young girls need mentors. I asked these black women from the inner city if they mentored… their honest answers were that they “escaped” the inner city and simply had no desire to go back. Fair and honest.
Economic growth and wages
Even as economic growth is back over 3%. Wage growth is slightly favoring lower wage earners over higher wage earners under Trump.
But my point remains the first one… politicians have hardly moved the needle on poverty rates in 50 years after spending trillions on their promise to do so and I believe that is because they can’t. Some benefit, but most stay poor. Back to my premise, the poor don’t know how to escape poverty or do not have the drive. Some can’t, but that number is pretty small, compared to the number that can, but don’t have the drive or the know how. Not a system problem, but an educational one (by that I am not referring to K-12 education).
Trump and Anger
Your claim that Trump harnesses anger better than other Presidents is simply your admission that politicians harness anger and so you are making my argument for me. I really was not making a Republican vs Democratic argument… my argument was simply… politicians use stuff written by people like Umair to get elected…
Broken System and wage rates
Umair claims the system is broken because of capitalism. Silly.
Wage rates are driven short term by labor demand, not productivity. Productivity does however over time allow higher wages to be paid and for companies to remain competitive, but productivity can depress wages if it creates a surplus of workers. But on the general topic of productivity, gains have been poor in the recent decade.
What hurt the middle class wages, especially blue collar wages was globalism. The outsourcing of US jobs to other countries. Companies faced with workers demanding higher wages simply moved their operations off shore.
Trump’s policies especially his tariffs have caused companies to reconsider the fragility of offshore supply chains. But also, the new lower corporate taxes have changed the competitive landscape globally. The rich were happier when they could move their operations off shore easily with no tariffs… it kept workers under control… Trump has introduced the “wild” card… you can’t be sure that he won’t throw a tariff on a product or service that a company moves overseas… the result, there have been a record number of successful strikes under Trump causing workers to get better pay.
Obama’s policies hurt the middle class (especially blue collar workers) with his support of globalization. Obama did help people impacted by government mandated increases in pay, but just as many people got hurt as companies designed new business models using fewer people.
Capitalism
The country is less capitalist today then in the past, so if “the system” were the problem, then it argues that less capitalism is the cause of today’s problems. And yet Umair argues the solution is tear down capitalism even faster. The silly thing is nothing is stopping workers from forming “collectives” or other typical worker based models, if they produce good products at competitive prices people will buy the stuff. And some collectives exist in this country and do just that, but by and large the models don’t work except at the very local level.
And this points to the stupidity of some of Umair’s comments. The problem is not “the system” or capitalism. Any “business” model that can produce high quality and low cost products is legal in this country.
But the pressure on workers is coming not from capitalism but from global competition. It is the cost advantages of Chinese and Mexican workers and the incredible efficiency of logistics that is placing wage pressure on workers. Trump talks “free trade”, but Trump has introduced an important concept to the US… the idea of “fair trade”. Trump is saying we all win, when you buy the same amount from us as we buy from you, so that our workers do not lose their jobs.
Some argue Trump’s policies hurt consumers and to some extent they have a point. But to the extent consumers are workers, then the statement is less true. The middle class does know how to succeed if you define success as having a good life. If you try to base it on where the wealth is collecting in our society then you have to figure out a way to “make the poor and middle class save”.
Wealth
Wealth is savings… there is no evidence for example, that the poor and middle class will save wealth if you redistribute it… most economists believe they will spend it to raise their standards of living resulting in wealth destruction and not wealth redistribution. Wealth destruction is what leads to countries going bankrupt. If a wealthy person put his money under at mattress that would be a waste, but as you say, their wealth is propping up 93% of the capital base of public companies which provide jobs to millions of Americans. It takes capital to create jobs. Some local friends have started businesses as well as my wife and I (though I am fighting to stay mostly retired). It takes money to start a business, if you borrow money from a bank, someone has deposited… If you could figure out how to redistribute wealth, but not allow people to “spend it”, it would be less a problem… but no one really has done that… the government promised to do that with social security taxes… the money would go into a fund… so when you needed it… it would be there… instead there are little pieces of paper in the Social Security Trust fund documenting what the government owes… the money is spent…
Some pension plans do force savings, as does home equity accumulation, whole life insurance, and other vehicles… but I have yet to see a wealth redistribution proposal like Warren’s tax on wealth that insures that wealth is invested by the poor and middle class.
Income redistribution
Income redistribution is not quite as bad as wealth redistribution and we do a great deal of it in this country with nearly 40% of all income passing through government at the Federal, State, and local level. Income redistribution slows down the rate of wealth creation, but generally does not destroy existing wealth.
But Umair simply has never revealed in his writings how the country is going to generate the billions of incremental savings we need each year if we are going to maintain or advance the general standard of living in this country. Short term standards of living are dictated by what you spend, but just like if you use your credit card to fund that standard of living it eventually reverses when you have to pay the piper. It is also true that if someone somewhere is not putting more and more capital into the system, then overall standards of living will stall.
Nepotism
Some people became billionaires because they parents were rich other started out poor. So what? I guess I don’t see the point.
Racist System
Your incarceration statistics are a function of the Clinton criminal bill that Trump has just corrected. Asians came to this country with the same hurdles as others, today they are the wealthiest “race” in America (not just a few Asians). Jews are the second wealthiest “group” in America (not just a few Jews). Jews are also the targets of nearly 50% of religious racism in this country. Turns out a person’s or culture’s values are the key determinant of success. Where culture’s like the Chinese culture with its historic emphasis on civil education or Judaism with its historic emphasis on religious learning are focused at secular success, people in those cultures on average do very well and not just a few of them.
Other cultures be they Irish or African American or Italian or Hispanic have less built in success and rely more on individual values. Ben Carson’s attributes his success to his mother being a maid for the wealthy… his mother noticed that the wealthy read a great deal more than poor inner city African Americans, so she began making him and his brother read like crazy… even though she herself could not read at the time! Both escaped poverty and Ben Carson has done amazingly well. So it helps to be born into culture with values that emphasize education… but it is not necessary…
My wife is an Asian immigrant. We started a business a few years ago (mostly her, as I am largely retired). The business has grown in four years to produce a very good income managing residential rental real estate for investors. My wife has high energy and is very organized and trustworthy, three key personality traits for success. The business is netting a six figure income.
Wealthy Stats
39% is huge! Many simply don’t back anyone… so I think you presume those who don’t back Bernie back conservatives… not the case… as mentioned at the top, when Hillary Clinton had 44%, Trump did not have 56%, he had 31%.
Bernie Sanders
In July of 2015, Sanders declared he would not accept donations from billionaires… but as noted above he does…
Sanders fails to pay his campaign workers $15/hour but claims that is a living wage… so he does thinks his workers should not be able to live?
Bernie is a millionaire… but can’t pay a living wage… Bernie’s tax returns shows he gives 2.26% to charity… generous? I think not…
Bernie is a politician… don’t do as he does… do as he says…
Economic Policies towards the rich
You say they are barely distinguishable… we agree…
You need to study the whole marginal tax rate thing, the media hauls out regarding Eisenhower administration… They were a bit higher, but the whole 90% thing is a crock… what matters is the “effective tax rate” and not the “marginal tax rate”. Again my point, politicians promise but as the table below shows things don’t change…
Here is a bonus chart… based on my study of tax history, people decide how much of GDP they are prepared to pay to the Federal government. So no matter what politicians promise… for nearly 75 years the percent of GDP the Federal government collects in taxes is pretty stable (State and Local tax revenues both climb a lot during the first half of this period, but have likewise flattened). Also the chart below is government receipts, not spending… in recent years even as government receipts have been stable, spending is starting to break out (hence the trillion dollar deficits in the near future).
I see this chart and the one above on the wealthy as evidence, that taxpayers exercise a lot more power over how much they will “agree” to be taxed than people realize… So suggesting one party or one politician is going to change things dramatically is pretty slim… but it can get them elected and on the path to great personal wealth…
Social Security
Social Security is funded by everyone… billionaires contribute about the same amount of money as someone earning $200,000 a year. My point was that this is big tax to the poor worker, a tax to the middle class who contribute most of the money, and a “speed bump” to the rich, so they don’t really get involved in this as a political issue.
Estate Taxes
Okay, I admit I started out as a CPA and hence my point. If you don’t have a family business or farm, that you want to pass on to your family, there are so many ways to do so and avoid estate taxes that they don’t really play a role to many billionaires… others like Gates and Buffet plan to give most of their wealth away before they die and the rest when they die… so its largely a big deal to a small group of billionaires among the billionaire class.
Republicans vs Democrats
My brother started out a McGovern Democrat and campaign worker. He went to Harvard and came out of college quite progressive. After McGovern, he worked on the staff of a Maryland or Delaware Congressmen, I forget which. He half agrees with you and that is why he became a Republican. Republicans as a rule are more consistent (or as you say “nakedly” obvious about their desire to become rich), but he found Democrats far more hypocritical. He struggled with hypocrisy… he went on to be the first Republican Mayor of Jersey City in 75 years and ran twice for governor (tough to do as a Republican in New Jersey and lost both times).
As noted Sanders does take money from billionaires… this article shows how many Progressive Democrats try to play down their rich donors and some like Bernie try to avoid them during the primaries.
https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/kamala-harris-big-donors/
But make no mistake, the DNC on behalf of the eventual Democratic nominee is hitting up billionaires to build up the war chest and whoever runs as the Democratic nominee is going to depend heavily on this war chest.
But the article does point out for a host of reasons the DNC is having a bit of a problem… my guess is the real reason the DNC is having a problem is that polls aside, billionaires want to see who the winner is before they write big checks and want to wring some promises out of that winner.
