Do billionaires have a right to exist? - by ROBERT REICH

Found here. Our comments in bold.
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Dr. Reich has already discussed this, but we suppose it's time to recycle this talking point. 

Can you imagine? What sort of person would ask if someone has a right to exist? Besides the sheer hutzpah of this is the idea behind it: There should be an entity with the power to decide things about people. In this case it is wealth, but of course there is no limit to the power of an entity that has the power to decide wealth.

We find it astounding that anyone would presume to dictate how much money a person is allowed to keep. This is a feature of dictatorships and tyrannies. Yet Dr. Reich wants government to simply confiscate a person's money at whim. 

What Dr. Reich does not seem to realize is that a government that can go after billionaires' money can go after his $5 million too. 

That is the Agenda, the overthrow of the system. Make everyone equal by taking away the money of the rich. Government needs that money to fund more programs. In fact, it wants it all, no limits. 

Dr. Reich's title is somewhat of a misdirection, since he isn't going to be discussing the execution of billionaires via firing squad or lethal injection. At least this is what we hope. No, he wants government to target billionaires' excessive money. Maybe the spilling of blood might be necessary if other means do not work, but that has never stopped a Marxist.

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UAW president Shawn Fain says no. Here's why he's right.

Friends,

Last night, United Auto Workers officials alerted local union leaders that the UAW has a tentative deal with Ford to end the strike against the automaker.

The UAW’s battle against the Big Three carmakers has centered on wages and the widening gap between the compensation of the automaker’s top executives and the wages of their average workers. Hopefully, the strike is about to lift the wages of autoworkers significantly.

But Shawn Fain, UAW president, has an even larger vision for where America should be heading. “Billionaires in my opinion don’t have a right to exist,” he says.

What Fain is getting at is that if American capitalism was working as it should, it wouldn’t be producing billionaires — especially when the typical worker’s wages have been nearly stagnant for three decades when adjusted for inflation.

He’s correct. (Let's see if Dr. Reich will discuss the benefits of no billionaires. Hint: He won't.)

There are basically only five ways to accumulate a billion dollars and none of them has a legitimate role in free market capitalism. (This of course is false. But we'll let him make his case.)

The first is to exploit a monopoly.

Jamie Dimon is worth $1.6 billion. (Oops. Dr. Reich dishonestly starts out with a fall guy and projects that out as if it was the norm.)

That’s not because he succeeded in the free market. In 2008, the government bailed out JPMorgan and other giant Wall Street banks because it considered them “too big to fail.” (Does not Dr. Reich understand that the Big Government interventionism for which he advocates is the cause of the problem? Is he really this clueless?)

That bailout created a hidden, government-provided insurance policy for the biggest banks, still in effect, with an estimated value to the banks of $34.1 billion a year. If JPMorgan weren’t so big and hadn’t received that hidden insurance, Dimon would be worth far less than $1.6 billion.

What about America’s much-vaunted entrepreneurs, such as Jeff Bezos, now worth $114 billion? You might say Bezos deserves this because he founded and built Amazon. (Dr. Reich will not refute this, but will immediately divert.)

But Amazon is a monopolist. (Here's the diversion. Rather than discussing the history and development of Amazon Dr. Reich jumps forward to when Amazon was already big and successful. That is, it started small grew to billion dollar plus value before Dr. Reich's accusation comes to bear. Bezos was already a billionaire!

"The company began selling music and videos in 1998, at which time it began operations internationally by acquiring online sellers of books in United Kingdom and Germany. The following year, the organization also sold video games, consumer electronics, home-improvement items, software, games, and toys in addition to other items."

Further, Bezos himself started from nothing in life:. "

While Bezos was in high school, he worked at McDonald's as a short-order line cook during the breakfast shift. He attended the Student Science Training Program at the University of Florida. He was high school valedictorian, a National Merit Scholar, and a Silver Knight Award winner in 1982. In 1986, he graduated from Princeton University with a 4.2 grade point average and Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and computer science..."

Bezos worked at McDonald's! Here is a obviously smart guy, a self-made man who had an idea that eventually made him into a billionaire. But Dr. Reich, who has created nothing, who has never worked in the private sector, who has never made a payroll or started a business, can't allow this to happen ever again.

Jeff Bezos started off with a small, risky venture that eventually grew into the huge successful company it is today. Along the way it started steamrolling competitors, which of course is ant-capitalist. None of this matters to Dr. Reich, who will continue to insist there is no legitimate way to become a billionaire.)

The federal government (This would be the same fantastic government that bailed out Jamie Dimon, right?)

and 17 states have charged it with abusing its position in the marketplace to inflate prices, overcharge sellers, and stifle competition. To be sure, the case hasn’t yet been decided by the courts, but evidence of Amazon’s monopoly power is significant. 

In addition, Amazon’s business is protected by a slew of patents granted by the U.S. government. (Dr. Reich let's slip some contrary information, which he paints as additional evidence against Amazon. However, it rebuts Dr. Reich that Amazon has innovated to the extent that it earned patents for its work.)

They are very broad and have contributed to Amazon’s market power. (That is one of the benefits of obtaining a patent. Amazon probably spent millions and took years to develop some of these ideas and patented them. Such innovations are worthy of protection, because absent patents a company would never innovate. Such a thing could be stolen or copied, which would mean the cost and time to develop new things would be money down the drain.)

If the government enforced anti-monopoly laws, (50% is not a monopoly.)

and didn’t give Amazon such broad patents, Bezos would be worth far less than $114 billion. (Which of course Dr. Reich cannot know. 

But remember his premise, that no one can legitimately become a billionaire? Dr. Reich has just conceded that Bezos would be worth billions, just not $114 billion.

But more to the point, Dr. Reich conflates Amazon's worth with Bezos' worth. Jeff Bezos and Amazon are not the same thing. Amazon is owned by other people besides Bezos.)

A second way to make a billion is to get insider information unavailable to other investors.

Hedge-fund maven Steven A. Cohen, worth $17.5 billion, headed up a hedge fund in which, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department, insider trading was “substantial, pervasive, and on a scale without known precedent in the hedge fund industry.” Nine of Cohen’s present or former employees pleaded guilty or were convicted. Cohen got off with a fine, changed the name of his firm, and apparently is back at the game. (Sounds like a problem with government.)

Insider trading is endemic in C-suites, too. SEC researchers have found that corporate executives are twice as likely to sell their stock on the days following their own stock buyback announcements — the timing of which they determine — as they are in the days leading up to the announcements. (We'd like to know the stats on Congress's securities activities, since there is much evidence they use the information obtained in hearings and various proceedings to do inside trading.

Hillary's cattle futures, anyone? And of course, Dr. Reich worked in the Clinton Whitehouse. Hmm. How much of Dr. Reich's millions have accumulated from his political connections?)

If government cracked down on insider trading, hedge-fund mavens and top corporate executives wouldn’t be raking in nearly as much. (Sounds like a problem with government not dealing with lawbreakers. 

And criminal behavior is a violation of capitalism.)

A third way to make a billion is to buy off politicians.

The Trump tax cut was estimated to save Charles and the late David Koch and their Koch Industries an estimated $850 million to $1.4 billion a year, not even counting their tax savings on profits stored offshore and a shrunken estate tax. The Kochs and their affiliated groups spent some $20 million lobbying for the Trump tax cut, including political donations. Apparently only Republican billionaires benefitted and not Democrat billionaires...)

Not a bad return on their investment. 

If we had tough anti-corruption laws preventing political payoffs like this, the Kochs and other major political donors wouldn’t get the special tax breaks and other government subsidies that have enlarged their fortunes. (Sounds like a government problem. 

At this point we cannot ascertain why Dr. Reich wants to put this corrupt government in charge of the money of billionaires.)

The fourth way to make a billion is to defraud investors.

Adam Neumann (Democrat) conned JPMorgan, SoftBank, and other investors to sink hundreds of millions into WeWork, an office-sharing startup. Neumann used some of the money to buy buildings he leased back to WeWork and to enjoy a lifestyle that included a $60 million private jet. WeWork never made a nickel of profit.

Elizabeth Holmes (Democrat) was convicted of fraud in connection with her blood-testing company, Theranos. Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of crypto-exchange FTX, is now facing federal fraud charges. Oh, and remember a guy named Donald Trump? He’s also now charged with fraud.

At least they were caught. Presumably, if we had tougher anti-fraud laws, more would be caught and we’d have fewer billionaires. (Sounds like a government problem.) 

The fifth way to be a billionaire is to get the money from rich parents or relatives.

About 60 percent of all the wealth in America today is inherited, according to estimates by economist Thomas Piketty and his colleagues. (This is a good thing. Parents own their money and should be able to give it to their kids.)

That’s because, under U.S. tax law — which is itself largely a product of lobbying by the wealthy — the capital gains of one generation are wiped out when those assets are transferred to the next, and the estate tax is so tiny that fewer than 0.2 percent of estates were subject to it last year. (??? Everyone who dies has an estate. The threshold for the estate tax is pretty high, but nearly everyone passes on assets when they die. Government has drawn an arbitrary line at which it will step in and re-tax a dead person's money if it exceeds the threshold.)

If unearned income (all income is earned.)

were treated the same as earned income under the tax code,  (Democrats designed the tax code.)

America’s non-working rich wouldn’t be billionaires. ("Nnn-working?" How exactly does Dr. Reich know that billionaires aren't working? 

And actually, why does Dr. Reich have a problem with anyone not working? There are millions of non-working people on welfare. At least these billionaires are paying their own way.)

And if capital gains weren’t eliminated at death, many heirs wouldn’t be, either.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing against big rewards for entrepreneurs and inventors. (Yes, you are.)

The possibility of making a bundle has elicited innovations that benefit us all.

The question is one of scale. Do entrepreneurs and inventors need the incentive of billions of dollars? (Dr. Reich thinks he knows what people need.)

Wouldn’t, say, a hundred million do? (Dr. Reich's compensation package from Berkley is about $300,000. Wouldn't $75,000 do?

And remember when Dr. Reich told us Amazon has many patents for its innovations? Like maybe hundreds? So what is $100 million, times a hundred patents? 

Oh, that's right. Dr. Reich thinks patents are bad. If there are no patents, where does this $100 million come from, since no company will innovate for a limited return?

Last thing: Why a $100 million? That's sounds like an awful lot of money to us. Nobody should be that rich. Or alternately, if indeed the possible benefit to innovation is $100 million, what prevents an arbitrary government from changing it to $50 million or $10,000? Dr. Reich, if government can pick a number, it can pick any number. 

There's no stopping it from doing anything it wants.

We can play that game ourselves, Dr. Reich. We can draw our arbitrary lines just like you. We can determine for ourselves what might be fair, and it carries no more weight that your scraggly opinion, Dr. Reich.)

The social costs of billionaires is substantial. (The social costs of the poor is substantial. The social costs of Leftists is substantial. The social costs of a lot of things is substantial.)

Billionaires have purchased right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court, (Sigh. No justices were bought. They were duly nominated, evaluated, and voted upon. 

And of course the only bought politicians and appointees Dr. Reich can mention are "right wing" people. There is no need to mention leftists who were bought with Soros backing.)

bought and either destroyed or subverted news organizations (such as the former Twitter), (Musk is not a "right-wing extremist."

And speaking of subverting, why are all the mainstream media marching lockstep with the left wing? Why is it not a problem when organizations like the Girl Scouts are subverted by the Left? Why is it just fine that Anheuser Bush is co-opted by the gay lobby, that Ford donates to Black Lives Matter, and that Ben and Jerry's has always been Left? Is there no criticism from you because you agree with their politics, Dr. Reich?)

and turned their relationships with politicians into patronage troughs. (This gets tiring really quickly. But that's what Leftists like Dr. Reich do. They tell us only part of the story, blame things on bogeymen like "right-wing extremists" while ignoring the same things going on in left wing circles; they pretend that billionaires are all right wing; they want us to believe that government taking peoples' money will solve problems that are not related to those people having money; and they insist that there's something called "the common good" that trumps all other considerations, even though "common good" never gets defined or quantified.)

All of this has undermined the common good.

If capitalism were working as it should, billionaires wouldn’t exist. (Wow. Dr. Reich closes with a howler. He clearly doesn't understand capitalism or how people become rich. Well, actually, he isn't interested in capitalism, or even billionaires. He's just interested in painting a picture of eeevil rich people stomping on poor, defenseless families. This is what all Marxists do.)

Shawn Fain is correct.

What do you think?