25 bathrooms? Former Clinton labor secretary says Bezos’s mansion helps make case for soaking the rich

Via Marketwatch

Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary in the Clinton administration, was honored by Time magazine as one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the 20th century. He’s a Rhodes scholar, a best-selling author, a documentarian and a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

What he’s not, apparently, is a fan of billionaires clinging tightly to their riches:

That Reich jab at the Amazon AMZN, -0.42% billionaire and world’s richest man went viral this week, picking up 126,000 likes in just a couple of days. It also blew up on Reddit, where Reich was mostly applauded for his take on the wealth tax.

There were some exceptions, however.

“How about this: Jeff Bezos should fire everyone and replace them with machines. The unemployed can then look for other employers, start a business venture of their own or eat dirt,” a Reddit user identified as Prethor wrote in response to the tweet. “It’s easy to be an entitled a—hole, it’s not so easy to create a multibillion-dollar company. Or even a small company.”

On Twitter TWTR, -0.92%  , the feedback often extolled a catch phrase of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign:

Warren, in a effort that Reich clearly supports, has been floating a plan the includes taxing billionaires 6 cents on every dollar of net worth above $1 billion to fund her health-care overhaul.

“If Medicare for All can be financed without any new taxes on the middle class, and instead by asking giant corporations, the wealthy, and the well-connected to pay their fair share, that’s exactly what we should do,” she said.

Meanwhile, as Warren has continued to climb the polls amid a widening of the divide between the rich and poor, there’s a bull market in billionaire bashing.

In a piece on the Outline, Tom Whyman captured the resentment. “Every billionaire is thus more than a simple failure of policy,” he wrote. “Every billionaire is evidence of a basic glitch in the fabric of the moral universe.”

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Iska Waran
Iska Waran

I dislike Bezos as much as anyone, but anyone who thinks a “wealth tax” would only apply to billionaires is drinking crack. There aren’t enough of them. The income tax started off only hitting the top 1% – we see where that went.

starfcker
starfcker

“Warren, in a effort that Reich clearly supports, has been floating a plan the includes taxing billionaires 6 cents on every dollar of net worth above $1 billion.” I’ve got a better idea. How about we tax them 75% on every dollar of wealth above a billion. Then you’ll get some results. And if they try to leave the country, club them to death. I have no time for oligarchs.

nkit

So,treat them like seals? Damn

Glock-N-Load

$$ is a claim on resources. Your labor is a resource.

Remember, there are those who can conjure $$ out of thin air and distribute it any way they like. There are also those who benefit from those who can conjure $$ out of thin air.

KaD
KaD

Soaking the rich never works, they’ll just leave the country. How about we stop paying for illegals and generational welfare first?

Trapped in Portlandia
Trapped in Portlandia

What’s wrong with 25 bathrooms? Would you rather have Bezos piss on this employees.

Oh wait, he already does that.

22winmag - w/o tagline

Robert the 4th Reich?

I wipe my ass with Rhodes Scholars.

Ivan
Ivan

Tax the Rich?

Jail the Bitch

Anonymous
Anonymous

Labor is labor and needs to be compensated in an amount that falls in a fair range for a successful lifestyle . Otherwise they become a drain on the system rather than a supporter of it .
You must note that most manufacturing and warehouse systems labor are on a subsidized transportation bus or train line . Without that nobody shows up on time if at all .
However all are still expected to pay taxes on income and purchases to supply government employees with benefits that now more than ever are completely out of reach for working people . Yet somehow the government employee is entitled to higher wages though none will admit they receive more than a private sector counterpart . Many declare they would do so much better forgetting that when the employer says can’t use you today you go home with nothing and you are not retiring in your mid 50’s .
Since American industry will never be what it was up to the 70’s & 80’s the tax base that covered government is not even a shadow of what it was consequently government now borrows to the moon and back piling debt on an already bankrupt population .
Sorry for your retirement shortage in your benefit plan policeman , fireman , school teacher and all you in bureaucratic positions , guess you will have to make do or get another job you can work till you drop ! What’s that just raise my taxes so you are made whole ?
NO HELL NO FUCK YOU ! Welcome to reality for the majority of Americans who for decades had a take home pay that only did less than half the job and is only getting worse !

Llpoh
Llpoh

Labor is labor, but compensation for it has nothing to do with fair.

Compensation for labor needs to be market driven, and the market determines value. You think we should pay an unskilled incompetent laborer enough to have a successful lifestyle?

Feel free. I will pay them what they are worth, and feast off the carcasses of my competitors that pay them as you suggest.

Anonymous
Anonymous

The fact that an adult working person cannot compete with sweat shop Chinese labor where 14 year old girls are toiling on a sewing machine for 12 or more hours or an illegal in the shadows of contractor payrolls is not market pressure it’s criminal pressure from the circle jerk of Wall Street to K-Street to Capitol Street ! Those are the ones that profit as our nation circles the economic drain .
Take note of the damage to communities schools housing and infrastructure now that the crony capitalist are in control . Sure some do well but far to many do not .
That is the problem , true labor should be paid in relation to skill ability and performance however such is not the case in today’s labor market , everybody is a Dixie cup , use up throw away .
You could be next !

TC
TC

Every candidate is a populist until they win and sit their ass on the throne; then it’s “yes, massa” all the way to the bank. There’s nothing any of these candidates can say anymore that makes me believe any of them.

Jimbo
Jimbo

Robert Reich and Paul Krugman are examples of mindless turds who have never been right about anything. They are actually really smooth operators who know how to bullshit their way to the highest levels of government/academia. They would not last two seconds on the floor of a machine shop.

22winmag - w/o tagline

Machine shops peaked in the 1840s.

Today, a single bright idea is worth an entire machine shop, and for good reason.

Are you closer to the machine shop OR the bright idea?

Think.

Lars
Lars

((Reich)) and ((Krugman)) are themselves rich, privileged vermin sucking the government teat directly and indirectly. They fully support massive government spending, debt money, and perpetual inflation.

If they’re so interested in taxing the net worth of billionaires, why don’t they start pointing their fingers at the plethora of toxic billionaires from their own tribe, making their fortunes in gambling, drugs, pornography, degerate entertainment, mass media, and currency exchange and commodities futures manipulations. Start with ((George Soros)).

And, FWIW, Market Watch’s claim in the above article that Bezos is the world’s richest man is a typical distraction from the actual ((controllers)). Rich though they are, the wealth and political power of non-jewish tycoons like Bezos or Buffet pale in comparison to those of the clans who run the banking cartel, such as the ((Rothschilds)) or ((Warburgs)), whose vast wordwide assets are by legal design so structured and internationalized as to be inauditable and essentially immune to serious taxation.

yahsure
yahsure

That article fits with would-be socialist who votes Democrat. Eight years of Obama’s race and class warfare crap was too much for me. Anyone who works will get taxed. so who would actually believe this stuff?

TampaRed

nationally,warren has fallen back behind biden again by a good margin though she is leading in iowa & new hampshire–
i saw a headline today that said wall street has quit donating to the dems until warren is replaced–let’s hope they also don’t give to lower ballot candidates —
as to taxing billionaires ,iska is correct,it will hit everyone eventually,plus we should not single out any group–
however,i will add that many of these people have made their $ in an artificial market that the average guy cannot really play in–
back to iowa–buttplug is currently in 2nd place there–
why do we tolerate iowa & new hampshire having such an outsized influence on the potus race?

Anonymous
Anonymous

Everywhere is
Freaks and hairies
Dykes and fairies
Tell me, where is sanity?

Tax the rich
Feed the poor
Till there are no
Rich no more

TampaRed

good choice–

Suds
Suds

Red, the Buttplug reference to Peter cracked me a smile.

I caught this one off Chief Nosewetter’s website.

My title for it, in a Caption This exercise is:
Meanwhile, at a Texas Hold ‘Em game out in San Franshitsco,
comment image

TampaRed

ouch

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