Billionaire Bill Gates |
It is extremely destructive and she is very dishonest about the size of the tax in the way she presents it (See: Elizabeth Warren's 2% Wealth Tax is Really More Like a 62% Wealth Tax Over Time).
But billionaires should be the last people to be out front attacking the Warren plan as Leon Cooperman, Bill Gates, Peter Theil, Mark Cuban, Lloyd Blankfein etc. have done.
The optics aren't good, as they say in the political world.
To the masses, it looks like greedy billionaires not wanting to give up a penny to help society, when the case is billionaires are extremely important to a growing economy and we should be setting up an environment where more billionaires are developed.
But the dishonest Warren will just play on the confused understanding of the masses, as she is doing in the below ad she just launched.
What billionaires should be doing is launching a major campaign that counters Warren's attack on them but it shouldn't feature them as talking heads trying to defend themselves.
Quite frankly, they need professional help in launching a counter-attack.
They need to be speaking to free-market economists and sympathetic Madison Ave. types.
Warren's message, because it is a message of hate and destruction, can be destroyed but it must be done the right way.
-RW
UPDATE:
Oh, wonderful, this is going to help.
From CNBC:
Lloyd Blankfein mocks Elizabeth Warren after attack ad: ‘Maybe tribalism is just in her DNA’
I appreciate your criticism of these billionaires but whether they talk or don't talk won't make much difference. Many of these billionaires are guilt-ridden or cronys and even if they hired smart PR and advertising companies the message would ultimately be contradictory and confusing. Besides most of these billionaires are over 60 and I am aware of only one person over 60 who was both youthful and revolutionary in his outlook and that was Ben Franklin. His booklet The Way to Wealth is a classic and his work during the American Revolution speaks for itself (not to mention his scientific accomplishments). But this type of person is very rare. America needs a legion of young people motivated and brave enough to think and DO. Given the shambles we call an education system and a growing culture of entitlement our best hope is through immigration and lots of it.
ReplyDeleteYou are right RW about the need for genuine PR here. But not the conventional reactionary approach. There is just tooo much fodder about what the super rich can do for this society outside the control and corruption of state. What they should do is campaign against the Socialists and re-educate the masses about what capitalism really is and why they should want it back.
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