Bloomberg: "Congratulations, Bernie, on Being Rich"

[ucrdem]

By Editorial Board
April 11, 2019, 7:00 AM PDT

{snip}

Bernie Sanders has spent his career offering simple slogans to address complex problems: free college, break up the banks, Medicare for All, and more. He has promoted impractical, unaffordable and ineffective projects at the expense of achievable policies that would benefit millions of Americans. And he has done all this while pointing his finger at the easiest of targets: millionaires and billionaires.

Now that he has become one himself, Sanders’s story has become a bit more nuanced. American politics would benefit if his rhetoric and policies became a bit more nuanced, too.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-11/bernie-sanders-a-millionaire-congratulations

[murielm99]

1. American politics would benefit

if he withdrew from the Presidential race and threw his support to one of our many worthy candidates. It is time for him to stop being divisive. It is time for him to go back to the Senate and to work with the Democrats and vote with the Democrats the way we are always hearing he does.

[BlueFlorida]

5. I like this!! nt

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

6. The best way to benefit American politics is for Bernie to keep running ...

keep rising in the polls, win the Democratic nomination, unite the Party, and then go onto defeat the pee-Resident. I'm sure Vermont can vote in another Senate Democrat. Bernie has bigger fish to fry!!


Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[Skidmore]

8. k&r nt

[NurseJackie]

14. Nailed it!

[MrsCoffee]

31. This is exactly what needs to happen.

[Thekaspervote]

33. +1000

[thesquanderer]

2. Why post an opinion piece that simply knocks one of our candidates? (nt)

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

7. Just shows you Bernie is winning, otherwise, why bother?! I take it as a compliment!!

They're feelin the Bern!! Sweeeeet!!


Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[yaesu]

13. MSM will be working hard to pick who runs against tRump & they depend on the misinformed

to help them do it.

[McKim]

3. Too Expensive?

Too expensive says Mr. Bloomberg. We already wasted trillions on war, why doesn’t he say that war is too expensive!!!!!! This is a stupid answer from a man who is way too comfortable!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

10. Bloomberg only wishes he could be even 1/10th as politically relevant as Bernie!!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[thesquanderer]

15. This is not from Mr. Bloomberg, it it from Bloomberg News editorial.

He owns it, but he is not their editorial voice.

(the people who are: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/editorial-board )

[oldsoftie]

19. The reason its too expensive is the same reason others ideas are too;

no one is willing to do whats needed to actually raise the money new programs require. Everyone looks fondly at the European programs most folks love, but that fondness disappears when it comes to also emulating their ways of raising the amount of money needed.
For the 1000th time, taxing the rich more is fine, but it will NOT raise nearly the amounts of money needed.

[Karadeniz]

4. Isn't this income from book sales? Hardly silver spoon, born on third privilege. I don't hold

it against him.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

11. Why would anyone?!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[Blue_true]

16. Bloomberg was not born on third.

He came from a middleclass Massachusetts family and built his wealth over many years.

I don't agree with all of the points that he made. But I do think his point about Bernie making simplistic proposals that are somehow magically supposed to work is on target.

I often see people on DU criticizing business people about a variety of issues. I honestly would like to see those people start a business with their own money, hire and manage employees, obey regulations, ect. I think that the things they think are so simple are not. It is always easier to drive the bus from the first row than it is from the driver's seat. I want people that THINK they know to start and run a business and remain a devout progressive to go ahead and take a shot, the ones that do remain progressive were the real deal all along (spoken like "It was Barzini all along&quot .

[FreeState]

28. Bloomberg didn't write this

It’s written by the editorial board of Bloomberg News.

Here’s the board (which he’s not a part of):
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/editorial-board

[Thekaspervote]

34. Good point!

[MrsCoffee]

32. Who knows? He won't show his taxes.

He certainly doesn’t complain about millionaires anymore. While he attacks liberal allies.

[dogman]

9. The first sentence in the second paragraph is an outright lie.

He does not vilify the individuals, he identifies the top recipients in a system which he vilifies. Unlike the elite, Bernie is not calling taxes evil.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

12. BINGO!!! But they know this... it's not like it's some great mystery!!

It's called "Feelin' the Bern"... gonna need MFA, it's a nasty "third-degree Bern"!!


Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[Blue_true]

17. "Millionaires and billionaires" is a blanket statement.

There are bastards in each group, but there also are serious, community centered people who just also happen to be good at coming up with money making ideas. I agree with Bloomberg.

[dogman]

18. Bernie has been featuring these peole saying they think they are taxed enough.

He is not vilifying any one, he is attacking the system. They are the ones who benefited from gop tax cuts, some like Bernie think those cuts were wrong, others like Bloomberg enjoy them and are afraid of Bernie and his supporters' mindset.

[Blue_true]

20. Actually.

Both Bloomberg and Buffett and Gates have said that their tax rate is too low for their wealth. Corporate taxes are a different matter. The tax code has long (like since it existed) C-Corps to roll 100% of losses forward against future profits almost indefinitely. Individuals and S-Corps don't get that luxury. Take Amazon, one of Bernie's targets. Amazon racked up very large losses until around eight years ago. The company started up in the 90s and had annual multi-billion dollar losses for well more than a decade. Because Amazon was chartered as a C-Corp, it got to role those losses forward to apply against future profits. So their profit can look outrageous, like $11 billion dollars, but if they had $11 billion dollars worth of losses, they pay zero taxes because the many decades long tax code says that they can apply $1 of losses against $1 of profit. If you want to change that you can, but you would be changing something that has existed since corporations were allowed to form. Not S-Corps are different. Anyone that sets up an S-Corp and expects to lose money for a few years is an idiot basically, an S-Corp is desirable for owners that want to pass thru profits in a way that a C-Corp won't easily allow. But if an S-Corp loses money, only part of those losses can be written off against future profits - also, unless the S-Corp owner is a farmer, future profits can't be averaged back into leaner years to provide tax savings. Where an S-Corp makes sense is where an owner has an equipment intensive business that generate very little operating loses, then depreciation of the equipment and structures helps against future profits.

[dogman]

21. And the gop gave them more.

And yes Corporations need to be changed, starting with there person-hood under the law. The other major problem is the skimming these corporations allow. These CEO's are give too large a percentage. This is largely do to crony capitalism that allows them to sit on each others boards.

[Blue_true]

22. You just threw a lot of stuff up against the wall. Let me try to dissect it.

The GOP tax cuts were a giveaway to corporations and the elite rich (which Bernie is not part of), no sane person should argue that it was not. We need to reverse those changes as fast as possible, but that will require a strong majority in the House, a working majority in the Senate and a President who will sign the bill reversing the cuts (everyone in the race has said they would sign such a bill as President).

Personhood of a corporation is a stupid concept that was oked by a rightwing Supreme Court majority. Corporations have no real existence outside of taxing entities. They are a collection of people, but each of those people already have full rights as a citizen (if you look at the ideal interpretation, reality is different).

CEO pay in this country is way out of line to the CEO's impact on the company most of the time. There are CEOs that ARE the company since without them the company would cease to exist. And yes, corporate boards are packed with insiders, lackeys or people that are glad to get paid to be on the board and won't make waves.

But none of that covers why Amazon could legally not pay any taxes on $11 billion of profits. If you forced them to, that is changing the rules midstream.

[dogman]

23. Actually Amazon should be facing anti-trust legislation.

Yes, you can't go back but you can go froward. Elizabeth Warren has laid out proposals for this.

[Blue_true]

24. Explain how Amazon should face anti-Trust legistlation.

They don't force people or companies to sell through them, they don't fix prices, they don't force people to buy on their website or buy their Prime membership. Exactly HOW are they a competition suppressing Trust?

Capitalism can be a brutal place, sometime the person with the best idea and best executed idea simply smash everyone else. Just the way it works, but history has shown that it blows socialism away.

[dogman]

25. The simplest one up front is they compete with their vendors.

They control product placement and acquire the vendors sales data for their own purposes. It's pretty much the Walmart model on steroids. It blows socialism away if you place no value on humanity. No one is calling for an end to capitalism, just a check on the excesses of capitalism.

[Blue_true]

35. Every business competes with their vendors.

Except in cases where the vendor totally supplies raw products. I compete with my vendors because some of our products overlap. The Publix Supermarket chain in my part of the country competes with virtually all of it's vendors, that reality is rampant in retail - which is what Amazon does. Any business that acts as a storefront for another businesses products WILL automatically get demand data, there would be no way that the vendor gets paid properly if that was not the case. Amazon buys out some of it's most successful vendors, there is nothing wrong with that as long as the vendor wants to sell and the buying price is right. A vendor with a hot selling product has sales channels other than Amazon due to the popularity of it's product(s).

[Cha]

26. WOW! That's an Excellent

call out..

Gracias, ucr!

[Cha]

27. WOW! That's an Excellent call out..

Gracias, ucr!

Haha.. sorry about the double post.. It seemed like the first one didn't go through so I posted again.

But, it needs to be said twice!

[democratisphere]

29. I condemn what I are hypocrisy.

[Maru Kitteh]

30. We might have to suffer his rhetoric for a while, but we'll not have to worry about his policies

Because it ain't happenin'