November 3, 2020

"From March to June 2020, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, which has endorsed Biden and skewed coverage in his direction, saw his wealth rise by an estimated $48 billion to an estimated $183 billion, making him easily the world’s richest man."

From "Elite Democrats could destroy the middle class if Biden wins in 2020" by Joel Kotkin (NY Post).
If these Democrats win both houses of Congress as well as the White House, things could get far worse for the already beleaguered middle class, which has been rocked by the pandemic, with an estimated 100,000 small firms going out of business. Particularly hard-hit by the recent urban unrest are inner city and minority businesses.

32 comments:

BUMBLE BEE said...

Why the LOCKDOWN you ask? How does follow the money apply?

tim in vermont said...

Biden’s first promise is to repeal taxes that Trump put on the rich. Because wealthy blue states were shifting their tax burden to less wealthy red state taxpayers when the federal government was subsidizing high blue state taxes.

MayBee said...

Interesting that the pandemic has been so good for Bezos. What would another shutdown do? I think make him even richer!

rehajm said...

Money doesn't buy elections. Maybe in some local race. We'd be choosing between President Hillary and some other leftie shill if it did...

MayBee said...

Particularly hard-hit by the recent urban unrest are inner city and minority businesses.

This has been completely ignored by the Dem and Media powers that be. They don't care!!!

MountainMan said...

Kotkin has had several good articles on this topic in the past few months. He also recently published a book, The Coming Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class.

MountainMan said...

America's Drift Toward Feudalism

wendybar said...

Exactly what they are hoping for.

Darrell said...

I hope he didn't forget about the $6 million he owes me.

Sebastian said...

"Particularly hard-hit by the recent urban unrest are inner city and minority businesses."

Imagine that, leftist violence increasing inequality.

Birkel said...

The goal is not to destroy the middle class.
That is but a happy coincidence for the power-hungry Democraticals.

The goal is power over others.

Jeff Vader said...

When did the NYPost become the voice of reason?

Renee said...

When Trump won, I thought the Democrats would finally get the message and humble themselves, but they didn't. Does your average Democrat even notice that the type of Republicans that are supporting Biden, were the 'elites' of their party. Other than two cultural war issues of abortion and gay marriage (the two lobbies that heavily funded the DNC) what do Democrats really offer in anything.

Trump is offering true economic investment in poorer/minority communities, not just another social program. What have the Democrats offered in terms of BLM, when they have ignore Sen Tim Scott's police reform bill for over five years?

Despite the culture wars, that seem to be the feel good niche for the white affluent suburban voters, they don't seem to care how their policies have such an ill effect on distressed communities. They just think social workers/programs are the answer to everything.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/11/01/broken-families-must-be-part-of-the-blm-debate/


"But largely missing from this important conversation about race has been any discussion of brokenness within the Black community. Regardless of the cause, it is an undeniable reality that broken families and fatherless homes contribute to higher rates of crime and substance abuse among Black Americans. While all Americans have an obligation to acknowledge the sins of America's past and work towards healing the inequities in our society, Black Americans have unique responsibility to one another - to help rebuild our communities and break the cycle of crime and addiction."

BarrySanders20 said...

And his now ex-wife got half his money not so long ago. It's good to BeZos.

Sally327 said...

Bezos may be richer than Croesus* but he's still an odd looking dude.

*The expression, "richer than Croesus" came to me when I read this post but I don't actually know who that is or where the expression came from. I decided to emulate Althouse, who lets her curiosity about words and phrases carry her into explorations, which she then share with us and we all become richer with enlightenment. Turns out Croesus was a King of ancient Greece who was richer than Jeff Bezos but was eventually defeated by the Persian King, Cyrus the Great.



DavidUW said...

A modest proposal for the next tax reform bill:

Borrowing against your equity in a business, IF NOT reinvested in that business, is taxable income.

That would finally make "billionaires" pay their "fair share"

Zuck would have had to pay $400M+ in fed and state taxes on the $750M he borrowed against his FB shares to buy his houses and UCSF General.

mikee said...

When the Dems lose this election, I propose we tell them to think about why we hate them, and to try fixing that.

John henry said...



 tim in vermont said...

Biden’s first promise is to repeal taxes that Trump put on the rich. Because wealthy blue states were shifting their tax burden to less wealthy red state taxpayers when the federal government was subsidizing high blue state taxes.

Thanks for pointing that out again, Tim. I and a few others have pointed out that PDJT is the first president ever, to tax wealth. Albeit in a limited (real estate value mainly) and indirect way.

Biden increases Bezos'taxes to 100%? He pays about $89,000 in tax. Pdjt decreases them to 0%? He pays $0.

How much do you think $89,000 matters to Bezos one way or another?

The us constitution forbids taxation of Bezos' 180 billion. What does he care how much they tax his income?

John Henry

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

destroying the middle class gets us further down the road to socialism.
Not just Euro socialism - but South American Socialism. The corrupt version.





narciso said...

actually klaus schwab makes it very clear, it is about destroying the middle class, creating a class of serfs,

Temujin said...

The thing about Joel Kotkin is that, while he tends to lean right, he is an urban studies professor, a geographer. He looks at the big picture based on demographics, data, actual empirical evidence. He's worth reading and often very enlightening.

JAORE said...

Richer than the dreams of Averise.

D.D. Driver said...

Ladies and Gentlemen: you tax dollars at work. One of the unintended consequence of handing of $1,200 Trump Checks is that people turned around and gave that money to Jeff Bezo.

Birkel said...

Is it any wonder the WaPo supports lockdowns?

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Birkel said...

The goal is not to destroy the middle class.
That is but a happy coincidence for the power-hungry Democraticals.

The goal is power over others.


Exactly! The goal is to accumulate wealth and create a hereditary aristocracy. That way their dim-bulb kids won't actually have to rely on brains or ability to maintain the lifestyle they've become accustomed to.

John henry said...

I should also point out that how much profit Amazon makes and thus how much tax they pay us largely a political/pr decision on Amazon's part.

They keep profits low to avoid taxes. But they do have some profit to avoid bad press and pissing off politicians.

All quite legally, of course.

John Henry

tim in vermont said...

Look at this chart: https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1323478717218377728

Achilles said...

MayBee said...

Particularly hard-hit by the recent urban unrest are inner city and minority businesses.

This has been completely ignored by the Dem and Media powers that be. They don't care!!!

They do care. The people that own the Democrats like Jeff Bezos get rich killing small businesses.

Everything is the battle between the .00001% vs. the 1%.

The driver of wealth in the US is the 1%. Freedom allows the 1% to lift everyone out of poverty.

The .0001% has been trying to take back their serfs since the founding of the country.

tim in vermont said...

Bezos is a middle class guy squeaking by on his $89K annual salary, plus some nice investments, just like anybody else.

CJ said...

So Bezos buys the WaPo for $250 million when he's worth $183 billion, notionally to be sure ... but that is pretty much the equivalent of the average citizen finding some change under the cushions of the couch. The WaPo is neither an information service nor a business. It's more like a corporate newsletter. Just another tentacle of oligarchy.

Bilwick said...

As either Albert Jay Nock or H. L. Mencken (I think it was Nock, but I could be wrong) wrote decades ago, "The capitalist class doesn't want a government that will leave them alone. They want a government they can use."

Earnest Prole said...

As Democrats increasingly become the party of wealthy urban elites and Republicans become the party of poor rural deplorables, their positions on middle-class taxation will switch. That reversal has already begun, but for now there’s a strong incentive for elites in both parties to lie about it, which is why you have to rely on an old-left publication like The Nation to spill the beans. ‘Middle-Class Joe’ Doesn’t Understand the Middle Class Joe Biden has a preposterous definition of the middle class that as president would hamper his ability to enact smart policies:

“Bill and Hillary Clinton and Obama used the same cutoff for middle-class tax protection: those who earn $250,000 a year or less. It’s a preposterous definition of the middle class. But Biden has seen their $250,000 bid and nearly doubled it.

“‘Nobody making under 400,000 bucks would have their taxes raised, period, bingo,’ he told CNBC in May, repeating the promise in August on ABC. His campaign is so dedicated to this pledge that his economic advisers gave Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post detailed workarounds that would result in, they say, no new taxes for anyone earning $400,000 or less.

“Certainly the middle class has always been an amorphous idea. But it should at least nominally refer to the middle of the country’s income distribution. And $400,000 ain’t it. According to the most recent census data, median annual household income in the United States is $68,703. Even with an expansive view of how much income on either side of that mark could still qualify as middle class, it’s impossible to see how a figure nearly six times the median would count. Rather, $400,000 a year lands a household easily in the richest 5 percent.”