Dear god, Dr K has been an emotional lifeline for me for so long. Giving intelligent and powerful pushback to the powerful and clueless without reporting to hyperbole or 4 letter words
Yes, thinking about history and Heather Cox Richardson as well as Krugman's comment about "billionaire brain" there is a wonderful example of this "brain" in a documentary about Theodore Roosevelt on Netflix where he brings in the union reps and the mine owners and has a stenographer record what they say. One seemed to not know that it might not look good to go on the record and declare his wealth and status and power as intended by God, as a reason not to negotiate with the working class. He had been so insulated in the bubble of wealth and privilege that he thought this was a normal thing to say and assume. TR released it to the press.
Bezos is up Trump's derriere turning the WA. Post into a rag. The once great Los Angeles Times no longer publishes editorials at all, just op-ed. Their owner, Big Pharma $Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong doesn't want to offend the Emperor.
NYT is now pretty much the major bastion of investigative journalism and entangled in dueling lawsuits with Trump. I followed Dr. Krugman there for years and think they parted ways because they wanted Paul to tone it down. Here he's the unvarnished Paul Krugman and much appreciated.
I wrote the NYT and said that graphs showing that inflation was simply global that Krugman was highlighting be posted on the front page. This could have helped turn public sentiment and highlighted reality and helped Dems win. They never acted as if economics should be front and center or dead center front page, and yet that is what people actually vote on. They have perhaps a bit of "liberal journalism brain" where they assume affluent liberals like themselves are most people and that people only care about social programs and reforms, not economics. But these issues are not only related and intertwined, but economics is often the #1 voting issue.
I wouldn't say these wealthy mouthpieces are clueless. They are arguing from vested interests, peddling their lies - "job creators" and trickle down trickery in its many forms - to the clueless mugs who vote for them.
Absolutely true. “Trickle-down economics,” which became a big Republican push point in the 1980s, is – and always has been – a lie. It doesn’t work and it’s clear that, since Reagan, all that Republicans care about is the rich getting richer, at the expense of the rest of us – and our democracy.
So shouldn’t “making America great again” include returning to the levels of taxation on the rich of the 1950s?
Warren Buffett said that higher taxes on the wealthy would not reduce his incentive to work or invest, famously commenting to ABC News in 2012: “[Raising taxes] will not change my behavior. I have paid all different kinds of rates and I've always been interested in making money.”
Note that Bezos also just said insane things about Trump like: "I think he's a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term."
It's even worse than that because, along with the "trickle down" lie, St. Reagan deregulated everything, allowing for "innovations" in snake oil sales. On top of that, he quietly started "privatizing" government functions.
It was twenty years after the fact that I found out prisons were being operated by private contractors.
And now, under Der Orange Führer, the malfeasance juggernaut roars on unabated, even accelerating exponentially.
All that privatizing has made it even harder to reduce government spending because the contractors pay big buck to pols who will protect their golden eggs.
It's still the only thing Republicans have in their quiver. Engorge the rich and maybe a few droppings will fall off the banquet table for the vassals. Remember the "Laffer Curve?" Turns out the Laff was on us.
This is a byproduct of capitalism. There are customers purchasing goods from these places, otherwise jobs would have been created elsewhere - or not created at all.
Yep, what you said is the essence of capitalism too. With cheap labor, companies can compete on price. If there’s enough buyers for that product at that quality, they make a profit and sustain jobs. Tell me you don’t own anything made in China or Southeast Asia?
Bezos has done 2 good things is his life -- 1) marrying Mackenzie Scott who helped build Amazon and 2) divorcing Mackenzie Scott who has donated over $20 billion to various charitable organizations no questions asked.
His 2nd wife is a gold digger on steroids. Plus, she appears to be as heartless as Bezos. It will be interesting to see how MS's and JB's kids turn out. Hopefully, they have learned more from their mom than their dad.
I find myself wondering what MacKenzie Scott thinks about Bezos now. We all have exes who cause us to ask in hindsight “what was I thinking?”, but Bezos (and Musk, Gates et al) are extreme examples. Of course, the current Bezos may be completely different from the Bezos of 30 years ago, thanks to power (wealth) tending to corrupt, and absolute power corrupting absolutely.
I suspect your last sentence is what actually happened. Not that JB was a saint when he and Mackenzie started to build Amazon. But he became a giant asshole as he got filthy rich.
Re: College kids booing the Google CEO....Why would anyone be surprised by this? Young people are entering a world with limited job prospects, entry-level roles being outsourced to agentic AI, yet are constantly scolded over the fertility crisis sweeping the world.
If people have no hope for the future, a hope that comes with a belief in a stable career / job, they are going to be reticent to have kids. The evidence is clear that people want kids, but are worried about the long-term economic implications of kids...so why would they roundly support something like agentic AI that its proponents promise will take away human agency?
That smirk on his face as a response to their booing said it all to me: shock and embarrassment masked by a smile that isn't a smile, and then a pivot that implies that he had nothing to do with the present crisis. They smelled that mendacity a mile away. Bravo, graduates.
And the dude's speech about how they should learn AI so they can decide how it will be used in the future — no techbro wants to give college grads (or anyone) that kind of say.
Capitalism serves the wealthy and powerful, not the working class. And you wonder why the rich become richer and more powerful while the working class poorer and powerless. Marx was right on some things. But don't let me stop you from voting for your corporate class political parties. You've got nothing to lose but what little is left of your life.
To me, he essentially was scolding them and shaming them. All of it was projection. “You have agency to right the world that I helped create with my agency.”
Also like... enshittification being what it is, why would anyone expect kids who grew up with the modern version of Google to find amazement in the man who runs it?
Or any media site, increasingly. I mean, if you'd brought the CEO of Facebook to talk at my university in 2006 when I was attending, I'd have thought he was the coolest person in the world. The same guy today and it'd be like, oh, yeah, Facebook. That place that's all ads, bots, and political memes trying to piss you off. Even if you don't know or care about all the bad things the company's done, the website itself is just a sewer.
Some want kids and some don't. For the donts it might be financial, concern for a crowded planet, or an unwillingness to parent solo. It's only a crisis in the minds of those who believe that anything not white is a disaster, so to them immigration would be out, and believe that not having a desperate overabundance of people to take what few jobs are left might impact their personnel expense. Besides half the angst about a lower birth rate is really disguised attempts to force women out of the workplace and the universities.
Too bad they’re not marching in the streets. I live in Newark, a college town, where I have helped out with various events protesting Trump Administration policies. Most people attending are over 60, and college kids are missing in action. Complaining in chat rooms ain’t gonna cut it. People have to make some effort to show the powers that be that we want change. Maybe then Democratic leaders would actually grow spines.
For the ultra-wealthy, there are few things more horrifying than having to pay taxes. Many of them will spend tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars to avoid a few million in taxes. As one of them once explained it is far better to pay $1500 in taxes on $100,000 than to pay $20,000 in taxes on $1million. Sure, you end up with more money in the latter equation, but just look at how much bigger the tax bill is!
The super-wealthy of olden times actually felt they had some social obligation to help the country that made their fortunes possible. The super-wealthy of today feel only entitlement--entitlement to keep all their money and to take your money, too, while giving nothing back.
Exactly. And yet, in addition to lower taxes, philanthropy is also way down. It’s like they don’t even have their own hobbies or passions to support anymore. They just want compounds and yachts to avoid the world of peons who actually made/make any of their life situation possible. Where would they be without the company employees and customers? Without the people who build the roads their delivery trucks drive on of maintain the towers or servers for their cloud services? Or the people who power the food system, water system, energy system, on and on that they also rely on for their business(es) and also their personal life? The arrogance and entitlement is truly astounding.
“In truth, Pittsburgh is a smoky, dismal city at her best. At her worst, nothing darker, dingier, or more dispiriting can be imagined.” Herbert Spencer, the great British philosopher, who was brought to Pittsburgh by his admirer Andrew Carnegie, put it more succinctly: “Six months' residence in Pittsburgh would justify suicide.”
There's a reason so many of them live in "supposedly" impenetrable fortresses, like that island off of Florida. They are terrified of what might happen if they encounter an angry citizen. (I say "supposedly" because in the era of drone warfare, I wonder if anything is actually impenetrable. I suppose if they live in underground bunkers, they might be safe. But would start to look like Mole People after a while. 🤣)
I think it’s even worse than that. If you’ve ever watched a wildlife documentary and viewed the behavior of male elk during mating season, you’ll see the males are fixated on each other with no recognition of anything else around them. They just tilt their antlers and shuffle stiff legged at each other. They don’t even know if there are any females around once they’ve seen another male. They’re completely absorbed in a behavior that was supposed to have a an end purpose but they lose the plot. The billionaires are like those elk.
Library toss is the sort of manly exercise of which too many of us have failed to partake in this current age of soft flacidity...if only we could return to the age of really heavy books!
I think you'd have to be pretty selfish, ruthless and unprincipled to amass a billion dollars. It shouldn't be surprising that they are selfish, ruthless and unprincipled about trying to hang onto it.
I would suggest that it's pretty ignorant of a society that allows billionaires to exist in the first place, when they have the power to do something about it.
100% this. Their existence is unconscionable. There is no reason for why this blight is allowed to continue to infest both this country and the world at large.
I am sure it’s out there, but I wish it was far more common for people to visualize taxes in a more tangible way than charts and graphs. Someone should do a visual as a pile of food, here’s what that pile looks like for the top 1% and 10%, middle 50%, and bottom 10% or whatever. If they pay this much in taxes, here’s how that pile now looks. Or do it as bowls/pools of water in a desert. It’s not a perfect analogy, but it would be so much more understandable and impactful for regular folks.
Hence the current orgy of cash for AI. Every CEO in America is having hedonistic fantasies about being able to lay off 90% of the employees at their company. Obviously, laying off a substantial portion of the population would crater the economy and likely destroy their businesses. But who cares about that? The initial waves of layoffs AI would enable would boost stock price through the roof--and any CEO worth his or her salt knows that goosing the stock price is absolutely the most important thing in the world . . . as you sell your options, cash out completely, and retire to your newly acquired private island.
This. An editorial by the CEO of Cloudflare in the WSJ a day or two ago was a perfect example of these fantasies. Not to mention clueless and tonedeaf. (That first paragraph!!) I'll reproduce the first couple of paragraphs (article is behind the WSJ paywall).
"How I Choose Which Cloudflare Employees to Replace With AI; The company has less need for middle managers, operations jobs and other 'measuring' positions.
By Matthew Prince
Two weeks ago I laid off more than 20% of my workforce. I didn't do it because Cloudflare is struggling. We posted record revenue growth, have strong free cash flow and are adding an unprecedented number of customers around the world. I did it because business is changing, and to win the future, Cloudflare needs to change with it.
We haven't found another example in U.S. business history of a public company growing at more than 30% that laid off more than 20% of its workforce. Yet what we did is likely going to become the norm over the next year. This is a story about artificial intelligence, but executives and commentators are misunderstanding how it will disrupt business and who will be affected."
They didn't really, but unions were a lot more powerful back in the day. Corporations were forced to at least pretend they cared, and meaningfully with actual policies, not just lip service.
They never cared about their employees. The purpose of a business is to make sure the CEO has a cushy lifestyle; making a product and employing folks is a cost of doing business.
I think it would be more accurate to say that it used to be in a corporation’s best interest to appear to care about their employees’ best interests and to act accordingly.
It's amazing, isn't it? They'll spend more on tax evasion and avoidance than the actual amount they save in taxes - because they're loath to see even one penny of all their hard stolen wealth helping those at the bottom.
Long ago when I did political consulting, the group I worked for had one particular booster who had cashed out at the top of the dot-com boom. He got something like $97 million as a payout. The tax hit was going to be hefty, but would still leave him with more than $60 million.
You might think $60 million would be more than enough, but no. He was approached by Ernst&Young who had a system that would let him keep most of his money except for the $12 million or so they would charge him for their services. He leaped at the chance and turned his money over to them.
About a year later, the IRS showed up at this door to inform him that the scheme Ernst&Young was using was 100% illegal, and that he was on the hook for the original tax bill plus interest and penalties. Oh, and good luck getting your money back from Ernst&Young!
He ended up with around $5 million. All because $60 million just wasn't enough money for him. (He also ended up with his face on the front page of the Wall Street Journal where his troubles were chronicled.)
Oh they're paying tribute alright, billions just for that ballroom alone for starters. And who knows how much $KingMAGAcoin and $QueenMAGAcoin they've snapped up.
It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion. Adam Smith
Yes. To them, taxes are a waste of their money. "I earned it and I'm keeping all of it". They never stop and think, for example, that their private jets can take off and land because taxes pay for the FAA. Or if they do think about it, they think, "Let someone else pay for that".
Personally, I have sworn off of Amazon after Bezos sold out to the Trump Gang and destroyed my favorite newspaper, the Washington Post. I've read it every morning for 50 years, and commented there thousands of times. Now it is just a shell of its former self. Its old motto, Democracy Dies in Darkness has become a bitter mockery. After documenting over 30,000 lies by Donald Trump during his first term, the only truth one sees there now is accidental: from the robot comment moderators that Bezos hasn't learned how to program.
Exactly what I’ve done. Not to mention I don’t use Google unless I absolutely have to for some reason because someone else needed me too. Not since 2013, when they took the phrase “do no evil” out of their corporate statement.
I use Google maps if I have to but second best is Apple Maps. But I have known people who were entirely misled by Google maps, one couple driving a big RV ended up on top of the mountain unable to turn around because they were following Google maps! And I too use DuckDuckGo for searches!
Well, there's also Mapquest, which I used to use a lot 20 years ago, but I now find it more confusing than Google. You can get messed up with any of them.
As long as you're willing to go without the things that can't be ordered from other places, you can go without Amazon. There are some things I am not willing to forego.
Nevertheless, I have reduced my Amazon use by 90%. Very often, I see something I am looking for on Amazon, and I go find it from someplace else, local business first, directly from the manufacturer second, and from another large e-commerce site third. Only lastly and if I really want it, do I order from Amazon.
If everyone did this, Amazon would have only 10% of its current business, which is about the right size for Amazon. While we can stop giving Bezos billions this way, it is unfortunate we can't claw back what we already gave him.
Better World Books is great too - and incredibly inexpensive with free shipping to Australia which is where I am! great place to get second hand books.
I never used Amazon from the beginning because they were deliberately destroying independent book stores. I would occasionally shop at Whole Foods (a.k.a. Whole Paycheck), but stopped when Bezos bought that company. (We’ll, I continued for a while, until a clerk asked me if I wanted to use my Prime account…)
Thanks. Me too. I’ve not used Amazon at all for the past 20 years, except for the occasional gift for my relatives overseas. It’s really not that hard.
Also, I don’t shop Whole Foods. Part of the Bezos empire. There are better alternatives.
Yep, no Amazon for me since he killed the Harris endorsement in the WaPo. I haven't shopped in Whole Foods in years, but I will never shop there again for sure. Wish I could avoid AWS, but they are behind so many websites that it's just about impossible.
That is as insane as saying “He’s a very thin man.” I may not like CEOs pandering to protect their businesses that rely on government funds but saying clearly false things to do it is nuts and makes Bezos’s judgement look questionable. He could have praised Trump for things like working with China or supporting space initiatives without lying about something that the vast majority of Americans clearly know isn’t true — as Trump’s cratering poll numbers confirm.
They never cared about their employees. The purpose of a business is to make sure the CEO has a cushy lifestyle; making a product and employing folks is a cost of doing business.
I left out: buttering up the president is simply a cost of doing business.
I think Bezos said that about Trump because he’s the only audience Bezos is interested in at this point: he wants government contracts for his rocket company.
Highly unnerving perspective. How is it possible that Amazon only pays a little over 1% taxes on its income? How is that possible? I hope that the next Democratic Administration will be serious about a minimum, actual global tax rate of 20% or more. Likewise, carried interest, deductability of interest paid on loans taken to finance personal consumption, and most other tax exemptions should be eliminated.
So true, Anne. The "True Tax Rate" Distortion: An investigation by ProPublica revealed that during periods of rapid wealth expansion, some of the wealthiest individuals in the country reported annual taxable income amounting to only 0.5% to 1% of their total wealth growth.
"Let me run the numbers Jeff doesn’t want you to run. The nurse pays roughly 16% of her income in federal tax. Bezos, per ProPublica’s leaked filings from 2021, paid a “true tax rate” of about 1% over the long haul, and in some years declared less taxable income than the bloke who manages your local McDonald’s. Nothing has changed since then except his net worth went from $190 billion to $279 billion. The nurse is paying sixteen times the effective rate of the man who owns a yacht so big it has a support yacht. And HE is on television lecturing us about progressive taxation. The brass-bollocked audacity of this prick."
He helpfully provides a Aussie-to-Yank Glossary for American readers:
"brass-bollocked – Possessing testicular fortitude of an industrial-strength metal grade. Used to describe acts of audacity so shameless they require literal hardware in the underpants region to perform. Jeff Bezos lecturing the working class about taxes while sitting on a $7.8 billion tax windfall and 30,000 sacked workers comfortably qualifies."
I ask the political economist and the moralist if they have ever calculated the number of individuals who must be condemned to misery, overwork, demoralization, degradation, rank ignorance, overwhelming misfortune and utter penury in order to produce one rich man. Almeida Garrett
I'd love to hear Paul's recommendations on sane approaches to increasing taxes on the rich and the very rich. Raising federal revenue--to build bridges, schools, daycare centers--without discouraging or depressing entrepreneurialism.
My recommendation is confiscatory taxes on net worth above $100 million. If you can't survive on $100 million, you don't deserve to survive at all. Which, really, is just inverting the philosophy the ultra-wealthy have toward the rest of us.
I still say it is only lack of torches and pitchforks that stand between us and a brighter future scrambling around the interiors of the burned-out mansions to gather up a few scraps from the charred corpses of the noble rich...
Entrepreneurs are motivated by pride, envy, and greed. You could raise taxes on them a huge amount and they'd act pretty much the same. On top of that, a very great deal of wealth will be, and is, hereditary. These are folks who, as Buffet put it, won the sperm lottery. You could tax large inheritances at extremely high rates, with no influence on enterprise.
Taxing small business owners...simply because they are self-employed, and not working for some large corporation, is not a good idea Chris. IF--like Apple or Microsoft--they become massive corporations, then yes, tax them at pre-Reagan levels. But taxing Mom and Pop entrepreneurs extra is just wrong.
Mr Bezos should pay close attention to the experience of Qatar. They gave our president a flying palace and he repaid them with a ruinous war that is strangling their economy. Donald Trump is weakening America and this will cost them and the rest of us way more than the tax cuts he gave them.
The wealthy members of the community [in America] entertain a hearty distaste to the democratic institutions of their country. The populace is at once the object of their scorn and of their fears. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
"I'm sure that many Americans have no idea what the Enlightenment was." And the MAGAts/Christian Nationalists amongst us, if it were explained to them, would be against it.
Thank you, Paul! I loved your assertive communication this morning about "Notably, Amazon, along with Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft is one of the companies".
Those CEOs are all ridiculous, just ask their ex-wives. Seriously. These men althought growing old & ugly, have zero-emotional intelligence and zero-social responsibility. They ought to be hold accountable. Fine. Let them speak, it exposes their comic if not tragic ignorance.
When I was young, we were taught that those who had much were expected to give accordingly. Now it seems the opposite is the norm: those who have much expect to take even more.
Bezos exemplifies this just as Trump does. Somehow they believe they are entitled to remake the world to suit themselves, destroying more than they build. Bezos also made the Washington Post, which broke the Watergate corruption story, a second rate paper. Sad, but somehow in keeping with Trump's and his fourth rate lack of character.
As a few replies have stated, for some people an online option truly is a gift, making life easier. And it can also be difficult to find certain things anywhere except online anymore, even relatively common items, so frustrating! Trying to find an alternate source via the maker’s website often sends one to Amazon or Walmart for purchase. These are not the things or reasons that bother me about people shopping on Amazon.
What grinds my gears are how many people use it frivolously. They order clothes, toys, paper goods, bedding, on and on. Things readily available in a zillion other places, online or brick & mortar, but they want to go to one website, click the mouse one time, have it show up on their doorstep. “So easy.” Half the time, they don’t like it and either send it back or give it away. It’s unbelievable how much Americans consume in overt and covert ways.
I buy a lot of stuff online. Most of it is stuff I can’t get locally. And I haven’t used Amazon in almost a decade, except for one purchase I couldn’t find literally anywhere else. It’s quite possible to live without Amazon, it just requires a little effort to find the alternatives.
It is virtually impossible not to use billionaires’ businesses to order products if I don’t drive. If I don’t want to use Amazon, am I better off using Walmart? Or do I order from Safeway, Lowes, or another big business? If I order from a local business, do I use Lyft or Uber? And not all products are available locally. Our current pyramidal system that has created billionaires has no distributed alternative.
I already do that. And then the shipping is usually done by FedEx or UPS, since it’s the business that chooses the shipper. So more billionaires’ businesses.
FedEx and UPS are both publicly traded, and therefore heavily regulated, companies. In addition, UPS is unionized. These things really do make a difference.
Safeway and Lowe’s are public corporations, they are not billionaire-owned. Unlike, say, Whole Foods and Home Depot (not to mention Walmart), which are much less regulated and funnel all their profits straight into the pocket of a given billionaire. Safeway is also unionized.
These differences may seem small to you but they have real consequences.
Sorry but i am old and rather tired. I use Amazon. I do shop in person when i can but the Home Depot for example is a maze and their online shopping is lousy. Best buy works better. but how do you find plastic inserts for a man's wallet? Or evne handkerchiefs?
You could look at alternatives. For handkerchiefs, even Target (as a publicly traded company) is better than Amazon or Walmart. Nordstroms if you want better quality. For electronics, BH Photo. For pharmacy stuff, Vitacost.
Please don't think advice is always wanted. I said I am old. Hard to walk the floor of a big box store. How old are you? My wife died in January and it is all I can do to keep up.
I tried my best decades ago. Now I am hanging on. And no.... don't give me any advice.
For families, shut ins and for other reasons, sometimes it is difficult not to use Amazon. I deactivated my account, but try to understand that its not so easy for everyone. Amazon made itself omnipresent (is that the term?)
The halogen light over my stove burned out recently. I could've burned $5.00 in gas and spent 45 minutes of my time to go buy one from Lowes. I elected to spend $0.45 at Amazon and get it the next day. So far, that's been the extent of my purchases from Amazon this year.
Hmmm. What is it exactly if you don’t mind telling me. Now you’ve got me intrigued. I’m happy to do a quest for your product, Anything to avoid Amazon!
I am not. It is the same exact reason why people will drive 20 miles to go to Walmart instead of buying from the local stores. Sometimes it's just convenience and sometime it's the pocket, or both. Most of the people can't afford to have principles or ethical concerns. A 200$ savings when it comes to buying a washing machine, for example, it's a good reason to overlook your ethical concerns. And the same applies to pretty much everything. I genuinely don't want to antagonize you but think about everything you do. Are you sure all your actions are in alignment with your principles? I certainly don't chose my flights based on the carbon monoxide emissions.
Classic Krugman — smart, witty, timely, and fearless. Please keep them coming. We need you more every day.
Dear god, Dr K has been an emotional lifeline for me for so long. Giving intelligent and powerful pushback to the powerful and clueless without reporting to hyperbole or 4 letter words
Yes! And Professor Heather Cox Richardson is another!
My first two reads each morning.
Yes, thinking about history and Heather Cox Richardson as well as Krugman's comment about "billionaire brain" there is a wonderful example of this "brain" in a documentary about Theodore Roosevelt on Netflix where he brings in the union reps and the mine owners and has a stenographer record what they say. One seemed to not know that it might not look good to go on the record and declare his wealth and status and power as intended by God, as a reason not to negotiate with the working class. He had been so insulated in the bubble of wealth and privilege that he thought this was a normal thing to say and assume. TR released it to the press.
I enjoyed that documentary too.
Back when the rich actually cared how people would view them as human beings.
Bezos is up Trump's derriere turning the WA. Post into a rag. The once great Los Angeles Times no longer publishes editorials at all, just op-ed. Their owner, Big Pharma $Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong doesn't want to offend the Emperor.
NYT is now pretty much the major bastion of investigative journalism and entangled in dueling lawsuits with Trump. I followed Dr. Krugman there for years and think they parted ways because they wanted Paul to tone it down. Here he's the unvarnished Paul Krugman and much appreciated.
Hmmm … not so much about the NYT. I begged them on several occasions to do a series on exposing P 2025. You never saw that, did you?
I wrote the NYT and said that graphs showing that inflation was simply global that Krugman was highlighting be posted on the front page. This could have helped turn public sentiment and highlighted reality and helped Dems win. They never acted as if economics should be front and center or dead center front page, and yet that is what people actually vote on. They have perhaps a bit of "liberal journalism brain" where they assume affluent liberals like themselves are most people and that people only care about social programs and reforms, not economics. But these issues are not only related and intertwined, but economics is often the #1 voting issue.
And they quote anti abortion fanatics, like they were sane, and never explain the lies.
They’re gradually coming around. But it’s too late now.
There was a biting discussion today with Jamelle Bouie, Michele Cottle and David French, “Has tRump Gone Full Mob Boss”, and they concluded he had.
I wouldn't say these wealthy mouthpieces are clueless. They are arguing from vested interests, peddling their lies - "job creators" and trickle down trickery in its many forms - to the clueless mugs who vote for them.
Absolutely true. “Trickle-down economics,” which became a big Republican push point in the 1980s, is – and always has been – a lie. It doesn’t work and it’s clear that, since Reagan, all that Republicans care about is the rich getting richer, at the expense of the rest of us – and our democracy.
So shouldn’t “making America great again” include returning to the levels of taxation on the rich of the 1950s?
Warren Buffett said that higher taxes on the wealthy would not reduce his incentive to work or invest, famously commenting to ABC News in 2012: “[Raising taxes] will not change my behavior. I have paid all different kinds of rates and I've always been interested in making money.”
Note that Bezos also just said insane things about Trump like: "I think he's a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term."
It's even worse than that because, along with the "trickle down" lie, St. Reagan deregulated everything, allowing for "innovations" in snake oil sales. On top of that, he quietly started "privatizing" government functions.
It was twenty years after the fact that I found out prisons were being operated by private contractors.
And now, under Der Orange Führer, the malfeasance juggernaut roars on unabated, even accelerating exponentially.
All that privatizing has made it even harder to reduce government spending because the contractors pay big buck to pols who will protect their golden eggs.
"Trickle Down" is just another name for "Piss on You."
(I call it Tinkle On Economics.)
It's still the only thing Republicans have in their quiver. Engorge the rich and maybe a few droppings will fall off the banquet table for the vassals. Remember the "Laffer Curve?" Turns out the Laff was on us.
Bezos is completely clueless!
He's not clueless. He's actively working against democracy.
That’s true.
Yeah, "job creators" are creating lots of jobs - in Shanghai, Bangalore and Tijuana.
Yet Another Stupid Fantasy of mine was Congress would make a Job Creators Bill that was based on...the jobs actually created!
Tax break based on [no. of employees] X [median wage of employees]
- not including employees of subcontractors
- median rather than mean to filter out the C-suite salaries
- execs could brag about *real* numbers
That's a great idea ... it'll never happen.
This is a byproduct of capitalism. There are customers purchasing goods from these places, otherwise jobs would have been created elsewhere - or not created at all.
I agree with the first statement, but the real reason is to cut corners on labor costs.
Yep, what you said is the essence of capitalism too. With cheap labor, companies can compete on price. If there’s enough buyers for that product at that quality, they make a profit and sustain jobs. Tell me you don’t own anything made in China or Southeast Asia?
That ostentatious Venice wedding of Bezos was a bad look when Trump and Musk were slashing government spending.
My thought exactly.
Bezos has done 2 good things is his life -- 1) marrying Mackenzie Scott who helped build Amazon and 2) divorcing Mackenzie Scott who has donated over $20 billion to various charitable organizations no questions asked.
His 2nd wife is a gold digger on steroids. Plus, she appears to be as heartless as Bezos. It will be interesting to see how MS's and JB's kids turn out. Hopefully, they have learned more from their mom than their dad.
2nd wife is also about 50% silicone whereas 1st wife appears to be a genuinely real and good person.
I think the second wife was available for purchase on Amazon for $249.95, free shipping with Prime.
Your comment wins my first "Fuckin Right Bro" 5 star rating of the day after reading Krugman.
Thank you.
Coffee time starts now for me.
I think that decimal point is a few places too far to the right.
2nd wife actually looked like a real human before she began her cosmetic enhancements
It makes you wonder, how much did it cost to look like a Lautrec painting?
Kristi Noem looked great before she plasticized her looks.
https://www.facebook.com/hbg100/posts/kristi-noem-before-and-after-plastic-surgery/1511797924284876/
Plastic surgery is a requirement for MAGA females. (I can’t call them “women”; it’s a different species.)
I've never understood the desire to remake oneself into a Stepford female
She looks good if you have double vision like Popeye does.
The other 50% was inserted int Bezos.
I find myself wondering what MacKenzie Scott thinks about Bezos now. We all have exes who cause us to ask in hindsight “what was I thinking?”, but Bezos (and Musk, Gates et al) are extreme examples. Of course, the current Bezos may be completely different from the Bezos of 30 years ago, thanks to power (wealth) tending to corrupt, and absolute power corrupting absolutely.
I suspect your last sentence is what actually happened. Not that JB was a saint when he and Mackenzie started to build Amazon. But he became a giant asshole as he got filthy rich.
It's interesting to consider at ehat point these men went from being ambitious, socially awkward dudes into meglomaniacs
First reason I open Substack
Either PK or Jeff Tiedrich, whichever comes first.
Indeed, it's the very reason I first joined substack. I need my Krugman fix!
😁😁😁
Same!
Agreed. Can we get a 2025 version of the graph?
hear, hear!
Yeah. It reminds me of the old Monty Python Gumby sketches:
I've got a piece of brain stuck...in my head! It hurts...get it out!...get it out!
Classic Krugman always include economics data in graphs. Without them, he is not worthy of a Nobel Prize in Economics.
Krugman is waiting until after the pope reminds Americans to be like Steven — whatever your faith.
God Almighty told him so.
Time for more Depends to stem the flow of trickle down dogma .
Re: College kids booing the Google CEO....Why would anyone be surprised by this? Young people are entering a world with limited job prospects, entry-level roles being outsourced to agentic AI, yet are constantly scolded over the fertility crisis sweeping the world.
If people have no hope for the future, a hope that comes with a belief in a stable career / job, they are going to be reticent to have kids. The evidence is clear that people want kids, but are worried about the long-term economic implications of kids...so why would they roundly support something like agentic AI that its proponents promise will take away human agency?
Shout outs to the students of the University of Arizona!
That smirk on his face as a response to their booing said it all to me: shock and embarrassment masked by a smile that isn't a smile, and then a pivot that implies that he had nothing to do with the present crisis. They smelled that mendacity a mile away. Bravo, graduates.
Yes! Thank you! I noticed that too. It reminds me of the perpetual smirks on Scott Bessent's and Kevin Hasset's smug mugs.
Students in Florida did it, too! https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/12/florida-students-boo-graduation-speaker-ai
I’m old and was booing as I watched the vid! Robert Reich’s Berkley commencement address was much, much better.
And the dude's speech about how they should learn AI so they can decide how it will be used in the future — no techbro wants to give college grads (or anyone) that kind of say.
They're shoving it down our throats and then wondering why we're pissed.
Sounds like the mantra they were chanting not so long ago that everyone should learn coding and be guaranteed a secure career.
How's that working out?
"Hey kids, you should learn AI! That thing we're desperately hoping will have taken your future job by the time you graduate!"
Capitalism serves the wealthy and powerful, not the working class. And you wonder why the rich become richer and more powerful while the working class poorer and powerless. Marx was right on some things. But don't let me stop you from voting for your corporate class political parties. You've got nothing to lose but what little is left of your life.
Freedom is just another word for nothin' left to lose
Nothin', don't mean nothin' hon' if it ain't free, no-no
And feelin' good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues
You know feelin' good was good enough for me
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee
To me, he essentially was scolding them and shaming them. All of it was projection. “You have agency to right the world that I helped create with my agency.”
Just as an aside, the reluctance to have kids does nothing but good for the planet, so there's that.
Also like... enshittification being what it is, why would anyone expect kids who grew up with the modern version of Google to find amazement in the man who runs it?
Or any media site, increasingly. I mean, if you'd brought the CEO of Facebook to talk at my university in 2006 when I was attending, I'd have thought he was the coolest person in the world. The same guy today and it'd be like, oh, yeah, Facebook. That place that's all ads, bots, and political memes trying to piss you off. Even if you don't know or care about all the bad things the company's done, the website itself is just a sewer.
On Facebook: don’t forget the scams that Zuckerberg doesn’t want to pay to weed out.
It's turning out that humans are necessary, and a mix of AI assisting human employees works best. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbh8QteVM5g&t=908s
Some want kids and some don't. For the donts it might be financial, concern for a crowded planet, or an unwillingness to parent solo. It's only a crisis in the minds of those who believe that anything not white is a disaster, so to them immigration would be out, and believe that not having a desperate overabundance of people to take what few jobs are left might impact their personnel expense. Besides half the angst about a lower birth rate is really disguised attempts to force women out of the workplace and the universities.
Fertility crisis? Do we really need more than 10 billion humans? 🤔
I always figured it was like booing the opening band… ;)
Too bad they’re not marching in the streets. I live in Newark, a college town, where I have helped out with various events protesting Trump Administration policies. Most people attending are over 60, and college kids are missing in action. Complaining in chat rooms ain’t gonna cut it. People have to make some effort to show the powers that be that we want change. Maybe then Democratic leaders would actually grow spines.
For the ultra-wealthy, there are few things more horrifying than having to pay taxes. Many of them will spend tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars to avoid a few million in taxes. As one of them once explained it is far better to pay $1500 in taxes on $100,000 than to pay $20,000 in taxes on $1million. Sure, you end up with more money in the latter equation, but just look at how much bigger the tax bill is!
The super-wealthy of olden times actually felt they had some social obligation to help the country that made their fortunes possible. The super-wealthy of today feel only entitlement--entitlement to keep all their money and to take your money, too, while giving nothing back.
And that is the path of destruction.
I would say that SOME of the super wealthy of olden times...
Even Carnegie understood you had to toss the crowd a library or three to keep them happy.
Exactly. And yet, in addition to lower taxes, philanthropy is also way down. It’s like they don’t even have their own hobbies or passions to support anymore. They just want compounds and yachts to avoid the world of peons who actually made/make any of their life situation possible. Where would they be without the company employees and customers? Without the people who build the roads their delivery trucks drive on of maintain the towers or servers for their cloud services? Or the people who power the food system, water system, energy system, on and on that they also rely on for their business(es) and also their personal life? The arrogance and entitlement is truly astounding.
“In truth, Pittsburgh is a smoky, dismal city at her best. At her worst, nothing darker, dingier, or more dispiriting can be imagined.” Herbert Spencer, the great British philosopher, who was brought to Pittsburgh by his admirer Andrew Carnegie, put it more succinctly: “Six months' residence in Pittsburgh would justify suicide.”
There's a reason so many of them live in "supposedly" impenetrable fortresses, like that island off of Florida. They are terrified of what might happen if they encounter an angry citizen. (I say "supposedly" because in the era of drone warfare, I wonder if anything is actually impenetrable. I suppose if they live in underground bunkers, they might be safe. But would start to look like Mole People after a while. 🤣)
Only safe until the cement trucks roll up.
They're incapable of thinking in such terms. In their minds, they're in the business of boosting their company's stock, which includes buybacks.
I think it’s even worse than that. If you’ve ever watched a wildlife documentary and viewed the behavior of male elk during mating season, you’ll see the males are fixated on each other with no recognition of anything else around them. They just tilt their antlers and shuffle stiff legged at each other. They don’t even know if there are any females around once they’ve seen another male. They’re completely absorbed in a behavior that was supposed to have a an end purpose but they lose the plot. The billionaires are like those elk.
And Bezos is trying to sell his yacht.
He thinks THAT will make people like him better.
HA HA Ha ha ha ha ha!
To quote Richard Feynman, "What do you care what other people think?"
I think he just got bored with it. I would certainly be happier with something that didn't require more crew than guests.
Library toss is the sort of manly exercise of which too many of us have failed to partake in this current age of soft flacidity...if only we could return to the age of really heavy books!
I used to heave a heavy tome
Around the house, around my home.
Today, I find with much regret,
I can barely lift this pamphlet.
2 marks irrespective of the jarring re-jiggering of the pronunciation of pamPHLET.
That's why they used to chain the books down back in the old days.
I think you'd have to be pretty selfish, ruthless and unprincipled to amass a billion dollars. It shouldn't be surprising that they are selfish, ruthless and unprincipled about trying to hang onto it.
I would suggest that it's pretty ignorant of a society that allows billionaires to exist in the first place, when they have the power to do something about it.
100% this. Their existence is unconscionable. There is no reason for why this blight is allowed to continue to infest both this country and the world at large.
"A billion dollars is the socioeconomic equivalent of a loose nuke."
- John Rogers
Thank you for this. It makes the situation brutally clear.
Warren Buffett seems to be fairly principled.
I am sure it’s out there, but I wish it was far more common for people to visualize taxes in a more tangible way than charts and graphs. Someone should do a visual as a pile of food, here’s what that pile looks like for the top 1% and 10%, middle 50%, and bottom 10% or whatever. If they pay this much in taxes, here’s how that pile now looks. Or do it as bowls/pools of water in a desert. It’s not a perfect analogy, but it would be so much more understandable and impactful for regular folks.
Corporations also used to care about its employees.
Now the loathe them.
Hence the current orgy of cash for AI. Every CEO in America is having hedonistic fantasies about being able to lay off 90% of the employees at their company. Obviously, laying off a substantial portion of the population would crater the economy and likely destroy their businesses. But who cares about that? The initial waves of layoffs AI would enable would boost stock price through the roof--and any CEO worth his or her salt knows that goosing the stock price is absolutely the most important thing in the world . . . as you sell your options, cash out completely, and retire to your newly acquired private island.
This. An editorial by the CEO of Cloudflare in the WSJ a day or two ago was a perfect example of these fantasies. Not to mention clueless and tonedeaf. (That first paragraph!!) I'll reproduce the first couple of paragraphs (article is behind the WSJ paywall).
"How I Choose Which Cloudflare Employees to Replace With AI; The company has less need for middle managers, operations jobs and other 'measuring' positions.
By Matthew Prince
Two weeks ago I laid off more than 20% of my workforce. I didn't do it because Cloudflare is struggling. We posted record revenue growth, have strong free cash flow and are adding an unprecedented number of customers around the world. I did it because business is changing, and to win the future, Cloudflare needs to change with it.
We haven't found another example in U.S. business history of a public company growing at more than 30% that laid off more than 20% of its workforce. Yet what we did is likely going to become the norm over the next year. This is a story about artificial intelligence, but executives and commentators are misunderstanding how it will disrupt business and who will be affected."
Source: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-i-choose-which-cloudflare-employees-to-replace-with-ai-40a197e5
They didn't really, but unions were a lot more powerful back in the day. Corporations were forced to at least pretend they cared, and meaningfully with actual policies, not just lip service.
It was the era of stakeholder capitalism, with labor and community taken into account. Now it's shareholders only, and quarterly earnings reports
Laissez faire. Winner take all.
They never cared about their employees. The purpose of a business is to make sure the CEO has a cushy lifestyle; making a product and employing folks is a cost of doing business.
Chuck Feeney a billionaire gave all of it away. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/james-bond-of-philanthropy-billionaire-chuck-feeney-secretly-gave-away-his-8-billion-and-died-with-nothing-left/articleshow/131224720.cms
That’s unusual.
I think it would be more accurate to say that it used to be in a corporation’s best interest to appear to care about their employees’ best interests and to act accordingly.
It's amazing, isn't it? They'll spend more on tax evasion and avoidance than the actual amount they save in taxes - because they're loath to see even one penny of all their hard stolen wealth helping those at the bottom.
Long ago when I did political consulting, the group I worked for had one particular booster who had cashed out at the top of the dot-com boom. He got something like $97 million as a payout. The tax hit was going to be hefty, but would still leave him with more than $60 million.
You might think $60 million would be more than enough, but no. He was approached by Ernst&Young who had a system that would let him keep most of his money except for the $12 million or so they would charge him for their services. He leaped at the chance and turned his money over to them.
About a year later, the IRS showed up at this door to inform him that the scheme Ernst&Young was using was 100% illegal, and that he was on the hook for the original tax bill plus interest and penalties. Oh, and good luck getting your money back from Ernst&Young!
He ended up with around $5 million. All because $60 million just wasn't enough money for him. (He also ended up with his face on the front page of the Wall Street Journal where his troubles were chronicled.)
True true Oceania. "Millions for defense; not one nickel for tribute" is another formulation of the principal you describe.
Oh they're paying tribute alright, billions just for that ballroom alone for starters. And who knows how much $KingMAGAcoin and $QueenMAGAcoin they've snapped up.
It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion. Adam Smith
It goes back a long way. The Magna Carta was basically a successful attempt by the wealthy to reduce their taxes.
They do have a responsibility to the society that created the conditions for success. Even if they deny it.
Yes. To them, taxes are a waste of their money. "I earned it and I'm keeping all of it". They never stop and think, for example, that their private jets can take off and land because taxes pay for the FAA. Or if they do think about it, they think, "Let someone else pay for that".
Personally, I have sworn off of Amazon after Bezos sold out to the Trump Gang and destroyed my favorite newspaper, the Washington Post. I've read it every morning for 50 years, and commented there thousands of times. Now it is just a shell of its former self. Its old motto, Democracy Dies in Darkness has become a bitter mockery. After documenting over 30,000 lies by Donald Trump during his first term, the only truth one sees there now is accidental: from the robot comment moderators that Bezos hasn't learned how to program.
Exactly what I’ve done. Not to mention I don’t use Google unless I absolutely have to for some reason because someone else needed me too. Not since 2013, when they took the phrase “do no evil” out of their corporate statement.
I use Google maps. For everything else, I use Duck, Duck, Go.
I use Google maps if I have to but second best is Apple Maps. But I have known people who were entirely misled by Google maps, one couple driving a big RV ended up on top of the mountain unable to turn around because they were following Google maps! And I too use DuckDuckGo for searches!
Well, there's also Mapquest, which I used to use a lot 20 years ago, but I now find it more confusing than Google. You can get messed up with any of them.
Hah, I don't use Google, either unless I absolutely have to. Unfortunately have an Android phone so they know more about me than I would like.
It's possible to live without using Amazon. More people should try doing so.
I recently ordered online from a small garden business, and received the order in less than a week.
Bookshop.org is another online business to support instead of Bezos' behemoth
For books, you can also try Alibris.com. It ships from bookstores all across the country and is a great source for books that are out of print.
ABE is another good vendor.
As long as you're willing to go without the things that can't be ordered from other places, you can go without Amazon. There are some things I am not willing to forego.
Nevertheless, I have reduced my Amazon use by 90%. Very often, I see something I am looking for on Amazon, and I go find it from someplace else, local business first, directly from the manufacturer second, and from another large e-commerce site third. Only lastly and if I really want it, do I order from Amazon.
If everyone did this, Amazon would have only 10% of its current business, which is about the right size for Amazon. While we can stop giving Bezos billions this way, it is unfortunate we can't claw back what we already gave him.
My MO as well, and I never had Amazon Prime
Better World Books is great too - and incredibly inexpensive with free shipping to Australia which is where I am! great place to get second hand books.
I never used Amazon from the beginning because they were deliberately destroying independent book stores. I would occasionally shop at Whole Foods (a.k.a. Whole Paycheck), but stopped when Bezos bought that company. (We’ll, I continued for a while, until a clerk asked me if I wanted to use my Prime account…)
Thanks. Me too. I’ve not used Amazon at all for the past 20 years, except for the occasional gift for my relatives overseas. It’s really not that hard.
Also, I don’t shop Whole Foods. Part of the Bezos empire. There are better alternatives.
Yep, no Amazon for me since he killed the Harris endorsement in the WaPo. I haven't shopped in Whole Foods in years, but I will never shop there again for sure. Wish I could avoid AWS, but they are behind so many websites that it's just about impossible.
Paul, great comments. I might alter the headline to: BEZOS, BACKLASH, BIG BOOBS, AND OVERLY OSTENTATIOUS BOAT
Was it Bezos (or some other billionaire boobie) who recently said that #47 is ‘more mature’ than #45? Again, a correction: ‘more manure.’
Exact quote from Bezos’s interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin:
“President Trump is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than in his first term”.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/05/21/spotify-co-ceo-talks-ai-partnership-with-umg-that-will-tap-into-existing-music-catalogs.html
That is as insane as saying “He’s a very thin man.” I may not like CEOs pandering to protect their businesses that rely on government funds but saying clearly false things to do it is nuts and makes Bezos’s judgement look questionable. He could have praised Trump for things like working with China or supporting space initiatives without lying about something that the vast majority of Americans clearly know isn’t true — as Trump’s cratering poll numbers confirm.
As I said above:
They never cared about their employees. The purpose of a business is to make sure the CEO has a cushy lifestyle; making a product and employing folks is a cost of doing business.
I left out: buttering up the president is simply a cost of doing business.
I think Bezos said that about Trump because he’s the only audience Bezos is interested in at this point: he wants government contracts for his rocket company.
Yeah, but what if Bezos actually meant it? After all, he is apparently suffering from an advanced case of billionaire brain.
He was probably sleeping- not more mature( unless he meant old) and the disciplined part???🤣🤣🤣he was DEFINITELY asleep
“He’s got some great ideas! Gotta hand it to him!!”
It was Bezos who said that…
Yes, that's why I put it in "quotes" ... and who among us who doesn't agree that the Thug Slush Fund (branded 1776!) is a great idea!!
Better name (courtesy of Senator Whitehouse): “the cop-bashing fund”.
Great alliteration
Where?
Oh, I like your comment a lot, Keith!
WOW !!🤩 Thank thx for the great chuckle this morning!
Highly unnerving perspective. How is it possible that Amazon only pays a little over 1% taxes on its income? How is that possible? I hope that the next Democratic Administration will be serious about a minimum, actual global tax rate of 20% or more. Likewise, carried interest, deductability of interest paid on loans taken to finance personal consumption, and most other tax exemptions should be eliminated.
Higher income folks pay a lot of tax IF their income is regular income. Unfortunately, there are many other ways of sourcing money to spend.
Really rich people don't have income. They borrow against assets.
The ability to do that is a huge flaw in our system and urgently needs to be corrected.
and then there's the "deferred interest" writeoff the hedge fund titans use.
Exactly.
So true, Anne. The "True Tax Rate" Distortion: An investigation by ProPublica revealed that during periods of rapid wealth expansion, some of the wealthiest individuals in the country reported annual taxable income amounting to only 0.5% to 1% of their total wealth growth.
None of it is “ salary”
That’s the trouble
For a more colorful commentary on Mr. Bezos, I recommend this Australian site:
https://ifloz.substack.com/p/jeff-bezos-solves-inequality-by-pointing
"Let me run the numbers Jeff doesn’t want you to run. The nurse pays roughly 16% of her income in federal tax. Bezos, per ProPublica’s leaked filings from 2021, paid a “true tax rate” of about 1% over the long haul, and in some years declared less taxable income than the bloke who manages your local McDonald’s. Nothing has changed since then except his net worth went from $190 billion to $279 billion. The nurse is paying sixteen times the effective rate of the man who owns a yacht so big it has a support yacht. And HE is on television lecturing us about progressive taxation. The brass-bollocked audacity of this prick."
He helpfully provides a Aussie-to-Yank Glossary for American readers:
"brass-bollocked – Possessing testicular fortitude of an industrial-strength metal grade. Used to describe acts of audacity so shameless they require literal hardware in the underpants region to perform. Jeff Bezos lecturing the working class about taxes while sitting on a $7.8 billion tax windfall and 30,000 sacked workers comfortably qualifies."
highly recommend the IFLA Substack ..https://ifloz.substack.com ... the Australian perspective is refreshing even if the language can be bracing ...
I ask the political economist and the moralist if they have ever calculated the number of individuals who must be condemned to misery, overwork, demoralization, degradation, rank ignorance, overwhelming misfortune and utter penury in order to produce one rich man. Almeida Garrett
I'd love to hear Paul's recommendations on sane approaches to increasing taxes on the rich and the very rich. Raising federal revenue--to build bridges, schools, daycare centers--without discouraging or depressing entrepreneurialism.
My recommendation is confiscatory taxes on net worth above $100 million. If you can't survive on $100 million, you don't deserve to survive at all. Which, really, is just inverting the philosophy the ultra-wealthy have toward the rest of us.
Massachusetts implemented a millionaires tax, and so far so good, most of the millionaires are still in the state!
California amendment to tax them 5% but only one time will be on the ballot. Governor Newsom is not supporting it.
I still say it is only lack of torches and pitchforks that stand between us and a brighter future scrambling around the interiors of the burned-out mansions to gather up a few scraps from the charred corpses of the noble rich...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHpnnlq779w
Reich and Colbert
That was wonderful! Thank you for the link.
Hilarious!
Entrepreneurs are motivated by pride, envy, and greed. You could raise taxes on them a huge amount and they'd act pretty much the same. On top of that, a very great deal of wealth will be, and is, hereditary. These are folks who, as Buffet put it, won the sperm lottery. You could tax large inheritances at extremely high rates, with no influence on enterprise.
Taxing small business owners...simply because they are self-employed, and not working for some large corporation, is not a good idea Chris. IF--like Apple or Microsoft--they become massive corporations, then yes, tax them at pre-Reagan levels. But taxing Mom and Pop entrepreneurs extra is just wrong.
Yes Nubby. I'd also like to hear those recommendations from Paul. Hope he reads your comment and responds.
Mr Bezos should pay close attention to the experience of Qatar. They gave our president a flying palace and he repaid them with a ruinous war that is strangling their economy. Donald Trump is weakening America and this will cost them and the rest of us way more than the tax cuts he gave them.
These are guys who won't see the light until it's the sun glinting off a falling guillotine blade.
All of us should dread that possibility. The great enlightenment insight that made America possible is that we all rise or fall together
The "rising tide lifts all boats" theory gave way to the "rising tide lifted my superyacht" actuality.
I’ll have to remember that line!
The wealthy members of the community [in America] entertain a hearty distaste to the democratic institutions of their country. The populace is at once the object of their scorn and of their fears. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
I'm sure that many Americans have no idea what thr Enlightment was.
"I'm sure that many Americans have no idea what the Enlightenment was." And the MAGAts/Christian Nationalists amongst us, if it were explained to them, would be against it.
Sounds woke to me!
They like the part in the Bible where Jesus has the moneylenders start making payday loans so the people can pay for the loaves and fishes.
Like a lot of wealthy people "desert-head Jeff" believes that his immense wealth will shield him from any catastrophe - even the sun going 'nova'.
Qatar is really being hit. No way to export except through Hormuz.
Thank you, Paul! I loved your assertive communication this morning about "Notably, Amazon, along with Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft is one of the companies".
Those CEOs are all ridiculous, just ask their ex-wives. Seriously. These men althought growing old & ugly, have zero-emotional intelligence and zero-social responsibility. They ought to be hold accountable. Fine. Let them speak, it exposes their comic if not tragic ignorance.
Jeff’s fashion statement screams mid life crisis.
I thought corporate taxes were lowered from 28% to 21% under Trump 1.0. Yet NONE of those mega-companies are paying anything close to that.
No wonder so many of us are insisting on "wealth taxes", and less generous estate taxes as well.
No nation can sustain our current level of income inequality without becoming a third-world country.
Or fomenting a revolution.
Bezos and his billionaire buds need some pruning.
i love the gardening reference of pruning the billionaire buds. Do pruning right and the plant is always healthier.
The American tax code seems to be full of loopholes.
Between Citizens United, corporations are people and unfettered lobbying, what a mess!
When I was young, we were taught that those who had much were expected to give accordingly. Now it seems the opposite is the norm: those who have much expect to take even more.
Bezos exemplifies this just as Trump does. Somehow they believe they are entitled to remake the world to suit themselves, destroying more than they build. Bezos also made the Washington Post, which broke the Watergate corruption story, a second rate paper. Sad, but somehow in keeping with Trump's and his fourth rate lack of character.
I remain shocked people still use amazon
As a few replies have stated, for some people an online option truly is a gift, making life easier. And it can also be difficult to find certain things anywhere except online anymore, even relatively common items, so frustrating! Trying to find an alternate source via the maker’s website often sends one to Amazon or Walmart for purchase. These are not the things or reasons that bother me about people shopping on Amazon.
What grinds my gears are how many people use it frivolously. They order clothes, toys, paper goods, bedding, on and on. Things readily available in a zillion other places, online or brick & mortar, but they want to go to one website, click the mouse one time, have it show up on their doorstep. “So easy.” Half the time, they don’t like it and either send it back or give it away. It’s unbelievable how much Americans consume in overt and covert ways.
I buy a lot of stuff online. Most of it is stuff I can’t get locally. And I haven’t used Amazon in almost a decade, except for one purchase I couldn’t find literally anywhere else. It’s quite possible to live without Amazon, it just requires a little effort to find the alternatives.
There are other online options besides Amazon but they are often other big companies.
It is virtually impossible not to use billionaires’ businesses to order products if I don’t drive. If I don’t want to use Amazon, am I better off using Walmart? Or do I order from Safeway, Lowes, or another big business? If I order from a local business, do I use Lyft or Uber? And not all products are available locally. Our current pyramidal system that has created billionaires has no distributed alternative.
When you find a product that you want to buy on Amazon write down the seller and then go to their website and purchase.
I already do that. And then the shipping is usually done by FedEx or UPS, since it’s the business that chooses the shipper. So more billionaires’ businesses.
FedEx and UPS are both publicly traded, and therefore heavily regulated, companies. In addition, UPS is unionized. These things really do make a difference.
It can be hard to avoid them.
Safeway and Lowe’s are public corporations, they are not billionaire-owned. Unlike, say, Whole Foods and Home Depot (not to mention Walmart), which are much less regulated and funnel all their profits straight into the pocket of a given billionaire. Safeway is also unionized.
These differences may seem small to you but they have real consequences.
Sorry but i am old and rather tired. I use Amazon. I do shop in person when i can but the Home Depot for example is a maze and their online shopping is lousy. Best buy works better. but how do you find plastic inserts for a man's wallet? Or evne handkerchiefs?
I understand.
You could look at alternatives. For handkerchiefs, even Target (as a publicly traded company) is better than Amazon or Walmart. Nordstroms if you want better quality. For electronics, BH Photo. For pharmacy stuff, Vitacost.
Please don't think advice is always wanted. I said I am old. Hard to walk the floor of a big box store. How old are you? My wife died in January and it is all I can do to keep up.
I tried my best decades ago. Now I am hanging on. And no.... don't give me any advice.
Many people like convenience more than ethical concerns.
For families, shut ins and for other reasons, sometimes it is difficult not to use Amazon. I deactivated my account, but try to understand that its not so easy for everyone. Amazon made itself omnipresent (is that the term?)
Yes, it’s a dilemma!
I have sworn off Amazon, but there is something I need that is only available there. Not sure what I am going to do?
Buy it from the company that makes it. And how much do you really need it?
I am trying to find it. Wireless bicycle turn signals, so a safety item.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=bicycle+wireless+turn+signals&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-34000-13078-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=102&keyword=bicycle+wireless+turn+signals&crlp=_2-1300-0-1-1&MT_ID=&geo_id=&rlsatarget=kwd-76828508311966%3Aloc-190&adpos=&device=c&mktype=&loc=96108&poi=&abcId=&cmpgn=329853367&sitelnk=&adgroupid=1229254152395492&network=s&matchtype=p&msclkid=b3fd7b93d9af1a011a02118353f73595&ul_noapp=true
There was a specific set I was looking for. I did find them on EBay and bought them. $20+ more expensive, unfortunately.
The halogen light over my stove burned out recently. I could've burned $5.00 in gas and spent 45 minutes of my time to go buy one from Lowes. I elected to spend $0.45 at Amazon and get it the next day. So far, that's been the extent of my purchases from Amazon this year.
Lowe’s delivers too, I have done it.
One is over $7.00, and they aren't going to deliver it free unless you're one of their club members.
Hmmm. What is it exactly if you don’t mind telling me. Now you’ve got me intrigued. I’m happy to do a quest for your product, Anything to avoid Amazon!
It's this. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Feit-Electric-50-Watt-EQ-T4-Dimmable-Bright-White-Tubular-Appliance-Light-Fixture-Halogen-Light-Bulb/50109564
As I said, I bought two of them from Amazon. Burning a gallon of gas and 45 minutes of my day didn't make sense to me.
I am not. It is the same exact reason why people will drive 20 miles to go to Walmart instead of buying from the local stores. Sometimes it's just convenience and sometime it's the pocket, or both. Most of the people can't afford to have principles or ethical concerns. A 200$ savings when it comes to buying a washing machine, for example, it's a good reason to overlook your ethical concerns. And the same applies to pretty much everything. I genuinely don't want to antagonize you but think about everything you do. Are you sure all your actions are in alignment with your principles? I certainly don't chose my flights based on the carbon monoxide emissions.
Or use Twitter!!!
Twitter? You must mean ex, owned by the evil one, Elon Musk! no sir!
As always, enlightening discourse from award winning Professor Paul Krugman, PhD