Well, I have to respectfully disagree with your disagreement!
Here's AOC on billionaires:
I have met several billionaires, and I gotta tell you that the ones I've met earned it and are pretty extraordinary people. AOC's classification that you don't make a billion, you take it is unforgivable bullshit. If this isn't demonization, I don't know what is.
I watched the link and while she is berating billionaires, I just don't get the same message you seem to be. When I watch it, I see more emphasis on the fact that minimum wage is not a viable income (maybe for a single person sharing an apartment, but if you have kids, forget it).
I think she is naive to consider that the "billionaires" will not use the system to their advantage (although there are a few that have a serious conscience about their employees - Roger Milliken comes to mind). I think the problem needs to be addressed at the minimum wage. If you were to move it to $15 (and I feel that our country has the wealth to pay that to anyone who is giving a honest effort at any full-time job), it would definitely slow the rise/number of billionaires. I expect there would be some trickle-up in salary rates as a result, and the gap between the rich and teh poor in this country would be reduced, which is not a bad thing. Clearly a continued progression to a country divided into the "haves" and the "have-nots" is problematic. I am generally of decent morale character, but if stealing was the only way for me to put food on the table for my family, I would.
People talk about the "trickle down" of giving more money to the wealthy (like Trump's $11 trillion tax cut) creating more jobs and benefiting everyone, but that has not proven to be the fact - a corporation (or a wealthy person) will open a new "factory" when they find a good opportunity, not because they have extra cash laying around (extra liquidity can be its own reward). OTOH, if you raise the minimum wage, you can bet that money will end up in the market in short order! And, if someone making minimum wage actually manages to have enough money and self-discipline to start saving, I think that is also progress as they get "invested" in their society!
So, while I do not agree with AOC coaching things in terms of vilifying/penalizing the wealthy, I do agree that more should be done to make this a good life for honest working folk ... and that invariably will be a "drag" on those with the funds to take action on opportunities that present themselves.
I am also talking about changing the tax laws. When someone like Warren Buffet complains that the system is wrong because his maid pays a higher tax rate than he does, that is a problem! There are way too many loopholes in our system! Many of the tax loopholes have a good idea behind them and have been corrupted in the way people game them. Others were corrupt from the start and lobbied (or otherwise bought) exceptions to the main tax rates.
However, I believe the reality is that the pendulum has swung so far to the right that with the added awareness of (not
just white) privilege in our country and the way Trump has been marginalizing the worth of the underprivileged; the pendulum is starting to swing in the other direction.
The election of Trump as president has resulted in an exciting (not always a positive thing) time to be paying attention to the development of our country and the "aftermath" of Trump is likely to be every bit as chaotic as Trump's reign for at least a year or so. I feel pretty good about Biden as the guy to get things calmed back down and restore alliances and our place in the world (to the extent it can be repaired).
Straight out of school, I started working for Georgia Power Company as a "Junior Engineer". This was what is known as heavy construction, with 20,000 people working there around the clock!
One day I got paged to
immediately come to the Plant Manager's office, which is freaky in an operation that big with so many levels of hierarchy between us. He had one of the Corporate VPs on the phone waiting for me! They wanted to know when I would have one of my major milestones completed and I gave them my best prediction, and that was it!
However, as I mulled the event over, I realized that in many places, the boss (PM) would have given the VP a date then called me and told me "you damn well better have this done by" that date! I really appreciated the wisdom behind our PM, because if he had done the latter and the date was unreasonable or even the date I gave, at least a part of me would have resented him. As is, I was personally motivated to meet
my date (and I did)!
Not sure that is the best analogy, but Trump had many valid points about us paying more than our share of several international endeavors and instead of addressing them with the other players, he unilaterally told them what they must do (or simply reneged on our country's financial commitment). He is no master of the deal, he is used to being surrounded by people who are after his money and will cater to his whelm. That is not a relationship, because those people are in contempt of him (and often, themselves) as they pursue his money. We have seen how that approach plays out among his cabinet members and the books they write!
A gathering with the major European countries to develop a unified plan to address China's theft of intellectual property would have been so much more effective than getting into a nebulous trade war (how are we doing? I can't tell) without any real clear objective!
Sorry, I got on a tirade! I guess this stuff has been building up for too long!
