Bloomberg's wealth manager: 'Warren scares the hell out of me'

[crazytown]

“Everyone is nervous,” said Steven Rattner, a prominent Democratic donor who manages the wealth of Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor. “What scares the hell out of me is the way she would fundamentally change our free-enterprise system.”

(snip) Wall Street has long tried to influence American politics and generally donated to both parties, though it traditionally has been more aligned with Republicans. But while there’s no coordinated strategy, the industry is more or less united against Ms. Warren. With just months before the first voting begins, it is unleashing a barrage of public attacks, donating money to her rivals and scrambling to counter her blistering narrative about Wall Street.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-wall-street.html

Looks like 'the industry' is not content to donate money and run propaganda, they have drafted their own representative.

[enough]

1. Sounds like a perfect ad for Warren. NT

[HerbChestnut]

2. The wealth tax does nothing to "fundamentally change our free-enterprise system".

What it does is tax excessive wealth that nobody could possibly use in 100 lifetimes so that others (99.9% of us) can afford college, healthcare, and a decent quality of life. What it does *not* do is prevent people from becoming successful through free enterprise. Bloomberg us running to protect his own bank account.

[crazytown]

4. Private equity firms would be liable for workers pension funds

that's what they don't like.

[wcmagumba]

3. OMG...

What if these radical libs force me to live on only $5 Billion instead of $20 Billion, whatever will I do?

[catrose]

5. And it isn't even that!

Bill Gates whining about "I've paid $10B in taxes. I don't mind paying $20B, but $100B!" He has his own special link on the Warren Billionaire Tax Calculator: he'll pay $6B. She points out that he won't even notice it.

That's less than 6% of his wealth. Would he like to pay 20%-25% like many do?

[crazytown]

6. ...

[Newest Reality]

7. What should scare him

is that the system IS in the process of changing fundamentally for a host of reasons and there is nothing that seems to be able to stop it without some drastic measures being taken early on.

How do the "wealthy" plan to continue the ponzi game with dwindling numbers of customers who can afford their products and services or who have to cut back and buy less and less? At what point does the game go sour then? Are they going to only produce products that cater to the very wealthy at some point and then find out that their are many items they also rely on that are in common demand?

Are they just going to keep shifting their investments more and more into exploiting the downward trends of increasing poverty? That's already an industry in itself from loans to prisons. What kind of oligarchy do they plan to reside over and how immune do they imagine themselves able to be if this country becomes a full-fledged Banana Republic or Neo-Serfdom? Will the rest of the World be able to make up for the loss of demand for goods and services? How is that possible if this is the global trend?

Finally, automation is going to be the real game changer. The corporations that the wealthy suck wealth from will be able to keep wages down or threaten to automate the jobs which will be cheaper in the long-run and, no matter what, the eventual outcome where less and less labor is required. That goes all the way up the chain to white collar jobs, of course.

So, having all that wealth and holding onto it as a badge of status has a foreseeable price down the road. The few wealthy and their robots will not be able to create demand for the products that exploitation and profits require. That's end-game. They can sequester themselves off for only so long in some sort of Elysium scenario, but it won't be the same again.