but I will at least want to see his explanation for an endorsement of Steyer.

CA has a weird election system.

Democrats need to get rid of it.

It was passed by voters in 2010. I assume it would need to be put before the voters again in order to get rid of it.

That initially surprised and disappointed me. Tonight I heard Sheldon Whitehouse sounding like he supports Steyer getting into the CA governors’ race. He contrasted Steyer’s efforts trying to fight the fossil fuel industry to Bozo’s hollow words today in his CNBC interview, implying that Steyer is a “good” rich guy as opposed to Bozo. I respect both Fonda and Whitehouse and now I’m really confused about Steyer.

I’m also angry at the stupid jungle primary CA is running — whoever thought this would be good for our state is crazy.

All billionaires. All of them. There is no such thing as an "ethical" billionaire. They are antithetical to free and fair society.
They are, by their very existence, destructive to our country: economically, politically and socially.

I'm curious, why draw the line there?

So tell me, what about someone worth a mere $500 million? Do they get a pass? What is the practical difference between the two, one has $500 million more than the other?

Let's go lower, let's say $100 million.

Please tell me where you draw your hatred line. Thanks!

As it goes below a billion.
Billionaires are easy because, as I already said, there are no ethical billionaires.

Then it comes down to how you made your $500 million. Was it being a hedge fund manager? Owning private prisons? Leasing warehouses to ice? Running sweat shops?

When the growth of your wealth is tied to the exploitation of people or the environment or politics, my hate for that grow linearly.

You just have a highly irrational point of view.

How about Bezos' ex?

"MacKenzie Scott is one of the biggest names in philanthropy. The billionaire novelist, philanthropist, and ex-wife to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has donated an eye-popping $26 billion since 2019."

https://fortune.com/article/mackenzie-scott-26-billion-donations-net-worth-amazon-shares/

No exceptions. Billionaires should not exist at all. Not one.
Even her. Short answer is that she may have given away billions but she is almost as wealthy now ($33 billion) as when she got her divorce settlement ($38)

she is still wealthy primarily because her Amazon stock keeps appreciating at a rapid rate.

As well, it is not a simple thing to just give away wealth, that's the easy part. The hard part is giving it away wisely and that takes some time and doing.

Of creating a charitable foundation.
She can reduce her personal wealth to just hundreds of millions and funnel her earnings from Amazon straight to that foundation.

But she doesn't.

She continues to horde it.

Like all billionaires do.

They are all the same. They all value being wealthy, powerful and influential more than they value people.

Sweeping condemationss add little of value to the debate.

Here's an example of what she is doing:

https://yieldgiving.com/

She is still a billionaire.

She is choosing to be so.

How much she is giving is irrelevant when she continues to sit on tens of billions she uses to fund a lifestyle of wealth and influence that no regular person, even a millionaire, can even begin to understand.

The scope of that wealth is easily misunderstood. People see the money they give and it seems like so much because to us it is but to them, especially at her level of wealth, even billions of dollars is just a fraction of it.

She is sitting on money that could genuinely help millions of people. Millions of people.

But doesn't.

That is my point.

dispose of the whole works, or almost all of it, in a short period of time and especially when her Amazon stock keeps appreciating.

And do we know what her future charitable intentions are? Do we know she lives a lavish lifestyle and wields great malign influence? I don't think characterizing her as "sitting on money" is very charitable in itself - sounds like a "what have you done for me lately" complaint.

I agree in principle that having a billionaire class is inherently unjust but tarring all with the same brush is unwarranted IMO at least in this case.

Or not framing my point well enough. I am honestly not sure at this point.

We just have different opinions and that's fine too.
Best wishes and hope you have a good day

Equitable with how they are used.

With billionaires, the disbursement of personal wealth is always Noblesse Oblige. Or not.

So while MacKenzie might be one of the "good" billionaires, the MORE BASIC QUESTION is:

Why can we not tax properly and attempt to lessen the NEED for private charity?

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" is not how a democratic society should care for its citizens.

Here by name. My comments are about billionaires and I am not attacking elected Democrats in any way.

I have not and will not comment of elected Democratic officials by name.
Pritzker is the governor of Illinois and well liked by his constituents.

Seems that way to me. Caring about the poor, or justice or our country at all isn't what they do. Or we wouldn't have this monstrous president.

Sorry, I sincerely do not mean this as a slight to you but I honestly believe that the wealth and the corresponding influence it creates, for billionaires, is not appreciated in the proper context.

A billionaire, even a small scale billionaire like Steyer, can leverage that influence in ways only large governments could at one time.

Even someone with $900 million dollars to their name is not even in the same zip code, even the same planet, as a billionaire.
Our brains are just not wired to understand it because even I don't claim to understand it and no one should make that claim.
I encounter these same issues when trying to convey astronomical distances between us and other stuff in our galaxy or universe at large.
Did you know that if you set out from Earth in a random direction with no destination in mind, in a straight line, that your chance of encountering another stellar object is so small as to be nearly impossible? No matter how far you traveled or for how long you traveled?
That is analogue to the difference between a person with a million dollars and a person with a billion dollars.

First, the cryptobros drop several million to buy Genius Act votes from Gallego and a dozen other Dem senators, now Steyer is getting endorsed by Old School Dems we long presumed to be progressives,

That, as a progressive, I will laugh in the face of anyone, claiming to be a progressive, that is also endorsing a billionaire for public office. Especially one that made their money as a hedge fund manager that invested heavily in private prisons.

Clothing, spouses, or long-held beliefs.

He has actually done nothing. He has never held elected office.

He has also never done anything to change the fact he is still a billionaire.

He has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to convince people he is a progressive while still maintaining a level of wealth and influence that is pure fantasy for 99.9% of us.

He can still maintain an ungodly level of wealth, hundreds of millions, more than he needs in a hundred lifetimes, while giving away a majority to charity or in excess taxes he chooses to pay.

He could have done that years ago. Lived by example. Set the standard.

He did not and has not done that.

Look I hope I'm wrong and he actually does even half the stuff he says but outside of a lot of talk for a lot of years, he has done nothing to change his status as a billionaire.

It's hard to take it all seriously when he is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to convince people he wants to help them when that hundreds of millions of dollars and more, could have been spent to show them.

Becerra, while polling better and a comfortable fit for traditional mainstream Democratic Party standards, is too weak to take on the ever more powerful tech billionaires that Steyer professes he can and will.

We need to work differently and give serious thought to nontraditional candidates.

He is a hedge fund billionaire that made its wealth from private prisons.
Billionaires drown out the voices of normal people because their wealth makes sure they are the only voice heard.
Billionaires are destroying the country: financially, socially and politically.

UNDEMOCRATIC IN EVERY SENSE!

A billionaire can leverage their vast wealth to influence situations in ways only large governments could at one time.

Even someone with $900 million dollars to their name is not even in the same zip code, even on the same planet, as a billionaire.
Our brains are just not wired to understand it. The amounts of money we are talking about are humbling.
I encounter these same issues when trying to convey astronomical distances between us and other stuff in our galaxy or universe at large.
Did you know that if you set out from Earth in a random direction with no destination in mind, in a straight line, that your chance of encountering another stellar object at random, is so small as to be nearly impossible? No matter how far you traveled or for how long you traveled?
That is analogue to the difference between a person with a million dollars and a person with a billion dollars. While both can be bad, they are not the same in scale.

If the race was tight between him and Becerra, I would likely vote for Steyer.

Does the billionairre status give me pause, yes. But the other candidates really sucked in the 2nd debate. Becerra being extra lame.

So to explain it to those outside of CA. The Governer doesn't have that much power. Propositions rule. The Dems have a Super Majority, so if the Gov. vetos anything (non Proposition) and then the Super Majority overrules.

So basically, anyone with an (R) can be of help to tRump to run scams. Unless Steyer is a tRump plant (not very likely) then there isn't anything he could do to impact us.

Anyway, holding on to my ballot until the last minute purely due to the race for Gov. Just need to elect someone with a D by his/her name.

I was hoping for two Dems to get to the final two. Looks like Hilton (R - Douchebag) has a top two spot locked down. So the only goal it to get one Dem to vote for and then we are good.

First of all, I can't STAND Katie Porter. I've posted before that we attended a fundraiser for Katie, and in a brief 'private' moment with her she treated me like crap. So after that, and not knowing much about Becerra, I decided to support Steyer.

However, yesterday evening we attended a private fundraiser for Becerra, and I found him to be well spoken, with good ideas on how he would go forward if elected Governor. I know, in the end it's all politics, I have no delusion that any of them are really able to implement their plans, but he had a good story and came across as being sincere.

So at least for now, he's got my vote, but I'm still working on it.

Not for fukcing PEDO Protectors.

We don't want fucking Fascists in charge of Blue California.

the WH leads all the PEDOs in the World

Fucking Stupid Traitor Moron.

* They know something we don't, true or not, but plausible to the "average" voter. (Sadly, many people believe what they see on TV and the media would hammer on it.)

* They are fearful of a Republican victory

* They think Steyer will be out of his element and won't do as much damage as a Republican Governor with a Republican staff would. A Republican governor's office would be staffed with the most disruptive deplorables the billionaires who own the Republican Party can buy and would probably be independent of the Trump circus making them more dangerous.

Currently TX shows as a democratic majority in "registered voters". Which in Texas means you've turned up for a primary and picked a side. We don't register any other way. So, this can change from year to year depending upon which primary you choose to vote in.

I look at the top-level candidates, especially, with an eye towards who can actually get out the vote and have a chance at winning. Purity aside, you have to actually get into office before you can do anything.

Should also have "Why Helping Republicans by Purity Testing Allies and Turning Them Into Boogeymen Is So Stupid." Big problem with populism.

for a certain someone.

Mahalo, betsuni.

And worth more now then he was then.

I would but his fine if he actually lived it.

People act as if billionaires are trapped being billionaires and are powerless to change it.

They can still be ungodly wealthy but donate the majority of their ongoing wealth to charity.

He could just pay more in taxes.

He doesn't do either of those things.

Billionaires seem to do everything but choose not to be billionaires.

Being wealthy doesn’t automatically make you bad (just “suspect” in my book).

Steyer has proven he is the most progressive candidate. Being a billionaire doesnt automatically mean he wont follow through on doing the right thing.

Comes when it comes to billionaires.

The issue with billionaires isn't that they will not, occasionally, do the right thing.

The problem with billionaires is they suck all the oxygen out of a room. No one else's opinion matters when a billionaire enters the metaphorical room.
A normal candidate, even in a race like this, may amass several million dollars to run their campaign but billionaires have unlimited funds.
Steyer, in this example, has outspent his nearest opponent by 24 to 1. He has spent over $200 million dollars trying to win the governor's race.

How, as a normal person, fund raising, are they to compete with that?

While some may genuinely come to the conclusion they like him as a candidate but how do we know it was actually because they are the better candidate or was it because of their money, their voice was the only one that people heard?

He is on the right side of the issues entirely. Yes he has the resources to advertise thay point, but he has been consistent with that reality since he entered politics.

I'm not in California so my comments are academic.
I'm unwavering in my opinion of billionaires and no one will ever convince me that a billionaire hedge fund manager that made his wealth off private prisons, suddenly becomes a progressive that cares about people.

No hedge fund manager, current or former, is dropping $200+ million dollars without expecting an fat return on investment. The greed is hardwired into their brains.

I dont so much think you are wrong, as much as I hope you are.

He has given us some indication that he is more than just trying to blend in as a progressive. Desite his capitalistic foundation, I think his donations have always been progressive and supporting democratic advancement.

Happy to be wrong. If he even does half the stuff he says that would be amazing.

I don't think I am going to be wrong.

As I said up thread about Mackenzie Scott, if a billionaire really wants to prove they have changed its rather easy, give up being a billionaire. Not on your death bed but while you are still living.

Reduce your personal wealth to just hundreds of millions (more than enough for a hundred lifetimes) put the rest into a charitable foundation and all future earnings go to that foundation.

It's not complicated. They could do that.

They never do.

Status as a billionaire. I think that accounts for something, anyways.

Billionaires always find a way to keep their billions and the rest of us suffer because of it.

Our economy is in the dirt because of greedy assholes.
Our nation is has collapsed because of it (we just haven't felt the full impacts yet, sort of like if the Sun disappeared right now, we wouldn't know it for 8 minutes but we don't have have to wait to know we are already in trouble).

Why we keep cuddling billionaires is beyond me.

But billionaires were far less ubiquitous back then. I am under the impression he is legitimate. Trump also ended up being legitimately anti-establishment and catered to the vast majority of groups he committed to.

Although it would be nice if we can get somebody running on Steyers platform who isnt a billionaire and could still get the funding he needs. Alas that is still often too much to ask in America.

The most anti billionaire candidate aparently seems to be a billionaire...

He has spent over $200 million dollars in this election to try very hard to make people believe that.

I do not.

All billionaires, by virtue of being a billionaire, are greedy, narcissistic megalomaniacs.

If I were a betting person, if he loses, or even if he wins, like billionaires do, he will likely use that wealth to attack those that he think wronged him or didn't bend the knee as quickly as he may think they should have.

Havent confirmed they exist, but perhaps Steyer is one of them...

Maybe Soros too?

At some point your animus for billionaires —quite understandable—becomes trash talk targeting a democratic candidate. Lay off. I’m sure there’s somebody closer to home who deserves the treatment

But about the sudden embracing of billionaires. Believing the very people that created or directly benefit from, a level of income inequality unprecedented in its scale in human history, are suddenly the best people to solve it.

If he is elected I truly hope I am wrong. I really do. I want to be wrong about our world being irrevocably lost and that billionaires are going to destroy the world with their hubris and arrogance.
I want to be wrong more than anything in the world.
So far I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary.

there are always wealthy who see the game for what it is. Back in the day of Marx, it was Engels (his family was wealthy - owned textile plants).

People think they are voting for prom King ... personality & beers ... all that. And while that is no doubt a factor, those w/charima rise up, it is very enlightening to look at someone's past voting record to see what they really support.

When they willingly give up being a billionaire.
While there have been a couple, I remember a lady that gave all the billions she had to a university medical school, but not until it was the end of her life.
Why isn't hundreds of millions of dollars enough?

Because a lot of the money is more theoretical than what they may actually have at their disposal on a day to day basis. For instance, the Rooney family owns the Pittsburgh Steelers and have for nearly 100 years. That was a great investment when they got the franchise back in the day for a couple of thousand bucks since it's worth about 7 billion now. They pay their star employees (the players) well and they have plenty of other folks on their payroll who come out pretty nicely too. I mean, maybe they could pay their janitors better, I don't know...but the point is they aren't hoarding money. The team is worth a ton because the NFL is a massive brand and they were lucky enough decades ago to get in on it. I'm not sure what they could do about that unless they sold their entire stake and then gave it away.

So they sell the team....whoever buys it would have to be a multi-billionaire to afford it. My point was the original Rooney bought the team for cheap (even counting inflation), and could have had no way of knowing what the NFL would become. They became super rich more by circumstance than screwing poor people over.

And a lot of really rich people have charitable foundations where they give tons of money away (for all I know the Rooneys do too - they certainly have had causes they've supported before). David Rubenstein comes to mind. I didn't even know for the longest time how wealthy that guy was - as I usually see him interviewing historians and stuff like that on PBS and CSPAN. He's given away tens of millions of dollars to things like the Washington Monument restoration after the earthquake 15 years or so ago.

They still didn't have to be billionaires.
Again, they can still do all the things they are doing right but the wealth excess of billions can go to charity.

As far as people like David Rubenstein, also a billionaire, he can do the same. Reduce his personal wealth to hundreds of millions, funnel the rest to a charitable foundation.

Not saying people cannot be wealthy but we just don't need billionaires.

I am genuinely flabbergasted that this stance is so controversial, especially on a website with very intelligent people (I mean that sincerely. There are a amazing collective of people on here and that is admirable)

It is partly because for some of these people, their wealth is more tied into what they may own rather than cash on hand.

It's sort of like my brother and his wife. She comes from a wealthy family (not billions mind you, but they were all doctors going back a couple of generations and invested early in some big pet food company where they really made money), but my sister-in-law teaches engineering at a University so her salary isn't earth shattering. Practically all of her money is tied up in stocks. On a day to day basis they don't really that much more money than my wife and I do (they take the occasional expensive European vacation, but otherwise nothing would out then as having a lot of cash). BUT, her wealth is growing all the time because it's tied up in whatever her stock broker has them invested in.

I feel like that is the case with at least some wealthy people.

You hit on a key point about wealth being tied into the value of something else, in your example, the stocks and property values.

While it's similar, most wealthy people do have their assets tied up in stocks and property, they does not preclude them from using that wealth in better ways.

Now, doesn't scale the same way for people like your family because they just don't have the same level of utility in their wealth that a billionaire does.

They can put that all into a trust or foundation or some other instrument, that allows them to leverage the utility of those assets.

Trust me, they are billionaires, there are absolutely people out there that can help them make use of the assets they have to help people, in a smart way that preserves their holdings but leverages its value, if they wanted.

Billionaires choose to be billionaires. On purpose. They don't have to be.

she is giving so much away - I think her name is McKenzie Scott. Is that right?

I do think billionaire politicians do keep their money to use for running campaigns, but your point is well taken.

is that it's not so much about defending individual billionaires. You're correct of course that it's hard to find something to love about people who remain that wealthy when others have so little. My argument has always been that the individuals are just the symptoms - the system itself is the disease. Capitalism is a system that relies on many people being oppressed so a few can benefit. My view - not sustainable. Get rid of it. Let's make a system that's more equitable (and this is where I lose people because they can't imagine something new and better).

It's either the billionaire or the candidate every corporate interest in Sacramento plucked from the pile after Swalwell imploded.

So the question becomes, who would you rather?

Would you rather a billionaire with no political track record who promises progressive things? Or a milquetoast candidate who looks like three lobbyists dressed in a trench coat?

I just can't with Becerra. I'm sorry, no. The lobbyist-Sacramento axis has caused so many problems in this state. I just can't vote for it in the primary.

I know he'll probably win. And nothing will change. Enjoy your PG&E bill.

But lord, I hate being in the position of thinking Steyer is my best play given my politics and the realities in this state.

That the Democratic Party in California is this chaotic is such a deep disappointment. It's disillusioning. We're the one state who has the political power to get it together, but for whatever reason, we just can't. Or won't.

Is that if a billionaire is the best candidate for governor in one of the most Democratic states in the union, with some of the brightest minds in the world, we are doing something wrong.

If we think no that a billionaire is the most progressive candidate for governor, we are doing something wrong.

We are on the wrong track.

As a California voter, this is not a position I want to be in.

I just cannot believe the slate we got in all this. And the state party really needed to crack some heads about the Democratic primary. They needed to do some horse trading or bring pressure to bear. Anything at all. But they stood meekly by and just kind of did nothing, because they figured any movement would offend someone somewhere.

And the fact people refused to drop out once it was clear they wouldn't win? They've scratched themselves off my list for any future consideration for public office. Nice big statement that it's about their ego rather than teamwork.

Steyer is absolutely not better than Becerra.

For what it's worth, I think Becerra will win and go on to be governor barring some catastrophic scandal or development.

Which, to me, screams same old shit.

That we in California cannot do better than same old shit is an indictment all on its own. That a state this blue cannot be meaningfully reformed in any way is crazy. People complain about Citizens United, then proceed to vote for exactly the people that Supreme Court ruling was meant to benefit.

I just don't think we're serious outside of signalling. When the chips are down, we repeatedly let the lobbyists have their way with us in one of the bluest states in the country.

It's demoralizing.

At the end of the day, people will get what they vote for.

If it comes down to it, I would vote for a rabid dog if it had a better chance of winning than a Democrat who agreed with me on every issue. Not to mention that the jungle primary is stupid as hell.

Threads.

That's all I've got to say about that.

Robert Reich is probably endorsing him based on that. I think Steyer is okay. He is not some johnny come lately to the liberal cause. He has a track record of supporting good policies on climate change and healthcare, especially. I prefer Becerra, but it doesn't anger me that Reich is supporting Steyer.

Out of pointing out the horrors of income inequality and the undo influence of billionaires on our government and economy

Now he wants to put one in charge of the 4th largest economy in the world?

That no one find that curious is rather stunning.