Send the Bill to the Billionaires

Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wealth

Liz Warren made a curious appearance in New York City the other day to extol the virtues of Uganda-born communist, Zohran Mamdani. It’s curious because Liz is the Democrat Senator from Massachusetts and has no reason to be meddling in New York City politics. She’s federal, he’s municipal. They’re in different states. She’s an established Democrat, he’s openly communist. But I guess stealing other people’s money brought them together and forged their bond.

Mamdani graciously received her and let her sing her same tired old song: Billionaires ruin everything! Everything wrong in this world is due to billionaires. And the worst billionaire ever is Donald Trump.

Democrats always see mono-dimensional solutions to problems. They do not grasp complexity, nuance, or the interplay of multiple factors. This is also known as being simple minded. Do one thing, and one thing only, and the whole world is restored to order.

• Gun violence? Ban guns!

• Prices too high? The government can lower them!

• Homelessness? Buy people homes!

• Illegal immigrants in the country? Amnesty!

• War in the Middle East? Free Palestine!

• Hurricanes? Ban all gas powered vehicles!

• People are getting too fat? Say obesity is healthy

• Lousy schools? Stop testing students and giving grades!

• Illegal drug use? Make drugs legal!

• Too much crime? Make criminal acts legal!

• Economic difficulties? Get rid of billionaires!

Well, actually when it comes to billionaires, Mamdani wants them eradicated. He has said, flatly, that billionaires shouldn’t exist. Is he touting billionaire genocide? Or does he just want artificial limits imposed on income so no one can ever get a billion dollars? Democrats are such simple people.

Liz has a bit more of a grasp, but barely. She wants to seize all of the assets and money of billionaires. I guess that’s another version of billionaire genocide—if you make billionaires poor, then there won’t be any more billionaires.

Go on social media, and you’ll find Liz Warren moaning about how the government constantly needs more money, but she’s never once, to my knowledge, ever said anything about curtailing wasteful government spending. A nation’s budget is similar to that of a household budget. There are two sides to it: how much you bring in and how much you spend. Liz seems to think that all that matters is income. Spending is irrelevant to her, and in fact should be infinite. However, she harps nonstop that we need more, more, more, more tax money. She is all about seizing the wealth of citizens. Reducing government spending is an anathema to Liz, like giving Superman a Kryptonite sandwich. She can’t cut even a penny from any budget, in fact, the world will end if the government’s budget doesn’t increase at least 10% a year. She’s like a drug addict, her whole world revolves around one thing only: getting money for the next fix.

If you look at the things that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cut out of the budget, you can see that Congress is rolling in so much dough they’re making up stupid stuff to spend it on. They have millions and millions to donate to causes along the line of teaching lesbian interpretative dance to Pakistani orphans or doing complicated million-dollar trials studying constipation in cats. The frightening thing about Liz is that she will never be able to tax the citizens of this great country enough. The odds that Liz will ever get enough tax money is the same as that Hunter Biden will ever turn down crack.

Liz suffers from envy and covetousness. Despite sitting in the Senate for 12 years, her net worth is a measly $12M, which is less than Nancy Pelosi made in the stock market in 2023 alone (the site Finbold says Pelso made $43M that year; Unusual Whales doesn’t name a price but says the Pelosi portfolio increased by 71% in 2024.) Liz isn’t up for re-election again till 2030, at which time she’ll be 112 (I kid, she’s actually slightly younger), so this is probably her last rodeo. And she’s laser focused on removing wealth from billionaires through punitive and confiscatory taxation.

New York, New York, A Billionaire’s Town

New York is home to 123 billionaires according to a Forbes report dated this year. Not even London, Hong Kong, or Moscow comes close. In addition to having the most billionaires in a single city, these 123 people control the staggering amount of $759B. Of course, calculating money in this stratosphere is a little complicated since billionaires keep most of their loot in assets and not cash and many assets, such as real estate or stock portfolios fluctuate in value.

Mamdani does not think billionaires should exist. I don’t think communists should exist, but here we are. I guess Mamdani and Ricochet Cafe are going to have to agree to disagree.

Mamdani is going to hunt these rich guys down with a pitchfork. He is literally an existential threat to the super-moneyed class (who, ironically, are going to be the ones who vote for him). Liz Warren hates billionaires too but her idea is to take their money first before destroying them.

Thinking people must rather ask themselves: is the income inequality in New York City—which Mamdani and Warren both decry as signaling the end of Western civilization—the result of billionaires? Or are billionaires a sign that the system is working? Are billionaires good for us? Or bad for us?

The Only Good Billionaire is a Red One?

I cannot say this often enough: Democrats are a simple-minded people, and they view even the most complex and layered issues simplistically. For all that Democrats like fluidity and spectra in terms of gender, they prefer economic issues in stark binary terms. Billionaires have to be either all good or all bad. Let’s refine this topic a bit and consider whether billionaires are good or bad for the economy and the general welfare. Do they hurt us or help us?

Columbia University Professor Jan Svejnar, writing for the Center on Global Economic Governance there, says sagely, “It depends.” I had no idea that there were Conservative professors at Columbia. Only a Republican would consider that a problem had variables.

After all, Professor Svejnar argues, billionaires do a lot of good. Many of them earned their billions through business, enterprise, inventions, and real estate, which means they created jobs along the way. Noted billionaire Elon Musk owns several companies and in 2023, he employed 145,000 people. Most of those people got not just a paycheck, but health insurance, retirement benefits, vacation, and other perks. How many jobs has Liz Warren created?

Some billionaires drive innovation. Jeff Bezos, worth a staggering $229B, started out selling books online and has since changed the world with his innovations in the delivery of consumer goods. Is your life better with or without Amazon? Bezos employs 1.5M full-time and part-time employees. Some complain about Amazon working conditions, but Amazon also has lots of high-dollar jobs with premium benefits. Is that a net good for society? Or is he evil?

Do you like being able to order anything and everything online? Or is that a terrible catastrophe for your life?

My close warm personal friend, Prof. Svejnar, came up with an interesting delineation. Not all billionaires have the same effect on society. He found that billionaires who earned their money tended to benefit society by creating jobs, driving innovation, and solving problems. These billionaires are the disrupters, the inventors, and the builders. They’re the reason we have Ozempic, Amazon Prime, and StarLink.

But there was another type of billionaire, and they’re a blight. These are the billionaires who either inherited their money or obtained their money through what he politely calls “political connections.” Those people hurt society. They cause economic stagnation, because they wield outsized political clout while contributing next to nothing to society. You can see their greasy fingerprints all over our isolated elitist rich class, who has completely lost touch with the everyday realities of working Americans. They pull all of the political levers to get what they want, they have no regard for anyone who is not them, and they divert precious tax resources to their own profit or benefits. However, these trust-fund billionaires do give us one thing in return, and they give it generously: disdain. They resent sharing the planet with us.

These are the snooty people who talk about “flyover states” and “smelly Wal-Mart people” and believe that human beings who are not in their economic stratum are badly educated, toothless, and frequently run around without shoes. The Clintons are not billionaires (at least not that I know of, but Hillary has always been deceptive and close-mouthed) but they are good examples of this attitude. Remember when Hillary Clinton said people who supported Trump (who did not share her economic view of the world) were “deplorable and irredeemable”? Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Hillary was speaking from the heart for once.

Who says such elitist stuff in an election year? (Answer: the loser.)

Those who use political status and clout to get or maintain their money hinder competition. They hurt the country. They derail economic growth. On the other hand, inventors and innovators and self-made billionaires tend to stimulate economic growth by creating jobs and fostering competition.

Jeff Bezos may not be the world’s most likeable man, but Amazon online is fed by over two million small businesses around the world who sell their products, books, and services online. This does not include the larger businesses, who also sell online. Amazon actually has created tools to help would-be authors, composers, designers, and retailers to better develop, market, and self their products. This has made a lot of people a lot of money. I know a family that has made a living selling a variety of yoga-related products online at Amazon. It’s a home-based business and they do it all using tools that Jeff Bezos handed them. They would not be earning what they’re earning today (which is plenty) if it were not for Amazon and its tools. I’m not just talking about the platform, Amazon explained in various tutorials how to set up, run, monetize, and advertise a thriving home-based business. And it works! At least it’s worked for them for over 10 years. Is that bad? Do we really need to declare war on Bezos?

Why Does Liz Warren Hate Billionaires?

Obviously, the woman has extreme psychological problems and spiritual deficiencies.

However, she and Mamdani have found a simplistic answer to a very complex question. New York City is home to both the richest people on earth, but also has swarms of homeless people. It is an unaffordable city for most middle-class and working people. Mamdani wants to get rid of the richest people and thinks this will make the city more affordable. I guess this follows the Haiti example where prices are low because everyone is poor.

Warren wants to tax the billionaires out of existence and use their money to “invest” in various projects that she thinks will help the poor. She thinks she can use the billionaires’ money much more wisely than they can. After all, who has lifted more people out of poverty than a U.S. Senator?

The problem with taxing billionaires is that billionaires have feet. They move. If you tax a billionaire at a very painful rate, that billionaire may decide to move elsewhere. While some people have stated, rather stupidly, that nobody ever leaves New York City, the evidence suggests otherwise. I think they have New York City confused with the Hotel California.

If you look at the top 1% of New Yorkers (state wide) in terms of income, they pay 40% of all the state’s income taxes. If you look at the top 10% of New Yorkers earning big incomes, they pay 66% of all income taxes. These are what the Brothers Grimm called the “goose that laid the golden eggs.” These people are of considerable value to the city and state of New York. If somebody paid 66% of all my expenses, I wouldn’t be coming after them with a machete and threatening to rub them out of existence.

However, New York is seeing what demographic experts are calling a “net outflow” of top earners. That means the rich are moving out and not being replaced at the same rate. It’s not just random moves (like one rich guy moves to New York, and another equally rich guy moves out of New York), it’s a trend. What this means is that New York City’s tax base is getting smaller. But that’s what Warren and Mamdani want, isn’t it? No billionaires means that the top earners lose money and ultimately contribute less.

All this kooky talk is going to reduce the ranks of the top tier of income earners in New York City. Even back in 2023 when the only commie in politics most of us knew was Bernie Sanders, ten billionaires bid adieu to the Big Apple. Those leaving include Daniel Och (hedge fund guy), Josh Harris (sports guy), and Carl Icahn (investor). I remember a certain outspoken billionaire real estate investor in New York City, who called it quits and moved to Florida. His name was Donald Trump.

When billionaires and billionaire-adjacent people—in fact even just plain single-digit millionaires—move out of a city, they take their money with them. This reduces what they call the “tax base.” Reducing the tax base means fewer money taken in as taxes.

Mamdani is fine with this, he doesn’t want billionaires to even exist. But Liz Warren thinks it’s better to just tax them into oblivion, thinking they’ll stand obediently in place and hand over the money agreeably.

I have only observed billionaires from afar (well, I worked for one once…) and let me tell you one thing I’ve observed. They aren’t careless with money. Senators, children, and rich guys’ girlfriends can be careless with money. Billionaires never are. I was once at work at a working meeting lunch with a billionaire guy who owned the company. He arranged for sandwiches and soft drinks to be brought in for our lunch—and he made us pay for them!

Bill Ackman, a billionaire investor, is saying that the flight of billionaires out of New York City, even on a small scale, could reduce the city’s budget by billions. Quick, somebody draw Liz Warren a chart so she can understand this.

Is Elon Musk Making Us Poor?

Simpletons like Liz Warren view the economy the way a child looks at money in a piggy bank. If she has $10, that’s $10 her brother doesn’t have. They see money as finite and that if one person has a lot, it makes the rest of us poor.

But money in a free market is far more dynamic and complex. Billionaires who create jobs can raise incomes across the board. Elon’s rocket company SpaceX has not impoverished Texas, it has enriched the Texans. There are Texans who have jobs, houses, health insurance, and swimming pools because of Elon Musk. There are other people who work to support SpaceX in terms of local restaurants, hotels, Uber drivers, private schools, and all the rest. Many people are enriched, even if Elon Musk takes a profit.

And the free market course corrects almost instantaneously and with perfect precision. When new goods or services come to market, it can create demand, which drives up prices, which in turn fuels competition, which drives down prices. Along the way, a lot of us get a slice of the pizza.

Let’s take as an example a drug company. They want to bring a new drug to market. They employ scientists, researchers, drug developers, product managers, other experts, and support staff to create the product. Then they test the drug, hiring doctors, nurses, and clinical researchers. Then they take it to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and hire regulatory consultants, writers, and experts in everything from labeling to packaging. And if their drug is one of the one in ten that gets launched to market, they have to then hire marketers, sales representatives, sales trainers, nurse educators, communicators, website developers, content creators, and designers. The product hits the market—and makes a lot of money! The drug company rakes in billions. Was that drug company evil? A lot of people earned their living—and a nice living at that—along the way. The drug company’s work benefited hundreds even thousands of people before the product even came to market. And if the product is a good one, it will benefit more in the future.

Is this so evil?

Sadly, there are individuals and companies who have ideas about new products who cannot manage to get them to market. They don’t have the capital to develop them, and they lack the infrastructure to bring them to market. They need money. Some brave ones borrow it, others try to do things on the cheap, and some give up. But there is no doubt that having money to fuel innovation and development is a good thing. We should encourage it and not punish it.

You can have the cure to cancer, but if you only have $200 in the bank, it’s not going anywhere.

You are better off because of billionaires. Think of your cell phone. The Apple iPhone made a lot of the Apple boys rich. Do you hate them for making money? Would you rather they be impoverished, even if it meant nobody had an iPhone?

As novelist Ayn Rand once said, “When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed.”

And that’s the handwriting on the wall for Mamdani and Warren. Warren is the more annoying but she’s so old she can’t even stand up without falling. I observe her online and in the news, but she is laughable. The photogenic and youthful Mr. Mamdani is the more dangerous. He’s a commie and a true believer. He can also stand up without falling over.

By the way, speaking of Mamdani, did you know that he has a luxury private compound in Uganda? His folks own this secret place in Uganda. It has its own security detail, guards, and a system to jam communications. And Uganda doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States. So Mamdani is not just a communist, he’s a communist with an escape route.