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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 12m

"Money is not why billionaires are bad, their power is. This is why taxing them is ineffective, and maybe even neutral or bad. You see, their power, not their money, undermines democracy, and it comes from their money, which is why taxing them is necessary and good!"

dawg wtf is this lmao

In the heyday of support for Sen. Bernie Sanders and democratic socialism, the idea that Americans couldn’t have nice things because billionaires were hoarding all the wealth was a boilerplate bromide. “We are the 99 percent,” went the rallying cry, and if that we just took some of the money the 1 percent was hoarding, we could easily pay for new broad-based social programs, such as Medicare for All, a universal basic income, free college—take your pick.

In 2018, it was estimated that Medicare for All would cost $32 trillion over a decade—about $41 trillion in today’s dollars. The total net worth of all billionaires in the United States is about $6 trillion, give or take. In other words, if Americans confiscated every dollar from every billionaire, that would pay for about a year and a half of Medicare for All. Then we’d be out of cash.

The problem with billionaires isn’t that they’re hoarding money that would otherwise pay for a Scandinavian social utopia. It’s that their money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.

In reality, of course, taxes on billionaires are never perfectly efficient or maximally confiscatory. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 proposal was for a 6 percent yearly tax on fortunes over a billion dollars. She estimated that this would raise $3.75 trillion over 10 years.

You can run the numbers yourself for universal basic income or whatever other social program you have in mind. Billionaires have a lot of money, yes. But the United States is an enormous, prosperous country, and most universal social programs would necessarily involve substantial taxes on the middle class. To fund its generous welfare state, Denmark collects 43.4 percent of its GDP in taxes per year. The United States collects a scant 25.2 percent. Making up the difference would require broad-based tax increases amounting to $5.05 trillion per year. The trade-off might well be worth it—but confiscating billionaire wealth is not a magic bullet to solve U.S. budget problems.

While other countries are willing to more aggressively limit free speech, including but not limited to campaign finance restrictions, the First Amendment makes this difficult to impossible in the United States. Instead, Americans must confront the problem of economic inequality and the dire power differentials it enables more directly: by taxing billionaires.

And the thing is, taxing billionaires isn’t even that bad for billionaires. At that level of wealth, there is nothing material left to buy. The second billion goes not into more consumption but simply purchasing more assets. The marginal value of each new dollar of wealth diminishes almost to zero, except perhaps as a way of keeping score with other billionaires.

Even if most billionaires never engage in conduct as egregious as Musk’s, the possibility remains, both as a danger we must protect against—and as a threat hanging over the heads of elected politicians and influencing their actions: Don’t ingress on wealth inequality too greatly, or someone might pull an Elon on you. This is not tolerable in a free society.

Billionaires are dangerous. We should tax them until they aren’t.

Reposted by cassius marcellus clay

James Myall @jamesxmyall.bsky.social · 48m

Few things are more annoying to read than “let me set the record straight” followed by a bunch of straw-man arguments.

I think Rep Golden is the first person I’ve heard suggest that the CR itself cuts health care

jaredgolden.substack.com/p/its-time-t...

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1h

his "independence" has never gotten jack shit for anyone but himself. he has no fierce nonpartisan values guiding him beyond being petulant, anti-intellectual, and believing being reflexively contrarian is a virtue unto itself

cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1h

should be criminal that "local" reporters like steve collins who arent from the area spent years writing the most fawning, uncritical puff pieces imaginable, hearing terms like "progressive conservatism" and going "yes mr golden very logical"
every "win" hes had were things *dems voted for*!!

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1h

He's a reactionary rich kid who evaluates the "merits" of issues based on a refusal to ever learn anything and whatever he had for breakfast that day. He is without a doubt the least knowledgeable elected democrat ive ever met re: policy details and implementation. most "everyones 12 now" guy ever

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1h

Great example of some of the failure of political journalism. Golden started his career as a republican and refuses to hold town halls for years claiming they are a "leftist plot"
He called maine nursing groups advocating for student loan relief whiny and entitled
He supports Trumps tariffs

Crepuscular #🟦 @cielobajo.bsky.social · 5h

I'm not a Maine, but it sounds like Dunlap is more of a party line Dem whereas Golden makes up his mind on each issue based on its merits. True?

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Khashoggi's Ghost @urocklive1.bsky.social · 18h

Some good news!

A librarian got fired for refusing to remove LBGTQ books and sued the county, its board of commissioners, the library board, and members of both government boards for violating her 1st amendment rights, and discriminatory and retaliatory firing.

www.rawstory.com/wyoming-libr...

Librarian gets massive payday after firing for refusal to yank LGBTQ books off shelves

A librarian fired by county officials in Campbell County, Wyoming, for refusing to remove LGBTQ books from shelves got the last laugh with a $700,000 settlement. According to The New York Times, "Terr...

www.rawstory.com

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 6h

we genuinely need to wholly eliminate the "maine trust for local news" org and the papers it runs and just start from scratch, jesus christ. you get steve collins lying in the SJ or em duggan in PPH calling 1/6er nick blanchard an "advocate" (for what, duggan?) and sanewashing him.

Reposted by cassius marcellus clay

jeff computers @helldude.bsky.social · 16h

it's kind of wild that a guy died a little while ago and the government swore we would reap the whirlwind and that his widow would lead a howling army of valkyries across the galaxy and then the most you heard about it since was the secretary of domestic war saying they arrested the wife of antifa

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spooky mental haunted house @jesseltaylor.bsky.social · 17h

donning the armor of god to face the forces of hell

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 19h

Bald/ing
Rich
Middle Aged
Famous

Join us on tomorrows Dr Phil to discuss what psychologists call the "Dark Tetrad" - a group of traits that inevitably results in 12 Years Old views and behavior.

Later on, we join Dr. Phil as he achieves a 0.40 BAC and screams at hospice patients about The Abyss

Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 21h

we're maybe a week away from burr posting an ai video of george carlin saying he wouldve gone if he could

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 1d

always double down

cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 20h

short of literally dying im not sure one can lose a music feud harder than "it is now legal record that a judge decided you lost a music feud in the process of you losing your defamation case"

Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 22h

Drake sitting there reading about how good the judge thought the song was and how everyone really enjoyed it

The song contains lyrics explicitly accusing Drake of being a pedophile, set to a catchy beat and propulsive
bassline. "Not Like Us" went on to become a cultural sensation.

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 22h

every week i fill hundreds of water balloons with 50/50 MMR vaccine and liquid tylenol mixture and pay the meanest 5th grader in town $20 to throw them at everyone coming out of or going into the delivery/newborn wing of the hospital

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

RFK Jr: "Somebody showed me a TikTok video of a pregnant woman at 8 months pregnant -- she's an associate professor at the Columbia Medical School -- and she is saying 'F Trump' and gobbling Tylenol with her baby in her placenta. The level of Trump Derangement Syndrome is now a pathology."

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 22h

i would prefer janet mills not run for senate but one thing i must nitpick is that her being 77 is marginally less concerning than 99% of 77 year olds because she is like 4'10 and <5' maine women live to 103 and die only after like falling and breaking their hip bc they still chop their own firewood

cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 22h

i do love his dog, though i also love all dogs without restriction so im not sure that actually counts as a point in favor of him so much as the only concrete facts about hasan piker i know (i still dk if he is from turkey or NJ and i refuse to learn) are about his dog. look at this good dog.

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 23h

i think im technically a fan? i dont really have opinions strong enough to cause emotions on him beyond i think hes generally positive due to surprising # of people in my life who have told me pushed them left.

but wherever he goes/is mentioned an army of absolute freaks ALWAYS follows

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1d

V possible the tism makes it more baffling to me, bc i just fundamentally dont get obsessive hate watching. "I will just change the channel" is what allowed me to discover the 24hr stream where I can feed ducks in a pond with a donation and that truffle pig racing is a thing that exists

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1d

I think its that really toxic parasocial love/hatred has become so normalized re: public figures, celebs, bands, movies, etc.

But i only started watching streams during shutdowns, so idk whether streaming drives that or it exists independently and is exacerbated in streaming spaces.

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1d

How did we get from a point where hasan piker discourse only reached bksy if it broke multiple levels of containment to where plainly insane rage bait created by nazis and sex pests on twitter is immediately also A Thing here?

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1d

Most consistent rule of the world ive seen play out last few years is how virtually every person who cannot simply dislike hasan but needs to create elaborate fantasies about it ends up being a sexual predator. Shits consistent enough to go in the DSM

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1d

Ngl a little sad that horrendous dipshit ever came back from his 8 month walk

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1d

Was it even a week ago that douthat was interviewing hasan piker and was so aggressive in trying to craft a narrative that he repeatedly put words in piker's mouth and at one point went "idk man i just think youre violent"

Surely there will be similarly aggressive framing in this interview!

Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 1d

Listening and learning

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1d

Despite how much of it is subjective I bet you could make a pretty strong evidence based argument that 2025 america is actually the most anti-merit large society that has existed

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cassius marcellus clay @cmclay.bsky.social · 1d

Can we all agree that for the next 20 to 50 years if someone ever tries to argue that america is a meritocratic society we get to throw eggs at them in public

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Reposted by cassius marcellus clay

Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 1d

Wolf being absolutely destroyed in Jeopardy by Andy Richter

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