From: punditster@gmail.com   
      
   On 2/12/2026 3:06 PM, Noah Sombrero wrote:   
   > On Thu, 12 Feb 2026 14:26:02 -0800, Dude  wrote:   
   >   
   >> On 2/12/2026 1:35 PM, Noah Sombrero wrote:   
   >>> On Thu, 12 Feb 2026 13:06:13 -0800, Dude  wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>> On 2/11/2026 12:20 PM, Noah Sombrero wrote:   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> February 11, 2026   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Class war is the future of American politics   
   >>>>> By David Wallace-Wells   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> The San Francisco Bay Area is home to at least one-third of the value   
   >>>>> of the entire U.S. stock market. Late last year, you couldn’t escape a   
   >>>>> chilling billboard campaign, meant to be cheeky, from an artificial   
   >>>>> intelligence start-up: “Stop Hiring Humans.” And on Saturday,   
   somebody   
   >>>>> tried to AstroTurf a trollish Billionaires March through the city in   
   >>>>> defense of Silicon Valley’s 21st-century robber barons. Only a few   
   >>>>> dozen people showed up, heckled along the way by passers-by.   
   >>>>> The billionaires themselves also seem to be on the move. In recent   
   >>>>> months, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin have all purchased   
   >>>>> homes outside California, potentially bringing their hundreds of   
   >>>>> billions of dollars with them. Others have spent the past few months   
   >>>>> raging about the injustice of the state’s new politics of class   
   >>>>> warfare.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Why? A proposal — supported by the local congressman Ro Khanna but not   
   >>>>> the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and currently floating in limbo as   
   >>>>> a potential ballot initiative tentatively scheduled for the fall —   
   >>>>> that would impose a one-time 5 percent wealth tax on the state’s   
   >>>>> billionaires, whose wealth has soared since the pandemic.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>> This makes sense - California faces a projected budget deficit for the   
   >>>> 2026-27 fiscal year, with estimates ranging from a $2.9 billion shortfall.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> However, California Governor Gavin Newsom is not in favor of the   
   >>>> proposed California wealth tax. Why?   
   >>>>   
   >>>> It could damage the state's economy, drive away top earners, and reduce   
   >>>> funding for public services by reducing overall tax investments.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> He has consistently opposed such measures, stating years ago that wealth   
   >>>> tax proposals were "going nowhere in California".   
   >>>   
   >>> A citizen's ballot initiative might change his mind.   
   >>>   
   >> Apparently, the Governor is not in favor of special taxes for wealthy   
   >> people, to pay off the state deficit. In the US, it would probably be   
   >> unconstitutional. Everyone is equal under the law. It's in the US   
   >> Constitution.   
   >   
   > A graduated income tax would still be legal.  A 5% tax on only the   
   > wealthy could be challenged as not fair.  I'm sure the wealthy would   
   > not hesitate a minit to bring that case.   
   >   
   Under the US system, higher-income households pay a larger percentage of   
   their income in federal taxes compared to lower-income households.   
      
   Apparently, a flat rate of around 24% on personal income was estimated   
   to be revenue-neutral, meaning it would cover the then-current federal   
   outlays. YMMV.   
    >   
      
   >>   
   >>>>> This isn’t exactly pitchforks in the streets, the nightmare   
   >>>>> entertained by every generation of aristocrats and oligarchs as a   
   >>>>> supremely flattering form of status paranoia. But about the symbolism,   
   >>>>> at least, the horrified billionaires and would-be billionaires are   
   >>>>> basically right. There has never been a tax of this kind so seriously   
   >>>>> considered in the United States before, and the policy would mark a   
   >>>>> genuinely new era of the politics of extreme wealth in this country.   
   >>>>> Or is that new era already here? Politicians now casually invoke “the   
   >>>>> Epstein class” and more routinely name-check affordability than they   
   >>>>> ever campaigned on its close cousin inequality. Prominent plutocrats   
   >>>>> talk much more openly about their right to great fortunes and their   
   >>>>> hostility toward oversight and interference from the government, and   
   >>>>> leftists talk more openly about their hostility toward extreme wealth.   
   >>>>> Last year was marked by class-warfare bookends: In January, as the   
   >>>>> tech right joined the president’s MAGA army for his inauguration in   
   >>>>> Washington, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man was handed close to   
   >>>>> unilateral control of the machinery of government, partly as a   
   >>>>> thank-you for political contributions of nearly $300 million. And in   
   >>>>> November a democratic socialist was elected mayor of the world’s   
   >>>>> financial capital, relying on public matching funds against the many   
   >>>>> millions spent opposing him and almost universal hostility from the   
   >>>>> banking class.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> One big question is whether this backlash will go beyond lip service —   
   >>>>> whether the country’s partisan coalitions, which have seemed so   
   >>>>> unshakable in the time of President Trump, will be reshaped by   
   >>>>> antagonism for billionaires, and the response of those billionaires,   
   >>>>> as the sunset of Trump’s long reign comes slowly into view.   
   >>>>> “Masks off — that’s the right way to put it,” says Gabriel   
   Zucman, an   
   >>>>> economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has helped   
   >>>>> craft wealth-tax proposals like the one in California and similar ones   
   >>>>> being considered internationally.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> One year in, Trump’s second term is transparently and by many orders   
   >>>>> of magnitude the most brazenly corrupt administration in American   
   >>>>> history, with crypto meme coins and the president’s personal lawsuit   
   >>>>> against his own I.R.S. The outward deference of tech oligarchs to   
   >>>>> Trump seems to have outlasted the so-called vibe shift of young, Black   
   >>>>> and brown voters, many of whom have since abandoned him. And the   
   >>>>> billionaires’ apparent comfort with transactional, acquisitive MAGA   
   >>>>> politics seems to illustrate what Khanna — who represents parts of the   
   >>>>> Bay Area and many of those billionaires — has called Silicon Valley’s   
   >>>>> broken social contract.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Musk’s purchase of Twitter more than three years ago looks even more   
   >>>>> politically consequential both in retrospect and because of how widely   
   >>>>> it is now being imitated by others who share his desire to shape the   
   >>>>> country’s information diet from above. Larry Ellison’s Oracle now   
   >>>>> holds an ownership stake in TikTok, and his son, David, owns CBS News   
   >>>>> and is vying for control of CNN. Jeff Bezos just neutered what was   
   >>>>> either the country’s second- or third-most-important newspaper, about   
   >>>>> a year after he took control of its editorial page and steered it   
      
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