Wine Caves = Billionaires = Undue Influence

Okaaay, there’s been quite a bit in the news about billionaires and their wine caves as a symbol of the wealthy’s influence on politics. This topic came up in the debates when Elizabeth Warren alluded to Pete Buttigieg’s fundraiser at a billionaire’s wine cave, the idea being that if one receives money from the super wealthy, then one becomes beholden to them. Pete Buttigieg responded back by saying that just because one receives money from the wealthy, one isn’t corrupted by them, as evidenced by Elizabeth Warren, implication being that she has received money from the very wealthy. Also, he says that the Democrats will need all of the money they can get to beat back Trump.

I like the idea of politicians renouncing money from the wealthy so that they don’t get influenced by the money, consciously or subconsciously. I believe that was the appeal of Bernie Sanders’ campaign in 2019, along with Medicare for All. But Pete Buttigieg does bring up a good point in that the Democrats are going to need all of the help they can get.

And not all billionaires are bad; they may be just misguided. I think Howard Schultz of Starbucks was misguided. From what I’ve read, he did great stuff for his employees but his ideas on taxes, well, they are proto-typical Republican ideas. Tom Steyer is definitely one of the good ones: he admits that the rich should pay more, and he has been fighting climate change for at least a decade. And he’s been fighting Trump via YouTube paid advertisements. Michael Bloomberg’s heart is probably in the right place but he may also be misguided – he’s a typical rich guy who may not have come to terms with the effects of extreme wealth and taxes. Just because they are billionaires doesn’t mean they are bad; it’s just they may be too heavily influenced by the ideas of Wall Street and the shareholder philosophy. They were successful under that kind of capitalism without being aware of the impact on average people. Nick Hanauer might be one of the few billionaires who is very aware of the adverse impact of our kind of capitalism because he has been beating the drums since the Great Recession that the wealthy need to change or the pitchforks will come.

But I think, unfortunately, these kind of billionaires are in a SMALL minority.

I am conflicted on this topic because I do want to keep the “good” billionaires, what few there are, on the side of the Democrats.

Earlier today though, I saw a tweet regarding Pete Buttigieg:

“If you’re worried that malefactors of great wealth may have too much influence over Pete Buttigieg…your worries may be justified. I mean, taking advice from Zuckerberg given all we know about Facebook…”

Paul Krugman’s twitter

…and attached to that tweet is a picture of a Bloomberg article “Mark Zuckerberg Has Quietly Recommended Campaign Hires to Pete Buttigieg”

Argh!!! I read the article and it doesn’t sound too bad, but still, there is a potential for undue influence.

We need to get rid of the Citizens United ruling but I don’t know how that would work. How do you change or override a Supreme Court ruling? Has that ever been done before?

But what got me on this topic of wine caves was an article about the very same billionaire whose wine cave was the scene of the fundraising. He was bellyaching about how unfair it was that he was being maligned just for holding a fundraising event in his caves. I don’t know how he made his money although some search suggested real estate but it seems pretty unfair for shareholders to cheer and get richer when executives lay off people or send jobs overseas. Why should shareholders get more money at the expense of the employees. What have the shareholders done for society?

Billionaires bellyaching about the unfairness of it all is not going to generate a lot of sympathy.

So, wine caves have now become a symbol of the wealthy’s influence over politicians.