Open letter to the top .01% from a member of that club

[Steve]

Interesting perspective.

Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires

You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what I’m talking about.

At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.

The Pitchforks Are Coming? For Us Plutocrats - Nick Hanauer - POLITICO Magazine

Is he the wrong kind of rich guy? Too socialist or liberal, I'm sure.



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[ballen0351]

Do you know how much he pays his employees at his family pillow company?

 

[ballen0351]

I went on the pillow company website and they are hiring for a graphic designer and require a min of an Associate degree. Starting salary is 35000 to 45000. At 35000 that a little over $16 bucks an hour with a degree so I don't see them paying the pillow suffers $15.00+ an hour so he's all talk

 

[ballen0351]

I also question his theory that paying walmart employees 10000 more a year will get them all out of poverty. He claims it will get them off medicare which may be true but that will use up a large chuck of the extra 10 grand a year. The rest of the money will go to increased rent since they now earn more they will loose other assistance programs for things like rent electric and food. 10000 over over a year isn't a whole lot. Leaving little to go into "cash registers' like he claims.

 

[ballen0351]

In theory his ideas sound great I just don't think they are do able. All it will do if force the attention of the pitch forks away from him and towards the poor. If I made 16 and hour as a mid level employee and all of a sudden my subordinates and new hires were making 15 I'd resent that because his plan doesn't address the mid level folks already making over the minimum.