Follow the money

A skeptical view of the left

It is worth reviewing where the November 5, 2024 Presidential candidates are getting their campaign donations. Here is a list of some Kamala Harris donors:

Katherine Raynor worth $5.7 billion
John Sall worth $6.4 billion
Reed Hastings worth $5.9 billion
James Cox Chambers worth $5.7 billion
Tony James worth $6.5 billion
Gordon Getty worth $6.5 billion
George Soros worth $6.5 billion
Margo Perot worth $6.8 billion
John Doer worth $7.4 billion
Joe Gebbia worth $7.4 billion
Pat Stryker worth $7.9 billion
Henry Laufer worth $7.8 billion
Steven Spielberg worth $9.3 billion}
Jon Gray worth $7.9 billion
Elizabeth Johnson worth $11.9 billion
Laurene Jobs worth $11.1 billion
David Shaw worth $10.4 billion
Melinda Gates worth $13.5 billion
Eric Schmidt worth $30.2 billion
Dustin Moskowitz worth $24.2 billion

Harris is a far left socialist and embraces policies that pretend to destroy the wealth of billionaires, including a proposed 25% tax on unrealized gains for persons who have more than $100 million wealth. This crowd would pay over $100 billion in additional taxes in 2025 if Harris is elected and succeeds in enacting her tax policies. Ask yourself why they would support Harris if they were going to be punished with an extra $100 billion of taxes in 2025; another $80 billion in 2026; and, another $60 billion in 2027, all assuming Harris wins and enacts her proposed policy and it survives three years. Make any sense to you?

Maybe they just want to shed some wealth, and if so they could just donate it all to the government now rather than waiting.

A more reasonable assumption is that they don’t believe Harris is serious about the proposed tax, promotes its solely to garner votes from those stupid enough to believe it, and expect to continue to benefit from left wing policies that pretend to help the poor while continuing to transfer wealth to the 1% which in a nutshell includes them.

But how could she do that?

It takes a few moments to explain but at its heart it is not complex.

First, she wants to increase corporate taxes which on their face should hurt this group, but in reality corporations increase prices to pass through tax increases and the burden shifts to consumers with the poorest paying the most. Higher corporate taxes are an efficient mechanism to shift wealth from the lowest income households to the rich. They are in essence a regressive income tax on the poor.

Second, Harris promotes the specious climate change narrative which pretends CO2 causes climate change. That permits government to enact legislation to “fight climate change” by giving subsidies to corporations controlled by their donors in areas like “renewable energy” and “battery technology”. Billions of dollars have already been taken from taxpayers and used to subsidize “renewables” increasing the cost of energy to consumers while enriching the owners of the “renewable energy” industry and the legion of consulting firms making millions “advising” government and industry clients how to mitigate climate change by reporting carbon dioxide emissions and investing capital in carbon capture technology, another subsidized industry scam. The entire “renewable” narrative is just another mechanism to effectively tax consumers and transfer wealth to Democrat donors among others.

Harris is a strong proponent of DEI and ESG. As well argued in Vivek Ramaswamy’s latest book “Capitalist Punishment” these two scams are used by major money management firms like Blackrock and Fidelity to justify higher fees for management of funds that embrace DEI and ESG ideology but, in fact, have the same portfolios as other funds that do not claim to embrace these toxic ideas. Corporate compensation consultants have been quick to use DEI and ESG metrics as a basis for executive compensation since both DEI and ESG are impossible to measure so bonuses and stock options can be awarded based on “soft” metrics while not requiring management to achieve results that benefit public investors and pension funds.

My old employer, McKinsey & Company, Inc. has made fortunes from the climate scam by advising governments and private clients on ways to reduce emissions. The emissions are harmless, possibly even necessary, but the narrative sells. The sad part is that McKinsey knows better. CO2 is harmless, dangerously low in atmosphere, and incapable of making any material difference to global temperatures. But when there is cash involved, even Barnum and Bailey knew that you would not go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Democrat policies benefit the rich. Sound impossible? Data from the Fed showed the growth in the wealth under Joe Biden amounted to $6.5 trillion in 2021 alone.

In the first quarter of 2024, 67% percent of America’s wealth was held by the top 10% and only 2.5% by the bottom 50% according to Statista. Socialists in the Democrat party love to pretend they are helping the poor when they are in fact helping themselves. United States income and wealth distribution under the Democrats is materially worse than under Republicans despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Trump tax cuts, and the inequality inflicted on Americans by Democratic governments makes China look more equitable by comparison. In China, the powerful ruling elite hold a mere 31% of the nation’s wealth and the richest 10% only 61%.

As Eric Arthur Blair wrote in his classic “Animal Farm” all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.