Make America (the) Gilded Age
Only 1,300 days to go...
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."
~Mahatma Gandhi
Every day this last week I have read something about the Bezos/Sánchez wedding extravaganza in Venice. (I’ve written about Bezos before: #broligarchy rising, Darkness descending on WaPo.)
"Jeff Bezos divorced MacKenzie Scott after 25 years of marriage and four children. (To the tune of $40 billion, 4 percent of Amazon's stock.) Lauren Sánchez also ended things with her then-husband Patrick Whitesell. But today, all this is just the prequel. After they said “yes” secretly in the United States, the most powerful couple of the summer decided to remarry in Venice, as befits any globalized fairy tale. A new beginning, she said, “in an unforgettable place.” That means more than 200 high-profile guests, three days of festivities, a theater on the water, a star-studded menu, and a floating dance floor set up behind the Teatro Verde on the island of San Giorgio.” (Source: Vanity Fair)
The projected price for this neo-gilded age wedding has ranged from between $46.5 million and $55.6 million depending on what article I read. It sounds a bit as star studded and extravagant as Consuelo Vanderbilt’s forced marriage to the Duke of Marlborough. Only instead of New York society attending, the guests included a more eclectic crowd of people like Queen Rania of Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Leo DiCaprio, Bill Gates, Tom Brady and the Kardashians.
All these articles remind me of the descriptions of the opulent parties in “Mrs. Astor’s Four Hundred” New York; parties that were characterized by conspicuous displays of wealth, elaborate decorations, elaborate meals, and lavish entertainment, and strict social etiquette. While the Four Hundred initially represented old money families, the rise of new wealth during the Gilded Age led to some inclusion of the nouveau riche such as the Vanderbilts and the Morgans — those who could match the lavishness of the established elite.
And what was life like in the Gilded Age?
In 1890, 11 million of the nation's 12 million families earned less than $1200 per year; of this group, the average annual income was $380, well below the poverty line...
An economist in 1879 noted "a widespread feeling of unrest and brooding revolution." Violent strikes and riots wracked the nation through the turn of the century. The middle class whispered fearfully of "carnivals of revenge."
…Corruption extended to the highest levels of government.
….the richest four thousand families in the country — less than one percent of all Americans — had scooped up nearly as much treasure as the other 11.6 million families combined.
“We are the rich. We own America; we got it, God knows how, but we intend to keep it if we can.”
To really get a sense of the times, just watch the PBS Documentary, The Gilded Age.
During the Gilded Age, the United States shifted from a primarily agricultural society to an industry and manufacturing economy. Workers moved from farms to cities, and industrial growth brought rapid innovation and technological advances.
Sound familiar? Sort of like us moving from a manufacturing economy to a service economy driven by globalization and new technologies. Today’s Gilded Age includes not only those with generational wealth but the newer techonology, finance and media billionaires like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Bloomberg, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Ken Griffen, Oprah Winfrey, etc. — those who learned to exploit the service economy.
“The 400 richest people in America are having a rollicking time in the roaring 2020s. In all, they are worth a record $5.4 trillion, up nearly $1 trillion from last year. A dozen have $100 billion-plus fortunes, also a record. And admission to this elite club is pricier than ever: A minimum net worth of $3.3 billion is required, up $400 million since 2023.” (source: Forbes)
And the next wave? From what I read, the introduction of AI will have the same level of upheaval that the last wave did. Only this time it will hit the service economy and white collar workers.
I was listening to a podcast and chuckled when the person quoted someone who said,
“Trump is trying to erase the 20th century.”
There certainly is some truth to that statement. Rather than looking to the future and planning for an economy that has the potential to be as disruptive as the tech revolution was, Trump is hell bent on destroying 80 years of post-WWII diplomacy. He wants to erase the New Deal Legislation, the Progressive Era legislation, all the significant legislation under the Johnson and Nixon administrations. And he wants to bring back the policies of the 19th century president, William McKinley.
Trump loves the Gilded Age and its tariffs. It was a great time for the rich but not for the many
Experts on the era say Trump is idealizing a time rife with government and business corruption, social turmoil and inequality. They argue he’s also dramatically overestimating the role tariffs played in stimulating an economy that grew mostly due to factors other than the U.S. raising taxes on imported goods. And the Gilded Age policies, they maintain, have virtually nothing to do with how trade works in a globalized, modern economy.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not a fan of high taxes or of a bloated government. I don’t begrudge anyone earning a lot of money. Some of these folks have worked hard and have earned their wealth. Bravo. Some have been lucky to be at the right place at the right time. And while some of these folks are also exceedingly philanthropic (Buffett, Bloomberg, Gates, Winfrey, etc.), many are not.
What I find galling is an income tax system that has so many exceptions and deductions that tax bills continue to be so inequitable. Even the families that make somewhere between $250K - $2M often pay more taxes than the family that makes over $1B. That’s just not right. And even Warren Buffet says he doesn’t pay enough in taxes.
What Warren Buffett Says About Billionaires Paying Their Fair Share of Taxes
In addition to criticizing corporate tax, Buffett has come out against ultrawealthy individuals. “The wealthy are definitely undertaxed relative to the general population,” Buffett remarked in a 2019 CNBC interview. CNBC. "Warren Buffett and Bill Gates agree that the rich should pay higher taxes—here’s what they suggest."
He contends that the current tax system, by granting preferential rates and many loopholes, allows billionaires like himself to pay only a fraction of what they reasonably should, ultimately shifting an unfair burden onto ordinary Americans.
America is now in the neo-Gilded Age. The industries may be different, but the outcomes are the same. I encourage you to listen to the included Elissa Slotkin speech. She makes some excellent points.
As this Big, Beautiful Bill makes its way through Congress… I can only wonder what is store for the so-called middle class Americans, who are going to be experiencing the GOP’s need to return to a time when the rich were very rich; the poor were very poor; and the middle class all but disappeared…
Thought for the day…
“More and more stuff won’t fulfill you. It only leads to loneliness, desperation and fear. Finding purpose - centered on a life of giving and service - is where we will come to find our true selves.”
~Rabbi Daniel Gropper
Must Read Article:
Buy, Borrow, Die: How to be a billionaire and pay no taxes
That theory would be much closer to reality if not for step two: borrow. Instead of selling their assets to make major purchases, the superrich can use them as collateral to secure loans, which, because they must eventually be repaid, are also not considered taxable income. Larry Ellison, a co-founder of Oracle and America’s fourth-richest person, has pledged more than $30 billion of his company’s stock as collateral in order to fund his lavish lifestyle, which includes building a $270 million yacht, buying a $300 million island, and purchasing an $80 million mansion. A Forbes analysis found that, as of April 2022, Musk had pledged Tesla shares worth more than $94 billion, which “serve as an evergreen credit facility, giving Musk access to cash when he needs it.”
Quote of the day:
“The Senate seems poised to vote on a massive BBB that no one has actually read and will add $4 trillion to the national debt.; while the rich, beautiful surgically-enhanced, and obnoxious stars of our Gilded Age threw a lavish party in Venice.”
~Charlie Sykes
What I’m reading today…
A warning for Democrats from the Gilded Age and the 1896 election
Recently, Trump has joined a chorus of people likening the current political period to the Gilded Age – the late 19th-century period known for economic industrialization and wealth inequality.
The Reemergence of Social Darwinism
They don’t want to conserve what we now have. They’d rather take the country backward — before the Environmental Protection Act, before Medicare and Medicaid, before the New Deal and its provision for Social Security, unemployment insurance, the 40-hour workweek, before official recognition of trade unions, even before the first national income tax, antitrust laws, and Federal Reserve.
Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" just advanced one notch closer to becoming law
Because make no mistake: this is, by far, the most deeply unpopular piece of governing Trump has ever attempted. And it’s no wonder why.
This bill is a billionaire’s wish list, written in fine print. It slashes taxes for the wealthiest Americans while hollowing out critical programs that millions rely on just to survive. It guts SNAP — the program that puts food on the table for working families. It slashes Medicaid — jeopardizing health care for children, seniors, and low-income Americans. It threatens to leave millions without health insurance and further blows up the national deficit, a crisis so alarming that even Elon Musk has sounded the alarm bells.
The National Debt Is Already Causing Bigger Problems Than People Realize
The fear of a future crisis is distracting attention from the problems that the government’s dependence on debt is already causing. We, the people, are spending a staggering amount of money each year to borrow money. The interest payments on the federal debt now exceed the government’s spending on the military. They are roughly equal to the annual cost of Medicare. The sum is more than the government spends on anything except Social Security.
President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” would deepen this profligacy, repeating the mistakes of the 2017 legislation on which it is based. Once again, Republicans are proposing to reduce taxation. Once again, they are proposing to force the government to borrow more to pay its bills. Once again, federal spending on interest payments would rise — and money spent on interest is money that can’t be spent on other things.
At Bezos’ Venetian Wedding: Buzz, Bling and Backlash
On Friday, Venice’s canals filled with polished motorboats bearing Hollywood stars, millionaires and Khloé Kardashian in a cape of pink feathers as they headed to Jeff Bezos’ wedding to Lauren Sánchez. On Saturday, it was the turn of dozens of public order police officers on foot and watercraft.
A day after Ms. Sánchez took to Instagram on Friday night to introduce herself to the world as Lauren Sánchez-Bezos, wearing a lacy white mermaid dress, Venice braced for protesters who threatened to descend again on the city to voice their anger over the wedding — and armed conflicts around the world.
Despite his efforts to have a private, if star-studded, multimillion-dollar wedding in Venice, Mr. Bezos’ wealth and powerful connections left the couple’s thoroughly curated celebrations caught up in an intensely political and moral debate.
Why Donald Trump Is Obsessed with a President from the Gilded Age
If Trump resembles any Gilded Age politician, it isn’t William McKinley but his electoral opponent, William Jennings Bryan…. Bryan’s electoral map looked broadly similar to Trump’s in 2016.
Trump’s McKinleyism is not deeply informed….The historian Eric Rauchway describes Trump as “historically oblivious” for “evincing no awareness of the depression of the 1890s, whose severity was owed, in part, to the protectionist tariffs he praises.”
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis will not seek reelection next year after Trump attacks
Tillis was one of the most high-profile Republicans to say he could not support President Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," Republicans' massive tax and spending bill, in its current form. Trump on social media had attacked him as "a talker and complainer, NOT A DOER!" and threatened to support primary challengers to him next year.
He was one of only two Senate Republicans, along with Rand Paul, Ky., who late on Saturday voted against a motion to start debate on the policy package. For days, Tillis has criticized the Medicaid provisions in the bill and said he has data showing it would require his state to pick up more than $30 billion in costs in order to make up for lost federal funding.
Trump radically remade the US food system in just 100 days
Despite its widespread perception, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is involved in much more than farming. The federal agency, established in 1862, is made up of 29 subagencies and offices and just last year was staffed by nearly 100,000 employees. It has an annual budget of hundreds of billions of dollars. Altogether it administers funding, technical support, and regulations for: international trade, food assistance, forest and grasslands management, livestock rearing, global scientific research, economic data, land conservation, rural housing, disaster aid, water management, startup capital, crop insurance, food safety, and plant health.
In just about 100 days, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins have significantly constrained that breadth of work. The people who grow and sell America's food no longer trust the USDA.
Louisiana hospitals warn Mike Johnson of ‘devastation’ from megabill
The health systems said the Senate’s revised text hits states like Louisiana even harder than previous iterations and would slash more than $4 billion in Medicaid funding for the state’s health care providers.
“This will negatively impact our ability to deliver care and have devastating consequences for our state budget,” they said. “These economic consequences pale in comparison to the harm that will be caused to residents across the state, regardless of insurance status, who will no longer be able to get the care that they need.”
They added: “The House version, while it presented challenges, is a more workable solution which would help to avoid many of these effects.”
The problem for Trump is not a lack of precedent; his policies’ connection to American history is clear. The problem is that McKinley’s tariff approach does not suit today’s world. What is more, whereas McKinley used tariffs primarily to accomplish a domestic goal—to expand U.S. industry, Trump’s primary goal is external. He wants to change the behavior of other countries, relying on the threat of blanket tariffs to bring them to the negotiating table and extract concessions in areas of disagreement far beyond trade. Trump will judge his success not by measuring the tariffs’ effect on U.S. economic health but by whether allies and adversaries cave to his demands. In essence, Trump has McKinley’s model backward.
Why Is Trump So Obsessed With McKinley?
William McKinley is a favorite of Mr. Trump, who has lauded that president’s championing of tariffs and expansionism. During his tenure, Hawaii was annexed and Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines were seized by the United States. “He should be honored for his steadfast commitment to American greatness,” Mr. Trump asserted in his executive order.
“While Republican senators are securing baubles and trinkets for their political donors, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that the Senate bill will cut $930 billion from Medicaid. Just as before, these cruel cuts to Americans’ health care will strike a mortal blow to rural health care, and threaten the health and safety of kids, seniors, Americans with disabilities, and working families across the country. Life and death decisions of this magnitude should not be subjected to this rushed and reckless process. I urge Republican senators not to travel down this dangerous path: there is no band-aid that can heal these dangerous, deadly cuts.” ~Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Even Donald Trump’s Historical Role Model Had Second Thoughts About Tariffs
McKinley started out as a “steadfast protectionist” who believed that high tariff walls were a prerequisite for the rapid growth of the U.S. economy in the decades following the Civil War. In 1890, when McKinley was serving as the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he sponsored a tariff bill that raised the duties on many imported goods to nearly fifty per cent on average. Sounding like a modern-day Trumpian economic nationalist, he declared on the House floor, “This bill is an American bill. It is made for the American people and American interests.” Seven years later, when McKinley was in the Oval Office, he signed into law a piece of legislation, the Dingley Act, that raised some tariffs even further….
In the years after the law was enacted, the U.S. economy entered a deep slump, which didn’t fully relent until 1897. Non-trade factors played the primary role in bringing about this calamity, particularly a big financial panic in 1893, which led to the collapse of a number of banks and railroads. Still, as Irwin noted when I called him up last week: “When President Trump says that the McKinley tariff ushered in this glorious period of industrial expansion, it was actually a recession, really a depression, for a number of years.”
Elon Musk tops list of 2024 political donors, but five others gave more than $100 million
The top six political donors — Musk, banking scion Timothy Mellon, casino owner Miriam Adelson, shipping supplies magnates Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, hedge fund CEO Kenneth Griffin, and trading firm co-founder Jeffrey Yass and his wife Janine — all gave $100 million or more, and all supported Republican candidates and causes.
Wealth Does Not Fill You. Only Purpose Will Do That
We became so fixated on chasing the American dream - which was all about acquiring more and more stuff (thanks George Carlin), thinking that it would somehow fulfill (as in full fill) us - but instead it left us empty.
What I am watching…
What I read every day…
