Video and Transcript for When Billionaires Go Rogue
This week's guest talks serious progressive reforms for the fifth largest economy in the world. We need a couple thousand more billionaires like this.
Below you can find a YouTube post of the recording for Episode #59, When Billionaires Go Rogue.
California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer joins the show this week to talk campaign stories, progressive ideas, taxing the wealthy, and much more. Tom explains how California utilities have one of the best monopolies going, with a locked in, risk free rate of return near double digits annually. We spend a significant amount of time on the WBD merger story, and why it matters so much to Tom and his commitment to labor retaining jobs at the highest possible wages.
This is not as heavily edited as the podcast, it’s closer to the raw video of our taping session. We also have a rough transcript for you.
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I stopped watching at around the 46th minute. A couple of observations, Matt, Dave and Steyer agree wholeheartedly on the following:
1. Public Utilities SHOULD make a profit
2. Tom Steyer is an authentic "Rogue" billionaire
Seriously? Why exactly should utilities be profit making? The phrase "price controls" was not mentioned once in the 46 minutes I watched. If Steyer is a rogue billionaire then I am the Grand Duke of Pom Tiddley Pom. This guy comes across absolutely and transparently as your garden variety money grubbing 0.01% soulless clod. He seems to have received and maybe even authored the recent memo in the Corporate Democrat Club that they should all pretend to beat up on the utility companies because the voters are now completely pissed about their electricity bills. They have even proved in the recent New Jersey and other election victories that it is a winning and highly distracting issue. A great way to change the topic to something other than why is our Democrat party public ratings in the toilet. So Dave spent the first few minutes in the show trashing Newsom. Ok, point received loud and clear but could we not have spent some time about SB79? Is it not going to work because of the lack of lenders? How could this "Rogue" billionaire build on it or whether he wants to and if not then why not? Steyer is going to revolutionize the building industry via some kind of newfangled "manufactured housing" abracadabra? The man spent very little time explaining what that is anyway. All in all not a good use of precious air time unless of course there was a stealth motive to put this "rogue" on the air and tear his whiskers off. I had only heard of Steyer before but thanks to this show, I now know him for what or who he is. Steyer personifies the pathology of the rich and greedy who very much like Linus Van Pelt refuse to let go of their "ROI Security Blanket". When Matt brought up "Abundance" the latest New Democrat conjuring trick, it was noteworthy that Steyer added little to it. I am fairly certain that Steyer being the total Shark he is and representative of his "Shareholder Value" predatory species watched a few of the Organized Money shows and was very well advised and coached about who the audience for this show is. Maybe that is why he ignored Matt's "Abundance" red cape. I do not live in California unfortunately because if I did then Steyer lost my vote. You know, this move to have Steyer on the show reminded me of Nader's "Only the Super-rich can save us" fictional novel. I remember being so disappointed with Nader when it came out and went around on NPR and a few other places to promote it. To me, it was Nader's white flag of abject surrender after so many decades believing that American Democracy will somehow find its way to a new dawn of a modern New Deal. I don't know about you guys, but my optimism is grounded in my ceaseless search for a new Stalin and my unshakeable faith that in a couple more decades or less the bottom 99% is going to be so immiserated that they will have nothing to lose - exactly like the time in Russia when Dzhugashvili left behind the Seminary for greater things. The cannon fodder and kindling was ready and it only needed a few brave men, three in particular to light the match and eviscerate the 0.1% into oblivion. Greatly looking forward to it.