SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
mark cuban
'Mark Cuban Is Wrong': Bernie Sanders Defends Lina Khan as 'Best FTC Chair in Modern History'
"By taking on corporate greed and illegal monopolies, [the FTC chair] is doing an exceptional job preventing large corporations from ripping-off consumers and exploiting workers," said the U.S. Senator from Vermont.
Oct 09, 2024
After billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban this week said publicly that he would get rid of Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan if he had the chance, Sen. Bernie Sanders pushed back Tuesday by calling her the best person to hold the powerful regulatory post in a long time.
Speaking at a luncheon event hosted by the health policy news outlet KFF in California, Cuban—the outspoken billionaire known for his appearances on the television show Shark Tank and who has endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for president—responded to a question about retaining Khan if Harris won November's election by saying, "If it was me, I wouldn't."
While Khan has been championed by progressives for her aggressive efforts to curb corporate greed and the relentless monopolistic consolidations that have harmed consumers and the broader economy, Cuban criticized her antitrust actions as counterproductive.
"By trying to break up the biggest tech companies, you risk our ability to be the best in artificial intelligence," Cuban claimed, according to reporting by Semafor. "The bigger picture," he added, is that Khan is "hurting more than she's helping."
Following Cuban's reported comments, Sanders—who recently traveled with Khan in Texas to talk with voters about the threat of corporate power and how the working class can better confront it—came to her defense.
"Mark Cuban is wrong," Sanders tweeted Tuesday night in response. "Lina Khan is the best FTC Chair in modern history."
"By taking on corporate greed and illegal monopolies," Sanders continued, the current FTC chair "is doing an exceptional job preventing large corporations from ripping-off consumers and exploiting workers."
Other progressives, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Working Families Party national director Maurice Mitchell, also weighed in.
"Let me make this clear," Ocasio-Cortez declared Wednesday, "since billionaires have been trying to play footsie with the ticket: Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl. And that is a promise. She proves this admin fights for working people. It would be terrible leadership to remove her."
Last month, Fortunereported that many "billionaire donors" of Harris' presidential campaign—including Cuban and Barry Diller, chairman of IAC—were lobbying behind the scenes to have Khan replaced if she takes the White House.
In July, Common Dreamsnoted the backlash many of these same billionaire donors—who also include LinkedIn founder Reid Hastings and Netflix's Reed Hoffman—received for going after Khan.
In an August column, progressive activist Jim Hightower warned about the billionaires within the Democratic coalition who had "knives out" for Khan.
"Khan is the first real antitrust champion America has had in years," wrote Hightower at the time. "But will leading Democrats have the guts and integrity to defend her? Or will the business-as-usual powers be ushered back in?"
In a statement from an unnamed spokesperson released to Semafor, the FTC responded to Cuban's remarks by saying Khan believes "extreme consolidation" of large companies is damaging to U.S. economic progress.
"Chair Khan believes choosing competition over centralized corporate control of markets is the path to letting the best ideas win," the spokesperson said.
Sanders concluded his Tuesday rebuke of Cuban by thanking Khan directly for "what you are doing."
Update: This piece has been updated from its original to include new public comment from Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Progressives Sound Alarm as Harris Courts Crypto Industry
"Harris' promise to balance the industry's interests with those of consumers is an obvious contradiction," said the executive director of the Revolving Door Project. "Crypto is a haven for businesspeople with nefarious or criminal intent."
Sep 26, 2024
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' increasingly open embrace of cryptocurrency during her 2024 bid for the White House has sparked alarm among progressives, who have pointed to the still-nascent industry's pervasive fraud and opposition to regulatory guardrails as all the evidence the vice president should need to end her courtship of the sector.
Semaforreported Thursday that in addition to speaking publicly about "a friendlier approach to cryptocurrency than President Joe Biden," Harris is "dispatching aides to court well-heeled crypto investors and their Democratic allies in Congress."
"Harris debuted her newly crypto-coded message in remarks to Wall Street donors this past weekend," the outlet added, "and her campaign's quiet work with crypto allies indicates that she sees a space to compete on that turf with former President Donald Trump—who this month endorsed a still-unclear crypto platform launched by his sons."
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said earlier this week that he believes cryptocurrencies have "a great future" and suggested the U.S. could pay off the national debt with digital assets. Venture capital billionaires Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have donated to Trump's campaign—contributions "motivated by areas like crypto and AI regulation," Axiosreported.
Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), is friendly with the crypto industry and personally owns hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin.
Harris, for her part, gave a nod to the cryptocurrency industry during a major economic policy speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, saying she wants the U.S. to "remain dominant" in "emerging technologies" such as the blockchain.
"Acceding would not only set the dangerous precedent that motivated industries can purchase the regulatory framework that best suits their interest, but also open Americans to fraud."
Harris' economic policy platform states that, if elected in November, she would "encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors."
Billionaire investor and outspoken Harris supporter Mark Cuban told Semafor that he intends to visit Capitol Hill to "personally lobby lawmakers on any major crypto bill that gets a vote in the future, whether it’s industry-favorable or not."
In a statement earlier this week, the Revolving Door Project (RDP) warned that the Harris campaign's "acquiescence" to crypto would "lead to disaster."
"The cryptocurrency industry has doggedly pursued its mission to flout longstanding securities laws and robust SEC oversight," said Jeff Hauser, RDP's executive director. "Weak regulation is crucial to the industry's continued business strategy of serving as a conduit for money laundering, assisting ransomware rings, terrorist organizations, and those importing fentanyl."
"The industry has defiantly moved past the stench of Sam Bankman-Fried's fraud-backed influence campaign to flood key congressional races with cash in a transparent attempt to strongarm Democrats into acquiescing to their demands," he continued. "Acceding would not only set the dangerous precedent that motivated industries can purchase the regulatory framework that best suits their interest, but also open Americans to fraud, increased ransomware, and other illicit behavior pervasive across the cryptocurrency industry."
Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, toldThe Washington Post on Thursday that while he gets that Harris "doesn't want to alienate the crypto folks," the federal government "should not be encouraging speculation in this stuff."
"This is just gambling," said Baker. "I don't think we need to make it easier to do illegal transactions—blackmailing, drug dealing, whatever."
Crypto industry spending on federal lobbying surged to an all-time high of $24.7 million in 2023, according to OpenSecrets, and the cash blitz has continued this year as major digital currency asset players and their congressional allies in both parties fight off regulatory efforts.
The industry has also spent big on the 2024 elections: An analysis released last month by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that crypto firms have poured more than $119 million directly into federal elections so far this year, making them "by far the dominant corporate political spenders."
"Crypto-influenced lawmakers bending over backwards to benefit Big Crypto means weaker protections preventing individual consumers from being defrauded by reckless crypto scams—and softened regulations protecting our financial system from destructive innovations that exploit consumers while enriching insiders," Public Citizen said at the time. "The influence of Big Crypto is more evidence a constitutional amendment is needed to overturn Citizens United—and restore our democracy to one where people call the shots, not corporations."
Hauser also expressed concerns about "the idea that crypto insiders would have any sway in policymaking," which he warned would "just further put Americans in harm's way, once again disproportionately harming the poor and communities of color."
"Harris' promise to balance the industry's interests with those of consumers is an obvious contradiction," said Hauser. "Crypto is a haven for businesspeople with nefarious or criminal intent. The rampant fraud and criminal behavior in the very young industry—not just from FTX, but from Binance, OneCoin, Digital Currency Group, and countless others—is unprecedented in recent American history."
Keep ReadingShow Less
NYT Gives 'Whining' Megadonors a Platform to Push Harris Against Taxing the Rich
"I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you that Wall Street billionaires and Silicon Valley tech bros are trying to convince a presidential candidate to abandon her commitment to tax them," said the chair of the Patriotic Millionaires.
Aug 30, 2024
The United States' "paper of record" gave ultra-rich investors and corporate executives a platform on Thursday to sound off against Vice President Kamala Harris' support for a tax on unrealized capital gains, a popular proposal that has stirred howls of complaint from Silicon Valley elites whom Harris used to represent in the Senate.
The New York Timesstory—headlined "Donors Quietly Push Harris to Drop Tax on Ultrawealthy"—quotes billionaire investor Mark Cuban; Aaron Levie, CEO of the cloud storage firm Box; Charles Myers, the founder of Signum Global Advisors; and others who have backed Harris' presidential bid.
"In my interactions with them, the key is she focuses on her values and is not an ideologue about any particular program," Cuban told the Times, which described him as one of the donors close to Harris who doesn't "believe she is that committed" to taxing billionaire wealth.
"From what I've been told," said Cuban, "everything is on the table, nothing's been decided yet."
Levie, who has donated $30,000 to Harris' campaign, said Silicon Valley leaders he has spoken with about the proposed tax on unrealized capital gains see the idea as "quite punitive."
"There's optimism that this can't possibly be real," said Levie. "Most people are waiting to hear from the Harris campaign. Is this a real proposal that is actually being pushed for—or was this something that was inherited from Biden?"
"The only thing at stake here is the remarkably fragile egos of billionaires who are on the verge of realizing they might not be saving civilization for anyone, including themselves."
The Times noted Friday that a group of wealthy Harris supporters known as "VCs for Kamala" found in a survey of its members that "roughly 75% of respondents agreed with the statement 'taxing unrealized capital gains will stifle innovation.'" The group includes billionaire LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and billionaire investor Chris Sacca.
The Patriotic Millionaires, a group of rich Americans who support higher taxes on the wealthy, issued a statement Friday criticizing both the "whining" megadonors and the Times for handing them a megaphone to attack efforts to rein in billionaire tax dodging.
"I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you that Wall Street billionaires and Silicon Valley tech bros are trying to convince a presidential candidate to abandon her commitment to tax them, and using their own alleged brilliance to justify it," said Morris Pearl, the chair of the Patriotic Millionaires. "I admire their chutzpah in claiming that taxing unrealized capital gains will stifle innovation!"
"Claiming that making a billionaire pay taxes on their second billion will reduce innovation is as absurd as the rooster claiming the sun won't rise without his crowing," Pearl added. "The billionaires I know were all highly motivated to earn their first billion. The only thing at stake here is the remarkably fragile egos of billionaires who are on the verge of realizing they might not be saving civilization for anyone, including themselves."
The Patriotic Millionaires also suggested some adjustments to the Times headline:
Some (Silly/Misinformed) Donors Quietly (although not actually all that quietly; it was reported on the front page of the NYT after all) Push Harris to Drop (Modest Compared to What it Should Be) Tax on Ultra-Wealthy While Other (Much More Sensible and, yes, More Patriotic) Donors Loudly Push Billionaires to Drop Opposition to Common Sense.
The Harris campaign has voiced support for the tax proposals outlined in President Joe Biden's most recent budget blueprint, including a tax on the unrealized capital gains accumulated by individuals with net worths exceeding $100 million—a portion of the nation's upper class that contains fewer than 11,000 people.
Under the nation's current tax structure, billionaires are able to dodge taxes by never or rarely selling stock positions, which are not taxed until they are "realized."
Gabriel Zucman, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a leading advocate of a tax on billionaire wealth, has applauded the Harris campaign for embracing the proposed levy on the unrealized capital gains of the ultra-wealthy.
In a May op-ed in the Times, Zucman noted that U.S. billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans for the first time in the nation's history in 2018.
"The idea that billionaires should pay a minimum amount of income tax is not a radical idea," Zucman wrote at the time. "What is radical is continuing to allow the wealthiest people in the world to pay a smaller percentage in income tax than nearly everybody else."
"In liberal democracies, a wave of political sentiment is building, focused on rooting out the inequality that corrodes societies," the economist added. "A coordinated minimum tax on the superrich will not fix capitalism. But it is a necessary first step."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular