I of course think it is and so, I would guess, would many of this blog’s readers but it seems that Howard Schultz is sensitive to it too and prefers the term ‘people of means’ and ‘people of wealth’. Here he is responding to a question from Anand Giridharadas, author of the book Winners Take All about whether billionaires have too much power over the political process.

Howard Schultz says billionaires should be referred to as “people of means” or “people of wealth.” pic.twitter.com/I3apM0h7aa

— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) February 5, 2019

Well, too bad, Howard. ‘Billionaire’ is probably the least pejorative label that is going to be used on you. Trust me, there are a whole lot worse that can and will be used as you continue your vanity project.

He also says that what he is trying to do is “walk in the shoes of the American people”. Does everyone wear Gucci and Prada shoes now?

… because some of them are asking that Donald Trump be brought in to salvage Theresa May’s floundering efforts and twist the arms of the Irish over the intractable border issue.

Conservative MPs, who oppose the prime minister’s European Union exit deal, want her to approach the US president and request that he lobby the Irish government to give ground in negotiations, Sky News reported on Tuesday.
…

But senior EU figures have resisted calls to reopen negotiations, in part because of opposition from the Irish government to altering the backstop.
…

The demand comes amid concerns that the new US Congress would side with Dublin against any changes that would put at risk the Good Friday Agreement, which was negotiated between the UK and Ireland with the help of the US.

That way lies madness. There is no situation so bad that Donald Trump’s intervention would not make worse.

Venezuela is a good example of how the US political-media-business communities unite to overthrow governments that it dislikes, especially when it comes to South America. The Trump administration seems to be laying the groundwork for overt military intervention in Venezuela to complement the US’s long-standing covert efforts at destabilizing that country and supporting coups, actions that were also done by the Obama administration. Readers may recall the coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002 that the US government and the media (with the New York Times being among the worst culprits) and political establishments in the US quickly endorsed, only to find Chavez regaining power. The media quickly assigned that disgraceful episode to the memory hole and it is rarely brought up again, though recent events in that country would surely justify doing so.
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Anand Giridharadas is the author of the book Winners Take All. In an interview, he called out the global plutocrats at Davos about their so-called ‘philanthropy by rich people as a solution to the world’s problems’, angering many of them. The real solution is to tax the hell out of them.

I think Davos is a family reunion for the plutocrats that broke the modern West. I’ve never been to it, so I’m a cultural critic looking from a distance, but it seems to me to be a gathering of people who think that they are changing the world when they are exactly what needs changing. A gathering of people who use the idea of making a difference as a kind of lubricant in the engine of making a killing, of people who promote generosity as a cheap substitute for justice.
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He was the 30-year old Dutch historian who became a viral sensation at Davos by saying that the way to prosperity is not through philanthropy but with higher taxes, not something the attending oligarchs wanted to hear. He says that he had become irritated by all the billionaires at the meeting patting each other on the back for thinking they were improving the world by talking about “participation, justice, equality and transparency” but really they were deflecting attention away from the fact that they are a big part of the problem because of their tax avoidance that results in them not paying their fair share.
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It is incredible how much attention that billionaire former CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz has got for his vanity project of running as an independent for president. He portrays himself as a ‘centrist’, the label that politicians like to adopt. These right-wing oligarchs like to use that term vaguely, to mean anyone who is not a far-right lunatic. Surely any normal definition of centrism would have some resemblance to supporting positions that the majority of people favor, such as Medicare for All, higher marginal tax rates on income and wealth, and living wages? He is vocally opposed to such measures..
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I came across this story about a white Detroit police officer Gary Steele who stopped a young black woman Ariel Moore, 24, because her car license tags had expired. He then had her car towed and forced her to walk home in the bitter cold that had gripped Detroit on Tuesday, all the while driving alongside her and filming her misery and posting it to his Instagram account.
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Whatever one might think about the merits of Donald Trump’s erratic claims of wanting to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, it has made the War Party that spans both Democrats and Republicans go into a tizzy. The Republican party and its leader Mitch McConnell have been slavish in their devotion to Donald Trump, refusing to defy him even during the shutdown votes and utterly unwilling to criticize him for pretty much anything, however outrageous. But they are willing to defy him on the troop withdrawals, showing that when it comes to supporting the war machine, the senate can act with unusual speed and bipartisanship.
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