Bezos' dismantling of The Post perfectly illustrates what extreme wealth actually does. It doesn’t sit in a vault, it reshapes the world to suit one person and leaves the rest of us to deal with the fallout.
Taxing the ultra-wealthy is about chipping away at the corrosive power of that wealth.
American billionaires exert unprecedented power and influence over our economy and our democracy while the rest of us pay the cost.
We applaud @sanders.senate.gov and @khanna.house.gov for recognizing the imperative for a federal wealth tax on the ultra-rich. More of our leaders must follow suit.
Trump says he's "won affordability." @joshbivens-econ.bsky.social's latest for @msnownews.bsky.social explains how the data shows a different story...and a policy path toward real affordability wins for U.S. families.
#EconSky #Affordability
Trump talked about affordability in his State of the Union—but skipped the root cause: inequality.
@joshbivens-econ.bsky.social argues the real fix is taxing the ultra-rich and corporations to fund public goods, raise wages, and ease the squeeze on working families.
Your State of the Union reminder that it's not enough to simply criticize the people in charge.
It's clear that the economy and the tax code has been rigged against us.
We know working people can't go on like this.
We need a PLAN. We need Congress to DO SOMETHING.
We joined 20+ groups to send Congress a letter ahead of the State of the Union.
Here's what it said:
—Billionaires are increasing costs for everyone else.
—The Trump administration's tax cuts have made things worse.
—Congress needs a real plan to fix our rigged economy.
LFG.
Will President Trump acknowledge the real culprit behind rising costs, or will he continue protecting the billionaires that bankrolled his campaign?
24.02.2026 21:13 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
"Are we a nation that protects billionaires [...] at the expense of families that really need protection?"
This question, posed by Jay Williams at @fobaction.bsky.social's town hall last night, will be front of mind during the State of the Union tonight.
WATCH: The "State(s) of the Union: For the People, Not Billionaires" is getting underway soon!
You can watch the livestream on Youtube here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKwc...
#SOTU
The affordability crisis is a wealth hoarding crisis. Historic concentrations of extreme wealth enable the rich to distort our economy and drive up the cost of living.
We need leaders to offer a forward-looking economic agenda that shifts power away from billionaires and towards working families.
"The billionaire class no longer sees itself as part of American society. They see themselves as something separate and apart. Like the oligarchs of the 18th and 19th centuries, these guys literally believe that they have the divine right to rule and are no longer subject to democratic governments."
20.02.2026 17:01 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Mark Zuckerberg bought a new home in Florida to protest a proposed billionaire wealth tax in California.
Other CA billionaires are literally moving Picassos out of state to hide their wealth from a tax that would allow millions of Californians to access health care.
Tax these greedy billionaires.
Billionaires like Google co-founder Sergey Brin are spending millions to fight a proposed California wealth tax that would use the revenue to safeguard the state's healthcare system for millions of Californians.
Brin is currently the 3rd-richest person in the world with a net worth of $230 billion.
Tuesday is the State of the Union. Trump's scripted speech will tell one story. The reality Americans are living will tell another.
Join us the day before #SOTU, Mon. Feb. 23, 6:30pm ET, for "State(s) of the Union: For the People, Not Billionaires" to hear stories from families across the country.
Tonight, Bernie Sanders is in Los Angeles to make a simple case: Billionaires can afford a one-time tax to safeguard California’s healthcare from collapse.
Sanders’ speech comes as a group of tech billionaires announced a campaign to use their immense wealth to fight the billionaire tax initiative.
Mark Zuckerberg is the latest billionaire to performatively leave California to protest a ballot initiative that would tax billionaires to safeguard the state’s health care system.
After paying that proposed one-time, 5% wealth tax, Zuck's net worth would still be over $200 billion.
The billionaire owner of a competing bridge met with Howard Lutnick hours before President Trump threatened the opening of a new bridge between Michigan and Canada.
This is a textbook example of the ultra-rich using their influence to further their own interests.
After mass layoffs at the Washington Post last week, Washington Post Tech Guild members and affected employees came together to send a message to Jeff Bezos and speak out about the consequences of billionaire-controlled media.
10.02.2026 20:21 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Won't someone think of the billionaires??? @taxgreed.bsky.social
www.sfexaminer.com/news/technol...
Allowing billionaires to own news outlets and exert editorial control over the stories they publish is antithetical to a free press and a threat to our democracy. We can't afford to let the ultra-rich reshape our reality to suit their own agenda.
Tax the greedy billionaires.
When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013, his net worth was about $25 billion. Today it's $220 billion.
Bezos paid $250 million for the Post – only half the price of his own private yacht. He could afford to fund the newspaper indefinitely without layoffs, but he chooses not to.
Jeff Bezos decimated The Washington Post this week, laying off around 30% of its workforce.
Yesterday, we joined current and former Washington Post employees outside the Post's DC headquarters and the people there could see these layoffs for what they are: billionaire greed.
Building, then taking. These billionaires steal from you. They created products, services, and experiences that millions of people are forced to use due to lack of competition in a marketplace distorted by extreme wealth consolidation. They make sneaky deals with utility companies to shift their electricity costs onto you while they pocket the profits. They buy up large employers from Toys R Us to Joann Fabrics, take out loans to give themselves big paydays, and then lay off thousands of employees when the companies go bankrupt.
Jeff Bezos: Built a store that crushed independent retailers, violated basic worker protections to squeeze every penny from its workforce, copied small sellers' products, and now has monopolistic power over the marketplace where entrepreneurs must sell—going so far as to force sellers to raise their prices on other platforms. Larry Page & Sergey Brin: Made the world's information accessible to everyone, for free, by harvesting our private data and building a monopolistic ad machine found by U.S. courts to have violated antitrust law in search and in open-web advertising, extracting 36 cents from every advertising dollar while crushing competitors.
Brian Chesky: Created Airbnb, converting scarce single-family homes into short- term rentals and driving up rents by 3-30% in major cities. Regulate power, not ambition.Of course, not all billionaires are good people. Some extract rather than create wealth. Some use their resources to cause serious political harm. Once fortunes grow so massive that a few people can move markets, write the tax code, buy elections, and threaten to leave unless they get special treatment, the problem isn’t their personalities—it’s their power.
We believe people should be free to innovate, start companies, and build wealth. But no one should be so rich that they can dictate housing costs, working conditions, or climate policy for millions of people they never meet. Beyond a certain threshold, private fortunes stop reflecting hard work and start functioning like private governments. Extreme wealth deserves democratic limits, not automatic admiration. A robust wealth tax on fortunes above tens or hundreds of millions is how we make sure prosperity is widely shared—and that success in the marketplace doesn’t buy the power to rule the rest of us.
03.02.2026 23:44 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A March in Support of California Billionaires? Are They Serious..? A proposed ballot initiative in California would impose a one-time, 5% wealth tax on the state’s 200 or so billionaires—and they’re not happy about it. One group is organizing a march in San Francisco this weekend in support of the poor, harassed billionaires. We noticed a few glaring issues with the messaging on their website, so we broke out our red pen to make some corrections.
March for Greed. Stand up for the monopolies, extractors, and oligarchs!
Vilifying billionaires is popular. Living under them is expensive. Many made their fortunes building companies that employ thousands and solve real problems, but have grown so large and powerful they control our democracy, distort our markets, and extract wealth from the rest of us. Others simply inherited their vast wealth, while others have profited through high-stakes financial gambles backed by taxpayer money and outright fraud. Heads they win, tails we lose. Their wealth is largely stock in those companies, which means they borrow against it tax-free to fund lavish lifestyles and pass it to heirs with minimal taxation—all while paying a lower tax rate than working families.
California benefits enormously when entrepreneurs choose to build here, which they do because of the public goods and services—like high quality education, infrastructure, and public health—that are funded by tax dollars to foster a world-class workforce. But we all lose when they use their economic power to contort housing, health care, and childcare markets to enrich themselves. We're currently watching them threaten to leave rather than pay a relatively small one-time tax to help provide health care to the workforce who built their companies. The Billionaire Tax Act has already pushed the founders of Google to leave the state because they refuse to pay a small one-time tax, after which their combined net worth will still be approximately $508,920,000,000.
A proposed ballot initiative in California would impose a one-time 5% wealth tax on the state's billionaires to prevent California’s healthcare system from collapsing.
Now an anonymous group is rushing to defend billionaires with a march, and we noticed some holes in their talking points.
Americans should be free to pursue financial success. But when a tiny elite amasses so much wealth that they can override democratic institutions and distort markets, they block opportunities for working families while putting our nation’s long-term growth at risk.
29.01.2026 15:08 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The ultra-rich spent billions on elections and have been rewarded with tax cuts, deregulation, and favorable legislation.
They buy up housing and hospitals and degrade essential services to maximize profits.
They drive the climate crisis by investing in extractive industries.
When just 300,000 households control $40 trillion, more than 5 times what the federal government spent last year, you end up with the systematic purchase of our democracy, the manipulation of essential markets, and the degradation of the country's very social fabric.
29.01.2026 15:08 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Beyond a certain threshold, extreme wealth becomes a public threat.
A wealth tax is imperative to break up the destructive influence of extreme wealth before it breaks us, as our own Igor Volsky and @amyhanauer.bsky.social from @itep.org lay out in Democracy Journal.
Under Trump, billionaire wealth grew 22%. So it's no surprise that his Executive Order preventing billionaires from purchasing single-family homes won't stop the ultra-wealthy from profiting off the housing market and increasing costs for the rest of us.
27.01.2026 01:13 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Last week, the White House acknowledged the role billionaires play in skyrocketing housing costs.
Trump's Executive Order is a rare moment of bipartisan recognition that extreme concentrations of wealth fuel America’s affordability crisis, but it fails to meaningfully address extreme wealth.
