The Atlantic: on Corporations
Cory Booker:
Attacks on private equity "nauseating"
What Booker's critics mainly take issue with are his associations. Exhibit A is always Booker's notorious appearance on Meet the Press in May 2012, in which he called the Obama campaign's attacks on private equity "nauseating" and pleaded for more
civility in the campaign. Booker subsequently attempted to clarify that he supported the specific critiques of Mitt Romney's record that had been leveled, but for some liberals, the betrayal was complete and irreversible.
Booker has, it is true, raised plenty of money from Wall Street over the years. Of the $8.6 million he's raised for his Senate campaign, $531,000 came from the financial industry. This is hardly unique for a Democrat from New Jersey, a solidly blue
state where many financial firms are headquartered. Booker's campaign has also drawn $700,000 in donations from Silicon Valley. The ties go beyond campaign support: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has donated $100 million to improve Newark's schools.
Source: The Atlantic, "Why Do Liberals Hate Booker," by Molly Ball,
Aug 23, 2013
Elizabeth Warren:
Wants workers to choose 40% of corporate boards
The Accountable Capitalism Act would require the largest corporations to allow workers to choose 40 percent of their board seats. The proposal is meant to provide an antidote to short-term thinking in the biggest businesses--and to short-circuit the
ease with which CEOs make decisions that enrich themselves at the expense of workers and the underlying health of their firm. A similar system exists in Germany, and it goes by the name "codetermination."
Source: The Atlantic, "Capitalism," on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Aug 28, 2018
Tom Steyer:
Corporate corruption has broken our government
The overriding issue today is that the politics of our country, the government, has been taken over by corporate dollars. We have a broken government as a result of corruption from corporations. The only solution to that is retaking the democracy and
returning the power to the people. All of the policy [plans in the Democratic primary] that are [being] hotly debated are important, nuanced, thoughtful, smart--but not going to happen.
Source: The Atlantic magazine on 2019 Democratic primary
Jul 10, 2019
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