The Billionaires’ Long Game

robertreich.org — I keep hearing that the billionaires and big corporations that poured all that money into the 2012 election learned their lesson. They lost their shirts and won’t do it again. Don’t believe that for an instant. It’s true their political investments didn’t exactly pay off this time around. But if you think these losses mean the end of high-stakes political investing, you don’t know how these people work. You see, if and when they eventually win, these billionaires will clean up. Their taxes will plummet, many of laws constraining their profits will disappear, and what’s left of labor unions will no longer intrude on their bottom lines. And they have enough dough to keep betting until they eventually win. That’s what it means to be a billionaire political investor: You’re able to keep playing the odds until you get the golden ring.

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