Stop demeaning billionaires and you were unfair to Howard Schultz

Here is my Bloomberg column on that point.  Furthermore, that tape of Schultz is much better than what many media sources reported, here is the excerpt on that:

In an interview, Schultz was asked whether billionaires have too much power. He responded by noting that the moniker “billionaire” has become a “catchphrase” and proceeded to reframe the question: “I would rephrase that and I would say that people of means have been able to leverage their wealth and their interest in ways that are unfair.” So he didn’t necessarily disagree with the premise of the question. Nor did he say that other people shouldn’t use the term “billionaires.”

For the record, he also noted that such people have “unbelievable influence,” and that speaks to the problem of inequality. And he included corporations (not just people) and the political ideologies of the two major parties as part of the problem.

Is that such a terrible answer? Not only on the merits, but also in explaining why Schultz might want to move away from the term “billionaire” as the sole locus of blame? Then again, maybe that’s just what you would expect a billionaire to say.

You can watch the interview here, and note the rest of the column is making more general points about how we should talk about people and their wealth:

My parents taught me never to ask a person how much he or she earns. I was told that it was rude, and I still believe that. It follows that we also should not ask people about their net wealth. And, out of politeness, perhaps it is also inappropriate to openly discuss the range of their net wealth.