Who is Buying Seattle? The Perils of the Luxury Real Estate Boom
A snapshot of luxury condominiums and their ownership and occupancy trends offers a preliminary peek at the challenges posed by Seattle’s luxury boom.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has jolted the body politic with a bold proposal to tax the concentrated wealth of the richest 75,000 householdsin the United States. It’s about time someone took up this mantle.
Warren’s proposal would levy an annual 2 percent tax on wealth over $50 million, with the rate rising to 3 percent on wealth over $1 billion. Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the country, would pay $4.1 billion under the new tax.
The United States has a proud tradition of breaking up concentrated wealth. The first federal progressive income and estate taxes date from the first Gilded Age, over a century ago. That’s when President Theodore Roosevelt observed, “Of all forms of tyranny, the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.”
The wealth tax that Warren proposes would raise substantial revenue — by one estimate almost $3 trillion in the next decade. This would be a substantial boost for spending on green infrastructure, affordable higher education, and other investments that could expand opportunity.
Read the full article at The Hill.
by Chuck Collins
A snapshot of luxury condominiums and their ownership and occupancy trends offers a preliminary peek at the challenges posed by Seattle’s luxury boom.
by Chuck Collins
The ultra-rich are using philanthropic vehicles to shield their wealth—it’s time Congress acted, Chuck Collins writes in The Nation.
by Chuck Collins
Longtime inequality expert and activist Chuck Collins gave away his inheritance at 26, spending the next three decades mobilizing against inequality. He uses his perspective from both sides of the divide to deliver a new narrative.