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THIS WEEK
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Growing inequality, this week’s issue reminds us, has become a deep-seated global concern, and overcoming that inequality is clearly going to take nothing less than a global effort.
So where do we start? We start with building up understanding and anti-inequality expertise. And that’s just what an exciting new project — the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity — is now working to achieve. This initiative is providing emerging leaders around the world with full financial and logistical support to study inequality — and antidotes to it — at the London School of Economics.
At Inequality.org, we’re pleased to be a supporting partner in this new Atlantic Fellows initiative. Think you — or someone in your circles — might want to become an Atlantic Inequality Fellow? The program is now inviting applicants. Intrigued? Find out more online.
Chuck Collins, for the Institute for Policy Studies Inequality.org team |
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INEQUALITY BY THE NUMBERS
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FACES ON THE FRONTLINES
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| Taxing the Wealthy to Pay for Universal Home Care |
| Maine is developing a well-deserved reputation for cutting-edge progressive ballot initiatives. In 2016, voters approved proposals to boost the state’s minimum wage, raise taxes on the wealthy to fund education, and introduce ranked-choice voting. The key force behind these victories, the Maine People’s Alliance, has just launched a campaign to put another landmark issue on the 2018 ballot: universal home care for the elderly and disabled — paid for through taxes on the salaries and investment income of the state’s wealthiest residents. |
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WORDS OF WISDOM
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PETULANT PLUTOCRAT
OF THE WEEK
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| For France’s Prez, Only the Wealthy Can’t Be ‘Lazy’ |
| Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old banker elected the president of France this past spring, recently ended his first 100 days in office as the most unpopular French president “in decades.” And that apparently stings. Macron is lashing out at the “lazy people” who are protesting his plans to ax 120,000 public sector jobs and housing subsidies. Macron is also moving to eliminate his nation’s “wealth tax” on assets worth over $1.5 million. But the pushback against that move last week — 82 percent of the French people feel Macron’s tax policies cater to the rich — has his government backtracking. Macron’s party now supports keeping a wealth tax in effect on luxury cars and yachts. |
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MUST READS
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This week on Inequality.org, LeeAnn Hall of People’s Action breaks down the combined impact of the Trump tax cuts and Republican budget proposal on our nation’s health care. Jim Hightower wonders where Trump’s campaign commitment to closing the carried interest loophole went, and Josh Hoxie cuts through the Trump rhetoric to look at his arithmetic — and who benefits from it.
Off the tax beat, Sarah Anderson showcases the women of color now challenging the billionaire-driven “redevelopment” of Detroit.
Elsewhere on the web, Institute for Policy Studies analysts Steve Quick and Lee Price explain why the Trump tax cut plan will have an even more regressive impact than anything Ronald Reagan ever contemplated. One American of wealth, California billionaire Tom Steyer, seems to agree. Steyer has just penned a “thanks but no thanks” to Trump that’s calling on the President to raise, not reduce, his taxes.
In the heartland, another American of means, Sable Knapp, is asking her fellow trust-funders to make the same pitch. Knapp is working with Resource Generation, a national group of young people with wealth working toward the equitable distribution of wealth, land, and power.
Inside the Beltway, meanwhile, a brand-new U.S. Senate Finance Committee report, Estate Tax Schemes: How America’s Most Fortunate Hide Their Wealth, Flout Tax Laws, and Grow the Wealth Gap, offers a deep dive into tax avoidance and how we can close the tax code’s most egregious loopholes.
The International Monetary Fund is also chiming in on the global tax debate. A landmark new IMF paper is making the case that significantly higher tax rates on the rich make total economic sense.
Higher taxes on high incomes make sense, agrees Marina Gorbis, the executive director of the Institute for the Future. But we really need to start confronting asset inequality, not just income inequality. She’s explaining how we can do just that.
Finally, a new study is suggesting that “helicopter parenting” may well reflect rising economic inequality, and, on the radio, Chuck Collins explains on the Business Builders Show why business leaders should care about our growing divide and what they can do to help narrow it. |
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GREED AT A GLANCE
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TOO MUCH
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| Bargains in the Clouds: A New Private-Jet Deluge |
| What a great time to be alive — if you’re sitting on a couple hundred million and have a hankering for your own private jet. Buying a pair of luxury wings has never been more of a bargain. Prices for new and “pre-owned” jets have simply gone “insane,” as aviation analyst Barry Justice puts it. For deep pockets worldwide, the bargains have become too good to pass up. So what should the rest of us think about all this? Should we be at all concerned about how accessible luxury private jets are becoming? Actually, we probably ought to be much more than concerned. We ought to be horrified. Inequality.org co-editor Sam Pizzigati explores why. |
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A FINAL FIGURE
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