A weekly newsletter from the Institute for Policy Studies |
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Elon Musk and other overpaid CEOs probably didn’t sleep well last night, but our colleague Sarah Anderson is supremely well rested.
Sarah, one of our nation’s leading CEO pay critics, has faced countless attacks for her work denouncing a system that lets top execs channel unlimited sums into their own pockets. Apologists for these execs have called her “un-American.” Late yesterday, a Delaware judge struck a powerful blow against those execs and their toadies. The judge
voided the compensation contract that had made Tesla’s Elon Musk the richest man in the entire world. The New York Times promptly highlighted Sarah’s reaction. This “incredibly important decision,” Sarah told the
Times, “establishes that there is such a thing as excessive compensation.”
Musk’s now-voided 2018 contract — a stock-award package worth as much as $55.8 billion — launched a mega-grant wave at other major firms. With this landmark Delaware ruling, CEOs who rode that wave have to be wondering if they’ll become the target of the next lawsuit over excessive compensation. Stay tuned for more from
Inequality.org on this major breaking story in the battle to reverse our extreme inequality. Chuck Collins and Chris Mills Rodrigo for the Institute for Policy Studies’ Inequality.org team |
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INEQUALITY BY THE NUMBERS |
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Honoring Rosa Parks by Sustaining Her Struggle for Transit Equity
After growing up in a small southern Georgia town without public transit, Bakari Height was thrilled to go to college in a big city where he could ditch his car and ride buses everywhere. Today he’s devoting his work to making safe and affordable public transit accessible for all.
An organizer with the Labor Network for Sustainability, Height is coordinating Transit Equity Day, an annual event tied to the birthday of Rosa Parks, the civil rights leader long honored for her role in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott.
The “legal” racial discrimination that bus boycott targeted has ended. But barriers to safe and affordable public transit remain, making it harder for people — particularly people of color and the poor — to get to jobs, school, and wherever else they need to go. Inadequate public transit also exacerbates climate change.
On this year’s February 5 Transit Equity Day, bus riders, trade unionists, and climate justice organizers will be rallying across the country in cities facing big cuts in transit funding. They’ll also be holding a livestream event at 3 p.m. EST. Learn more about how you can get involved at the link below. |
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Let’s Stop Billionaire-Backed Justices From Grabbing More Power!
The Supreme Court recently heard two cases that, on the surface, appear merely to consider the right of fishers to fish. But Jennifer Mandelblatt and her organization United for Democracy are working hard to ensure the public knows the real story here. These cases are actually seeking to overturn a decades-old precedent that helps our federal agencies protect the American people.
“The Supreme Court,” Mandelblatt told our staff, “has been captured by people who are ready to generally not fight for our Constitution, but completely undermine it for the sake of their political agenda.” The two cases — Loper Bright and Relentless — pose an existential threat to
“Chevron deference,” a legal doctrine that gives agencies leeway to create rules based on the often ambiguous laws passed by Congress. Rolling back the precedent would limit the ability of agencies to enforce laws — think the National Labor Relations Act or the Clean Air Act — and concentrate even more power in the Supreme Court’s nine unelected members.
One alarming tidbit concerning these cases: Charles Koch’s close ties to the law firm bringing the fishing suit. Billionaires like Koch stand to win big from hamstringing the regulators working to keep their companies in check. Activists at United for Democracy are calling on interested parties to join their coalition to encourage Congress to step in to protect Chevron deference. Learn more below about “Kochs v. Regulation” from our friend Phil Mattera.
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Has the Time Come to Limit the Wealth of Our World’s Wealthy?
Here in 2024’s pivotal global election year, precious few of the candidates in over 70 nations now campaigning for office are concentrating their fire on the intense concentration of our world’s wealth. That needs to change, and the Dutch philosopher Ingrid Robeyns — with her just-published landmark new book,
Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth — is asking the questions that can significantly move that needed change along. If we want our human societies to thrive and even just survive in this epoch of climate change, Robeyns compellingly argues, we need to start embracing limits on income and wealth. Inequality.org’s Sam Pizzigati has more. |
PETULANT PLUTOCRAT OF THE WEEK |
This Tearful Billionaire Doesn’t Enjoy Feeling Like a Chump
This week’s dour deep pocket: The billionaire oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, who’s now claiming he’s become the victim of the “biggest art fraud in history.”
What has him sour: Rybolovlev, a Russian doctor-turned-fertilizer magnate, says he relied on a Swiss art dealer to arrange private purchases of artistic treasures like Leonardo da Vinci’s classic
Salvator Mundi. But the billionaire eventually came to believe that the dealer was conniving with an art broker at Sotheby’s to buy artworks for himself and then flip them to Rybolovlev at inflated prices.
Rybolovlev and the art dealer eventually settled their dueling lawsuits against each other this past December, but the Russian billionaire has kept pursuing Sotheby’s, asking $190 million in damages. Earlier this month, Rybolovlev fought back tears in a New York courtroom describing how cheated he feels. The last word: Rybolovlev may feel cheated and betrayed, but his bottom line doesn’t seem to have suffered inordinately from his escapades in the art world. Take, for instance, that da Vinci that the art dealer bought from Sotheby’s for $83 million and then resold to Rybolovlev a day later for $127 million. Rybolovlev later sold that same artwork at auction for a record $450 million.
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This week on Inequality.org
Dan Petegorsky, Ranting Billionaire Makes Unwitting Case for Charity Reform. Bill Ackman’s antics reveal a huge flaw in donor-advised fund regulation.
Sarah Anderson, Yes, We Actually Can Do Something About CEO Pay. A recent report highlights effective policies to narrow CEO-worker gaps and marks progress to date.
Elsewhere on the Web David Chen, Vermont Becomes Latest State to Propose Wealth Taxes,
New York Times. Seven states tried but failed in 2023 to add new taxes on assets. New attempts are underway in at least 10 states this year, and proponents appear optimistic.
Tim Murphy, The Rise of the American Oligarchy, Mother Jones. What targeting Russia’s wayward billionaires has revealed about our own.
The Guardian view on inequality and the super-rich: the status quo is unsustainable, Guardian. Growing private wealth, combined with public austerity, is undermining the health of western democracies. Les Leopold, Did Stock Buybacks Knock the Bolts Out of Boeing? Substack. Finding the money for stock buybacks that enrich top execs and big shareholders inevitably leads to a cost-cutting that can even kill. C.J. Polychroniou, The Only Solution to ‘Wealth Supremacy’ Is a Democratic Economy,
Truthout. An interview with Marjorie Kelly on centering the economy on human outcomes instead of rising share prices.
Harold Vazquez, Combination of poverty and inequality predicts murder rates in the United States, Business News. Scientists have identified a strong link between poverty, income inequality, and murder rates. The new data cover the years from 1990 to 2020. Robert Reich, Citizen Musk, Substack. The richest person in the world remains utterly unaccountable. Wesley Tharpe, States Should Reverse Tax-Cut Spree, Take Brighter Path in 2024,
Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. State lawmakers are facing a critical choice: whether to pursue policies that ensure the wealthy pay their fair tax share or to continue regressive tax cuts that undermine moves to meet people’s real needs.
Syed Mohammad Ali, Billionaires should become extinct, Express Tribune. Our global economy, notes this Pakistani analyst, compels poorer people to shoulder the brunt of economic downturns and disasters while the fortunes of the super rich continue to expand. Harriet Sim, This Is How The ‘Super Rich’ Shop,
Marie Claire. Top luxury retailers the world over are pulling out all the stops for “VICs,” their “Very Important Clients” who spend more than seven figures annually.
Zainab Fattah, Mercedes-Branded $1 Billion Tower Is Dubai’s Latest Bet on the Super Rich, Bloomberg News. The tower’s 150 apartments start at $2.7 million. |
Why Going to the Pharmacy Sucks Now, More Perfect Union. Going to the pharmacy has been a nightmare lately — and it's even worse for your pharmacist. Pharmacists are sick of being overworked, understaffed, and forced to put your life in danger. And now they’re unionizing to demand better.
The Devastating Toll of the Fossil Fuel Industry in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, Democracy Now! “Louisiana citizens are exposed to the worst toxic pollution of any people across the United States,” says the author of a damning new Human Rights Watch report, journalist Antonia Juhasz. |
Adam Conover and Amy Schiller, How the Wealthy Use “Charity” to Screw Everyone Else, Factually! Schiller, the author of
The Price of Humanity: How Philanthropy Went Wrong — And How to Fix It, joins to discuss cultural shifts in philanthropy and what we can do to ensure donors are making a humane impact. Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, Matthew Desmond (on poverty), Armchair Expert.
Sociologist Desmond explains how people are being priced out of their own neighborhoods, what solutions he feels would help unhoused people the most, and why people should change their outlook on paying taxes. |
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Racial discrimination in many forms, from education to hiring and pay practices, continues to contribute to persistent earnings gaps. As of 2023’s third quarter, the median white worker made 24 percent more than the typical Black worker and around 28 percent more than the median Latino, according to BLS data. For an interactive version of this chart and related charts, check out the link below.
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Inequality.org | www.inequality.org | inequality@ips-dc.org Managing Editor: Chris Mills Rodrigo
Co-Editors: Sarah Anderson, Chuck Collins, Bella DeVaan, and Sam Pizzigati Production: Bella DeVaan, Kufre McIver, and Chris Mills Rodrigo |
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