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Part One:
We speak with Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, about the role of the financial sector (investment bankers, commodities traders, private equity brokers and the like) in maintaining — and increasing — the inequality between the super-rich and all the rest of us. Possible remedies include increasing taxes on fees from financial transactions; prohibiting private equity brokers from exercising undue control over pension funds; and complete transparency by universities in how their funds are invested.
We also discuss Medicare-for-All and how it is not only doable but also is wanted by most Americans including those living in red states.
We chat with Steve Dubb, senior editor at Non-Profit Quarterly, about the shocking excesses of the most wealthy families, who literally buy access to even more privileges than they already have. For example, we learn that the most elite universities belie the myth that students are admitted (and success is achieved) on the basis of hard work and merit.
Instead, the top 1% of “plutocrats” make large “charitable” contributions – including buying buildings and art works – in order to obtain special consideration for their children beyond what their merits have truly earned. Even more galling, these wealthy “donors” get to deduct such payments from their tax liability, so the rest of us pay higher taxes in order to make up for their share of necessary government revenues. The result: as Warren Buffett says, people like him are required to pay even lower tax rates than their secretaries pay!
