Rob: That's interesting because I was just reviewing an interview I did with somebody who was a native of Holland and he was saying we're already there. You don't have gated communities in Holland, you do have them here in the United States. It already is like Brazil, it already is like a third world country.
CC: Yep, yeah we, the incredibly high percentage of new housing starts are now behind walls. As not just the super wealthy but the affluent are opting to live disconnected from wider communities.
Rob: So tell me more about your experience with working with billionaires. Are there any of them who are willing to give up their billions.
CC: Well, you know there's a segment that have already pledged to give away wealth, half their wealth through the giving pledge. Many of them are like a Warren Buffet and saying they're going to give it all away and not to their children. They're going to give it through, not the Mark Zuckerberg way but they're going to give it through traditional foundations. And there are people who are not so much among the billionaires but there's a whole generation, there's a network called Resource Generation which are young entrepreneurs and young people with inherited wealth who are very thoughtful about, you know, their role in society and privilege and wanting to, I guess I would characterize it as they use their special privileges to eliminate special privilege. So I think there's a movement toward, you know very egalitarian movement even among the very wealthy.
Rob: What are the edges of the strategies and approaches that you're involved in conversations on, to do something about this.
CC: Well a lot of our, the Patriotic Millionaires and other groups see how the student debt crisis is a loser for everybody. The fact that 40 million households now have student debt. Average debt $33,000 dollars, it's actually kind of bad for the economy, it's bad for these families and young people. They wait longer to form households and buy houses, they're just sort of like on the debt treadmill from age 20 on. And so there are people, some of our Patriotic Millionaires who actually got a debt-free college education, thanks to the GI bill or after World War Two, they saw how that kind of public investment in them created and opened doors for them, and are asking the radical question of why can't we do that again? Why can't we tax wealth as we did in the 1950's and 60's and 70's and invest it in things that brought in middle class opportunity, the opportunity for people who are poor to have a level playing field and get into the economic game. So that's, so taxing wealth to invest in debt-free education, taxing carbon, particularly luxury taxation of luxury jets and that sort of thing and investing in green jobs and infrastructure. Those are kind of the public policies that I think start to change the game a little bit because they reduce inequality, but they also are a boost to everybody else.
Rob: Okay, and at that's at the edges. I'm just trying to get an idea just how far along people are in having a conversation about what can be done.
CC: Oh, I mean these are active public policies, some of them are actively introduced into congress. There was a, the Patriotic Millionaires had a lobby day a couple weeks ago where we were pushing for an end to something called the Carried Interest Deduction which is you know a little provision in the tax code that allows hedge fund managers to treat their income as a capital income and tax it at a lower rate than if it had been wage income. And you know there's 12 billion dollars minimum a year that could be invested in, you know, creating green infrastructure. So I think there, that's, or taxing wall street financial transactions as a way to raise revenue for early childhood education. I mean there's a number of ways in which people are looking at creative linkages between reducing inequality at the top and expanding opportunity for everyone else.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
1
1
