Bezos Worth $200 Bill, Makes 4K Per Second As Millions Struggle, Protesters W/ Mock Guillotine

[appalachiablue]

21. I've posted a few pieces by them but haven't read

'The Triumph of Injustice,' thanks for mentioning. Don't klnow how I missed it. Both are excellent like their associate Thos. Piketty, but will their ideas ever reach implementation I wonder esp. with the current US situation and election.

Thomas P. had a new book and film to be released that was delayed and limited. Haven't heard any more on it in months.

The Guardian, 'Triumph of Injustice,' Review, Oct. 15, 2019.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/15/the-triumph-injustice-emmanuel-saez-gabriel-zucman-review

The Triumph of Injustice review – how to wrest control from multinationals. Written by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, who, like Piketty, are French but who work at the University of California, it analyses how the super-rich dodge taxes, what this means and what to do about it. In an age when the primary instinct of many left-leaning people is to yearn for a time machine, it is a bracing and brave formulation of a radical new approach to public funding.

..They not only argue that the wealthy should pay higher taxes, but dismiss the whole logic of the third way. Theirs is a cogent, reasoned and practical argument against the “tax competition” that has sent so many corporate profits to Ireland or Bermuda and they give clear and compelling policy solutions to change the direction of society itself. The authors’ core argument is that decisions on tax are the most important that a democratic society makes. It is a hope-inspiring book that should inform the manifesto of anyone keen to defend liberal democracy from the twin threats of inequality and multinational corporate power. Their recommendations would take back control, but for real, this time.

“Wealth is power. An extreme concentration of wealth means an extreme concentration of power,” they write. “We could have chosen to coordinate and we’ve chosen not to. We could have chosen to prevent multinationals from booking profits in low-tax places, but we let them do it. We can make other choices, starting today.”> The primary focus of The Triumph of Injustice is the US, which has gone further than other western countries in allowing the very wealthy to opt out of the obligations of citizens altogether:
> for the first time in modern history, income from capital is now taxed more lightly than income from labour, so rich Americans pay a lower rate of tax than schoolteachers.

But the lessons are relevant for Britain too, which has also slashed spending on tax enforcement, cut corporate tax rates, which are, in effect, the rates paid by the richest in society, and introduced exotic loopholes to lure multinationals to our cities. The proposals put forward by Zucman and Saez deserve to be read in full, but are elegantly explained and well formulated. They would both de-globalise tax policy and re-democratise it, cutting through the fiction that multinational companies such as Apple owns its most valuable assets in small islands with low tax rates, rather than in the western countries where it has its headquarters. If implemented, these companies – and, thus, their owners – would be forced to pay a fair price for their access to our markets.
> The authors’ core argument is that decisions on tax are the most important that a democratic society makes, since they shape everything else. Taxes are the price we pay for civilisation and civilisation cannot afford free-riders. When the liberal order is under greater attack than it has been for decades, that is a lesson we all need to learn – and quickly. This bracing treatise by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman advocates a radical approach to reducing inequality.