Courtesy of pollitico.com
Many are wondering why Kamala Harris, who ran a flawless campaign for President in 2024 and had a billion dollars in her war chest, was unable to defeat a 78-year-old scandal-ridden felon. A reason might be that though the economy was booming, 36.8 million people, roughly 11 percent of the population, lived in poverty and didn’t vote. (The Broken Economic Order,” by Mariana Mazzucato, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2025, pg. 123.) The reason for their poverty isn’t laziness. Says expert Mariana Mazzucato. It’s because “Financial markets have become increasingly decoupled from the real economy…” (Ibid, pg. 124.)
Making money on Wall Street doesn’t create jobs. More likely winnings get reinvested in the stock of other companies. Or, corporate earnings end in buybacks because fewer shares make them more valuable. (Ibid, pg. 124.)
That decoupling means much of the nation’s wealth flows in and out among the wealthiest of us. Billionaire Steve Forbes thinks that is a good thing. He insists that tax cuts for the wealthy are beautiful because they enable investors to engage in risk-taking which is essential to innovation and higher standards of living. (“A Beautiful Tax Cut,” by Steve Forbes, Forbes, Feb/March 2025, pg. 13.)
Forbes probably believes in a “trickle-down” economy, an idea that has never worked. One reason it fails is because people who work for a minimum wage don’t invest in the stock market. Another is that money sloshing around on Wall Street doesn’t equate to good-paying jobs. In any case, nearly 5.3 million workers are so cash-strapped that they don’t pay income taxes. So, lowering the rate doesn’t help them. The super-rich don’t pay taxes either because of loopholes in the tax laws. The burden of supporting our government falls on a dwindling middle class.
Some argue the government would need less money if it were run like a business– a clever-sounding sentiment that is meaningless. The government isn’t a business. It collects taxes and redistributes wealth to avoid a two-tiered society of rich and poor. Unfortunately, our leaders are failing in their mission. The Brookings Institute reports our current tax laws are tilted toward wealthy individuals… A good way to correct that tilt, it advises, is to eliminate loopholes in our tax code.
The Brookings Institute isn’t alone in this recommendation. The Independent, a British online newspaper, writes that if Elon Musk, head of DOGE, is looking for efficiencies, he could start by eliminating the subsidies and benefits he receives from the federal government. Instead, he has done the reverse. Now that Donald Trump has given him the keys to the castle, he’s chosen to enrich himself even more. For example, he wants to cancel Verizon’s $2.4 billion contract with the Federal Aviation Administration and give that contract to himself, an accomplishment that would be at once illegal and unethical.
In an earlier blog, I explained that too much money makes people insensitive and unprincipled. Someone super-rich may come to see the whole of life as transactional. People appear to be commodities that can be bought and sold. When this god delusion grows, a person with excessive wealth might imagine he or she has a right to meddle in the affairs of entire countries. For this reason, a just society should keep taxes high on oligarchs so it is not corrupted by their megalomania.
A practical reason also exists for discouraging money from pooling in the hands of a few, a lesson written in the history of the Labor movement. For centuries, the upper class treated the people working on their farms or in their factories as if they were chattels. Not until modern times did it occur to these workers to ask the question, “Should those whose industry enrich the affluent have a share in the profits?”
The answer to that question was revolutionary and productive. Today, consumers must ask a similar question. “Should those who buy the products and services of an enterprise have a share in its success? Without the consumer, there is no celebrity, no trendy restaurant, no successful franchise or profitable invention. Simply put, without the consumer there is no commerce. Isn’t it reasonable to suppose, therefore, that the buyer is entitled to dividends just like a stock investor?
The answer is yes and explains why taxes on oligarchs should raised, not lowered. Taxes are a form of dividends owed to the consumer. What’s more, they should be proportional to earnings and dedicated to the public’s welfare–its schools, its health care system, and its infrastructure among others.
BOYCOTT TESLA
