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The speaker discusses the significance of wealth disparity compared to income inequality, arguing that wealth is a more comprehensive measure of economic power and security. They stress that wealth allows for greater flexibility in daily life, investment in education and health, and overall quality of life, unlike income, which fluctuates annually and may not reflect long-term security.

The conversation highlights the complexity of measuring wealth inequality, noting that traditional metrics often focus on income due to easier data accessibility. The speaker points out the rising wealth concentration in the U.S., particularly among the top 1%, and connects it to policies favoring trickle-down economics, which have exacerbated economic disparities without benefiting the broader economy.

Additionally, the speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding these economic dynamics to inform public discourse and policy. They suggest that many individuals are unaware of the extent of wealth inequality and advocate for educating the public through clear visual representations of wealth distribution.

Ultimately, the speaker calls for changes in tax policies to address wealth concentration, such as raising top marginal tax rates and adjusting estate taxes to alleviate the inheritance of wealth. They conclude by asserting the need for a collective response to improve societal well-being and ensure a more equitable distribution of resources.

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Here are five key points derived from the video regarding wealth disparity and its implications:

1. **Wealth Disparity vs. Income Disparity**: The speaker emphasizes that wealth disparity is more significant than income disparity. Income measures provide only a snapshot of financial circumstances over a year, while wealth represents accumulated resources and serves as a broader economic measure, influencing day-to-day life, decision-making, and quality of life.

2. **Economic Security and Flexibility**: Wealth provides individuals with economic security and flexibility, allowing them to handle financial emergencies, invest in education or retirement, and generally mitigate stress associated with financial instability. In contrast, individuals without wealth face stress as a persistent part of their reality.

3. **Wealth Concentration Among the Rich**: The video discusses the massive concentration of wealth in the United States, highlighting that 30% of the nation's wealth is held by the top 1%. The ongoing concentration of wealth has exacerbated the hollowing out of the middle class, which traditionally allowed for home ownership and education for children.

4. **Inefficacy of Trickle-Down Economics**: The speaker critiques trickle-down economics, suggesting that policies intended to benefit the wealthy have not resulted in broader economic benefits for the majority. Instead, these policies have correlated with increased wealth inequality without significant positive outcomes for economic growth or well-being of lower-income households.

5. **Need for Economic Policy Reforms**: The video calls for a shift towards demand-side economic policies that focus on increasing the disposable income of the lower 90% of the population rather than enriching the top tier. Suggestions include revisiting estate tax structures to limit dynastic wealth and implementing measures that would redistribute wealth more equitably throughout society.

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Here are some key quotes and concepts from the video:

1. **Wealth vs. Income**:
- "From my point of view, wealth disparity is far more significant than income."
- "Wealth inequality is a more powerful economic measure because it gauges what you can and can't do."

2. **Economic Security and Quality of Life**:
- "If you have wealth, you can do things that genuinely will affect your quality of life."
- "You live with less stress...your economic condition will produce and exacerbate your stress level every day."

3. **Disparities in Wealth Distribution**:
- "30% of the total wealth of the country is held by the top 1%."
- "The wealth of the bottom 50%...never had much of anything. They still don't have much of anything."

4. **Middle-Class Challenges**:
- "The middle class has borne the brunt of it... the wealth has been concentrated in the top 1%."
- "To do that has getting pushed up further and further on the wealth requirements."

5. **Critique of Trickle-Down Economics**:
- "I am not aware of any evidence of any significant effect, or beneficial effect of trickle-down economics."
- "These sort of supply-side trickle down tax policies have had effectively no salutatory effect on the economy but have exacerbated wealth inequality."

6. **Demand-Side Economics as a Solution**:
- "Instead of hoping for investment...push money down, and allow consumers...to spend the money."
- "If you don't tax them as much, they will spend the money; it gets pushed right back into the economy."

7. **Estate Taxes and Wealth Concentration**:
- "When you give, given the number, get like 130,000 people in who the entry point to the top 0.1% is about $50 million."
- "If you dramatically increase the amount people can inherit... you reduce wealth inequality."

8. **Public Awareness and Education**:
- "Educating people...the importance of just having people understand basic facts is central."
- "People don't know what they don't know."

9. **Wealth Distribution Misconceptions**:
- "They had no idea... they basically agreed on... a far more equitable distribution of national wealth."

These highlights encapsulate the central themes around wealth disparity, its implications on society, critiques of economic policies, and the necessity for public understanding and education on these issues.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:90000

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From my point of view, wealth disparity is,

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is far more significant than income.

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Disparity in income is the snapshot picture.

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It's, it's what happened during the year, and, and,

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and most, inequality type measure.

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Wealth inequality type measures have, have been

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geared towards income because we have the data

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and it's easy to access.

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Uh, wealth inequality is, is a, is a, is a more,

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is a trickier measure,

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because it, it is not just the sum of,

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it's not just your income,

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but it's your, the value of your housing stocks,

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capital assets, to much more difficult to measure.

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Uh, nonetheless, you know, wealth itself

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is, is a much more powerful economic measure

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because it, it, it sort of gauges what you can and can't do.

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How, how you can live,

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the concerns you may have a day-to-day life,

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how you can contend with sort of economic mishaps or,

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or, or bad outcomes.

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You can invest,

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and you can invest in, your children.

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You can invest in your retirement.

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Uh, there's economic security.

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There's a great deal of flexibility in

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what you choose to do.

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If you have wealth, if income is, again, year

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to year, it doesn't convey

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or confer those, that that level of flexibility

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and security, that wealth does it correlated.

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Uh, you, it, it,

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it's not a perfect correlation by any means.

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Uh, there, there, there are, there is a subset

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of wealthy people who simply inherited their money and,

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and in effect didn't earn any money, on their own.

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Uh, and then there's a, another subset,

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and it's a, it's probably the bigger subset of individuals

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who genuinely earned, earn their money either through,

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through, you know, wage income,

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or wage income plus stock compensation or wage income

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and stock compensation as part

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of the ownership of a business.

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And that's where you, where you get into the ultra wealthy,

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seriously wealthy, ultra wealthy individuals, some

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of the factors that, I mean, right off the top quality

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of life is not, is not a, an income, just,

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just an income thing,

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and it probably is not even incomes,

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to my taste is unlikely to determine quality of life.

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There. There's a tremendous number of really,

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really unhappy people with no wealth.

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And there's, there's a tremendous number of people,

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with significant wealth who are completely unhappy.

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Uh, that said, if you've got wealth,

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as I, as I suggested, you know, you could,

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you can do things, that,

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that genuinely will affect your quality of life.

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One, you live with less stress that, I mean,

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just economic, your,

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Your economic condition will produce

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and exacerbate your stress level every day.

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So, you know, you gear your lifestyle to your income

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and something unexpected occurs,

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and it's literally potentially a disaster,

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because the way you've geared your life, all

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of a sudden you have to cut back on things

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that you've enjoyed or things that you just simply need.

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There's lots of conversation in the US

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and it gets talked about at times, people, not, not

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fulfilling medical prescriptions,

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because they can't afford

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to fulfill the medical prescription

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and they're choosing between food and medicine,

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and that, that's, that's obviously going

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to have a deleterious effect on quality of life, quality

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of mind, sense of wellbeing.

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On the other hand, if you have wealth, and,

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and you just, your average, average,

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but wealthy, really genuine wealthy person, you know,

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you want to edu everybody.

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Every, most people want to educate their kids well,

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and that you can choose to live in a wealthy community with,

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with excellent school systems.

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And if, if, if they, they're not excellent enough,

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you can choose to have your children sent

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to private schools, which could cost the equivalent of,

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of college tuition.

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Um, you get better access to healthcare.

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Uh, you, you, you, you have, secure retirements,

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be because of your wealth.

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So you're not on an ongoing basis concerned, concerned day

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to day, what am I, am I saving enough

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or a healthy retirement?

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You can switch, switch careers, if you want

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because you have this, this, you know, cushion

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that allows you to, you know, expend the time,

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the opportunity cost of getting the education.

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You can get the education, start the new career.

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You're not burdened on the back end by the debt

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that you incurred to get the education.

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It's just, it's a little bit,

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the little bit of peaches and cream.

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Uh, and one other thing that just comes to mind,

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I mean, I was talking about stress.

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Stress is a huge factor in health.

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Uh, one thing that the wealthy have that that,

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that individuals without wealth, don't have,

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and that if they can choose the, to a degree within,

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if they can control themselves,

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they can choose the stress they wanna live with.

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Um, stress is optional.

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Uh, if you're, if you're poor,

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stress is reality.

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Uh, you don't, you don't get to choose, you, you live

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with your economic security

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and you live with it on a, on a regular basis.

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The standard way in which wealth is,

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equality is measured, is, is sort of a,

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so-called genie coefficient.

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But, and this is sort of gets at, you know, the disparities

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between the, you know, people at the lower end

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of the wealth spectrum and people at the higher

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end of the wealth spectrum.

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Um, and in the US be

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because we have a, a fair number of extraordinarily

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or ultra wealthy people.

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The, the, the curve is, looks, I'm gonna try to like do it,

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do it sort on the picture.

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It kind of goes like this,

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and it's extraordinarily steep slope, sort

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of on the right side or right side of the curve.

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Uh, and that is that there's massive,

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there is genuinely massive wealth concentration in the us.

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I a co a couple numbers just to sort

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of push it back in the seat.

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Um, the total, total wealth, total wealth of the country

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as a percentage of g

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gross national product in the United States, is held,

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30% of it, is held

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by the top 1%.

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I mean, yeah, top 1%, 30%, if you go back 35 years,

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it was 22%.

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So that, that's a shift of some 7%,

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and you can, so that, that's a lot

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of the wealth concentrated in 1% of the pop, you know,

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households in the us.

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Uh, and where'd it come from?

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It basically came not from the bottom 50%.

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They never had much of anything.

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They still don't have much of anything.

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So nothing's changed in, in that sense.

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For the bottom 50%, it's really come out of the PE folks

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between the, you know, the median income household

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and the median income level,

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and up to about the, the 10 10th percentile, top 10%.

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Uh, and so that's sort of been consistent

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with the hollowing out of the middle class.

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Uh, the, the wealth of the, I'm sorry.

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So what do you mean by that,

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by the hollowing out of the middle class?

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Oh, I mean, middle class has always been, you know,

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loosely, loosely thought of as folks who, you know,

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you know, you know, one

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or two income households, two income households,

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certainly today, 50 years ago, maybe one income household,

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and you can own a home, you own a car,

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and I mean, own not necessarily be heavily mortgaged,

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or heavily indebted to it.

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And, and, your kids can go to college.

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You can, you know, you can pay for the college,

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middle income.

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It's, it's a variation

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and maybe a good variation on the American dream.

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Your kids go to college and maybe they do better than you.

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That's, that's sort of been an ideal, sorry

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for the dog in the background.

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Uh, and,

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and, the capacity for individuals who are,

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on, on that wealth spectrum to do

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that has getting pushed up further

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and further on, on the wealth requirements.

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Um, and,

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and honestly, it, you know,

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the middle class has borne the brunt of it.

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Uh, so all, all the wealth that's been concentrated

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of gross national product has been, has been pushed up

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to the wealthy at lower end of the spectrum.

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And I mean, starting at the top 10, 10th percentile,

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So everybody 90 in the lower 90%

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have have seen their wealth increase at a far lower rate,

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dramatically lower rate than those individuals,

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in the top 10%,

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but even more so, more so the top 1%, top 0.1%,

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you know, Arthur Laffer,

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and, you know, the sort of like the, you know, advent

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of the e Reagan, you know, revolution,

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and I, I say revolution,

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but in an economic term, I mean this,

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this was sort, you know, pushed out.

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It sort of manifested in the early 81 Reagan tax cuts.

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Uh, and then it was, it was continued on, you know,

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variation on 86, much less significant in 86.

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And then, George Bush, George W. Bush in 2001, 2003,

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significant, sort of double, you know,

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doubling down on trickle down economics

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and most recently the Trump administration.

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Same thing, same game plan,

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to end and, to, to no noticeable

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economic effects on the, you know, the whole,

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the all, all the, the economic effect, if you will,

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manifested as largely transference of wealth

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or accumulation of wealth

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at the very top of the wealth spectrum.

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I am not aware of any evidence of any significant effect,

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or be a beneficial effect of trickle down economics.

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I'm aware of effects. I'm not aware of beneficial effects.

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I mean, there was a really good study, done, at, at,

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at, at London School of Economics, in 20 20 20.

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And, the takeaway from the study, has been

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that over the last 50 years in 18 different countries,

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these sort of supply sides trickle down, tax policies

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have had effectively no, no,

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no salutatory effect on the economy,

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but at the same time have,

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exacerbated wealth inequality.

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I, that's a great question.

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I don't, I don't know that I have a great answer,

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for it.

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Uh, I mean, in the, in the us I mean,

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I think maybe it appeals to, that, that, that, that the,

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that the idea of striving, you know, if you,

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if you make it, you get to keep it kind of thing.

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Uh, and,

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and without, without sort of giving, do, do due, justice

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to the notion of we're in this together.

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I mean, we're, we are, we are a country,

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and we are a society,

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and arguably, how well we do as a society

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is reflected by how well each of us does individually.

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Um, and,

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and the US is, is, if you will, is more maybe a i i,

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you know, I mean, I love the United States.

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I've always believed in a lot of what, what a lot of

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what it stands for,

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but that, that's sort of been the, the story

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of trickle down economics, that if we give, get, you know,

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sort of enhance the position of the wealthiest,

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that this will somehow turn,

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move into investment production, a stronger economy.

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And again, in short, there's no evidence of that.

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The, the what we haven't really tried, you know,

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although maybe it's manifest, in some

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of the recent Biden policies, some of the Obama policies,

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some of the Clinton policies, is, is sort

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of a demand side economics.

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Uh, and that is, instead of, you know, hoping

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for investment and ultimately hoping for a larger economy,

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push money down, and allow,

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because pe you know, the marginal propensity consume

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to consume of lower income,

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and by lower income, I'm talking about the low,

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the last 90%, which, which is virtually everybody.

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Uh, you give them money, not give them money, rephrase,

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if you don't tax them as much, they will

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spend the money, it gets pushed right back into the economy.

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Uh, and, and that in turn is gonna spur production.

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Um, and I mean, if you're a manager in a business,

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what makes you want to sort of like fire up the factory,

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in, in a, in a something equivalent to that,

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and that is that there's a demand for your product.

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Uh, you don't have any demand.

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Uh, it's sort of like a Henry Ford thing.

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You know, why, why do you pay your workers so much

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and you can, I want somebody to buy my cars.

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And in fairness, it's not just cut taxes.

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Uh, for, for, for those who, who are less well off that,

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that's, that, that's, that's too simplistic.

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Uh, you know, arguably reducing taxes on,

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on the lower income earners, that's significant.

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Uh, raising the top marginal tax rates,

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which would be a reversal of trickle side,

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trick trickle down economics that would be, significant,

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revisiting the estate tax,

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structure would be worth doing right now.

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Right now, there are, there are something,

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something on the order of,

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and this is hard to wrap your head around.

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When you give, given the number, get like 130,000 people in

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that top 0.1% who control

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who the entry point

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to the top 0.1% is about $50 million, okay?

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And so, and

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so about a little more than 2000 estate tax

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returns get filed each year.

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Now,

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and the estate tax is 40%, the exempt, the reason,

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the reason by the way, for, for such a low number

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of tax estate tax returns being filed is because the,

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The estate, estate tax exemption was

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doubled under the, as part of the Trump tax plan.

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Uh, but that, that, that covered a lot of people in, in,

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in the very wealthy category.

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Uh, and so, so a significant amount of what the estate tax

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collected and, and, and in effect reduced wealth inequality

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because of reducing the wealth at the very top.

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Uh, it, you know, it, it sort of work.

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We gave up a lot of money to, to, sorry,

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tax money mon monies that were being paid.

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I mean, arguably, I mean, I, I mean,

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I prefer the inheritance tax to the wealth tax

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as a phrase, a way to frame it.

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I mean, so dead people don't pay taxes, you know, it's those

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who inherit them, inherit the money.

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If you, if you dramatically increase the amount people can

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inherit without pay, without being subject to tax,

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and you, you at the same time,

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increase what's called their basis in, in the assets, they,

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they, they, they inherit, which in effect means that if the,

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if, if a dec a decedent had sold the asset,

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they would've paid tax on the game.

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If their, if their beneficiary sells the same asset,

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they don't pay tax, there is no gain.

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So, you know, so you ch you, you,

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you basically have these wealth, wealth, you know, in excess

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of 24 or $5 million.

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A lot of that is simply equity in businesses that sell.

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90% of the stocks in the United States are held

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by less than 10% of the people.

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Uh, 50% of the stocks in the United States are held

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by less than 1% of the population.

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Uh, more than 20%

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of the stocks held in the United States are held by

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less than 0.1% of the population.

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They all get step up in basis.

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I mean, so how about indexing or,

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or capping step up in, in, in, in, in basis so

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that, so that some

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of this mega wealth does not become dynastic wealth.

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I think it's a huge thing, and that's to educate people.

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Every, every number, everything I've said is in,

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in the public domain,

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and it's not, it's not from, some crazy left wing place

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or crazy right wing place.

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This is pretty much all Federal reserve data

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that's been collected for decades,

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educating people.

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And the importance of, of just having people understand

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basic, basic facts is central, I think,

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to their being able to make an informed decision

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with respect to their, their views.

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You know, the, the what's being proposed

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by different politicians, how it might affect some of these

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look two slides, you know, one pie chart that shows,

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wealth distribution in the

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United States, one pie chart

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that shows income distribution in the United States.

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And for God's sakes, don't make it all in Quintiles,

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you know,

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because all, all the magic, all, all the inequality,

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all the inequality in the genie coefficient is, is

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captured in that top one, top 0.1%.

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Um, that there've been great studies.

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Uh, I mean, my favorite is, is this Norton

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and Narrowly study done.

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2011, they asked just, they took,

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they surveyed 5,000 random Americans, you know,

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male, female Republicans, Democrats, high income,

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low income, and they, the, in this study, they asked,

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you know, what, what, what's an ideal wealth distribution?

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And, I mean, two big takeaways from that study.

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One was, these 5,000 people had no idea.

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They grossly underestimated the level of inequality.

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Uh, and two, they, they, they, again, without regard

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to race, gender, political identity, they,

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they basically agreed on, on, on what would be,

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arguably a far more equitable distribution

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of national wealth.

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I mean, my takeaway is people don't know,

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and people don't know what they don't know.

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So two pa, two pages, the government sends out all kinds

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of stuff all the time.

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Send out a two, two charts, no words, couple numbers,

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my chart, and let people run with it.

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And then you see what happens.

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You, I, I mean, I don't know, but that's the beauty and,

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and the sort of dark downside of democracy.

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Uh, people decide.

The Importance of Wealth Over Income in Economic Security

00:00:00 - From my point of view, wealth disparity is, is far more significant than income. Disparity in income is the snapshot picture. It's, it's what happened during the year, and, and, and most, inequality type measure. Wealth inequality type measures have, have been geared towards income because we have the data and it's easy to access. wealth inequality is, is a, is a, is a more, is a trickier measure, because it, it is not just the sum of, it's not just your income,

00:00:33 - capital assets, to much more difficult to measure. nonetheless, you know, wealth itself is, is a much more powerful economic measure because it, it, it sort of gauges what you can and can't do. How, how you can live, the concerns you may have a day-to-day life, how you can contend with sort of economic mishaps or,

00:01:04 - You can invest, and you can invest in, your children. You can invest in your retirement. there's economic security. There's a great deal of flexibility in what you choose to do. If you have wealth, if income is, again, year to year, it doesn't convey or confer those, that that level of flexibility and security, that wealth does it correlated. you, it, it,

The Dual Nature of Wealth: Inheritance vs. Earned Wealth

00:01:35 - there, there, there are, there is a subset of wealthy people who simply inherited their money and, and in effect didn't earn any money, on their own. and then there's a, another subset, and it's a, it's probably the bigger subset of individuals who genuinely earned, earn their money either through, through, you know, wage income, or wage income plus stock compensation or wage income and stock compensation as part

00:02:05 - And that's where you, where you get into the ultra wealthy, seriously wealthy, ultra wealthy individuals, some of the factors that, I mean, right off the top quality of life is not, is not a, an income, just, just an income thing, and it probably is not even incomes, to my taste is unlikely to determine quality of life. There. There's a tremendous number of really, really unhappy people with no wealth.

00:02:37 - with significant wealth who are completely unhappy. that said, if you've got wealth, as I, as I suggested, you know, you could, you can do things, that, that genuinely will affect your quality of life. One, you live with less stress that, I mean, just economic, your, Your economic condition will produce and exacerbate your stress level every day.

Impact of Wealth on Quality of Life

00:03:07 - and something unexpected occurs, and it's literally potentially a disaster, because the way you've geared your life, all of a sudden you have to cut back on things that you've enjoyed or things that you just simply need. There's lots of conversation in the US and it gets talked about at times, people, not, not fulfilling medical prescriptions, because they can't afford to fulfill the medical prescription

00:03:38 - and that, that's, that's obviously going to have a deleterious effect on quality of life, quality of mind, sense of wellbeing. On the other hand, if you have wealth, and, and you just, your average, average, but wealthy, really genuine wealthy person, you know, you want to edu everybody. Every, most people want to educate their kids well, and that you can choose to live in a wealthy community with, with excellent school systems. And if, if, if they, they're not excellent enough,

00:04:09 - to private schools, which could cost the equivalent of, of college tuition. you get better access to healthcare. you, you, you, you have, secure retirements, be because of your wealth. So you're not on an ongoing basis concerned, concerned day to day, what am I, am I saving enough or a healthy retirement? You can switch, switch careers, if you want because you have this, this, you know, cushion

The Contrast of Wealth and Stress in Education Choices

00:04:42 - the opportunity cost of getting the education. You can get the education, start the new career. You're not burdened on the back end by the debt that you incurred to get the education. It's just, it's a little bit, the little bit of peaches and cream. and one other thing that just comes to mind, I mean, I was talking about stress. Stress is a huge factor in health. one thing that the wealthy have that that,

00:05:15 - and that if they can choose the, to a degree within, if they can control themselves, they can choose the stress they wanna live with. stress is optional. if you're, if you're poor, stress is reality. you don't, you don't get to choose, you, you live with your economic security and you live with it on a, on a regular basis. The standard way in which wealth is,

00:05:44 - so-called genie coefficient. But, and this is sort of gets at, you know, the disparities between the, you know, people at the lower end of the wealth spectrum and people at the higher end of the wealth spectrum. and in the US be because we have a, a fair number of extraordinarily or ultra wealthy people. The, the, the curve is, looks, I'm gonna try to like do it, do it sort on the picture. It kind of goes like this, and it's extraordinarily steep slope, sort

Massive Wealth Concentration in the U.S.

00:06:19 - and that is that there's massive, there is genuinely massive wealth concentration in the us. I a co a couple numbers just to sort of push it back in the seat. the total, total wealth, total wealth of the country as a percentage of g gross national product in the United States, is held, 30% of it, is held by the top 1%. I mean, yeah, top 1%, 30%, if you go back 35 years,

00:06:52 - So that, that's a shift of some 7%, and you can, so that, that's a lot of the wealth concentrated in 1% of the pop, you know, households in the us. and where'd it come from? It basically came not from the bottom 50%. They never had much of anything. They still don't have much of anything. So nothing's changed in, in that sense. For the bottom 50%, it's really come out of the PE folks between the, you know, the median income household

00:07:23 - and up to about the, the 10 10th percentile, top 10%. and so that's sort of been consistent with the hollowing out of the middle class. the, the wealth of the, I'm sorry. So what do you mean by that, by the hollowing out of the middle class? I mean, middle class has always been, you know, loosely, loosely thought of as folks who, you know, you know, you know, one or two income households, two income households,

The Evolving American Dream: Middle-Class Struggles in Wealth Disparity

00:07:55 - and you can own a home, you own a car, and I mean, own not necessarily be heavily mortgaged, or heavily indebted to it. And, and, your kids can go to college. You can, you know, you can pay for the college, middle income. It's, it's a variation and maybe a good variation on the American dream. Your kids go to college and maybe they do better than you. That's, that's sort of been an ideal, sorry for the dog in the background. and,

00:08:28 - on, on that wealth spectrum to do that has getting pushed up further and further on, on the wealth requirements. and, and honestly, it, you know, the middle class has borne the brunt of it. so all, all the wealth that's been concentrated of gross national product has been, has been pushed up to the wealthy at lower end of the spectrum. And I mean, starting at the top 10, 10th percentile,

00:08:59 - have have seen their wealth increase at a far lower rate, dramatically lower rate than those individuals, in the top 10%, but even more so, more so the top 1%, top 0.1%, you know, Arthur Laffer, and, you know, the sort of like the, you know, advent of the e Reagan, you know, revolution, and I, I say revolution, but in an economic term, I mean this,

Critique of Trickle-Down Economics and Its Impact on Wealth Inequality

00:09:32 - It sort of manifested in the early 81 Reagan tax cuts. and then it was, it was continued on, you know, variation on 86, much less significant in 86. And then, George Bush, George W. Bush in 2001, 2003, significant, sort of double, you know, doubling down on trickle down economics and most recently the Trump administration. Same thing, same game plan,

00:10:07 - economic effects on the, you know, the whole, the all, all the, the economic effect, if you will, manifested as largely transference of wealth or accumulation of wealth at the very top of the wealth spectrum. I am not aware of any evidence of any significant effect, or be a beneficial effect of trickle down economics. I'm aware of effects. I'm not aware of beneficial effects.

00:10:37 - at, at London School of Economics, in 20 20 20. And, the takeaway from the study, has been that over the last 50 years in 18 different countries, these sort of supply sides trickle down, tax policies have had effectively no, no, no salutatory effect on the economy, but at the same time have, exacerbated wealth inequality. I, that's a great question. I don't, I don't know that I have a great answer,

Striving and Economic Ideologies: A Call for Demand-Side Solutions

00:11:07 - I mean, in the, in the us I mean, I think maybe it appeals to, that, that, that, that the, that the idea of striving, you know, if you, if you make it, you get to keep it kind of thing. and, and without, without sort of giving, do, do due, justice to the notion of we're in this together. I mean, we're, we are, we are a country, and we are a society, and arguably, how well we do as a society

00:11:43 - and, and the US is, is, if you will, is more maybe a i i, you know, I mean, I love the United States. I've always believed in a lot of what, what a lot of what it stands for, but that, that's sort of been the, the story of trickle down economics, that if we give, get, you know, sort of enhance the position of the wealthiest, that this will somehow turn, move into investment production, a stronger economy.

00:12:15 - The, the what we haven't really tried, you know, although maybe it's manifest, in some of the recent Biden policies, some of the Obama policies, some of the Clinton policies, is, is sort of a demand side economics. and that is, instead of, you know, hoping for investment and ultimately hoping for a larger economy, push money down, and allow,

Reimagining Economic Policies for Income Equity

00:12:46 - to consume of lower income, and by lower income, I'm talking about the low, the last 90%, which, which is virtually everybody. you give them money, not give them money, rephrase, if you don't tax them as much, they will spend the money, it gets pushed right back into the economy. and, and that in turn is gonna spur production. and I mean, if you're a manager in a business,

00:13:19 - in, in a, in a something equivalent to that, and that is that there's a demand for your product. you don't have any demand. it's sort of like a Henry Ford thing. You know, why, why do you pay your workers so much and you can, I want somebody to buy my cars. And in fairness, it's not just cut taxes. for, for, for those who, who are less well off that, that's, that, that's, that's too simplistic. you know, arguably reducing taxes on,

00:13:52 - raising the top marginal tax rates, which would be a reversal of trickle side, trick trickle down economics that would be, significant, revisiting the estate tax, structure would be worth doing right now. Right now, there are, there are something, something on the order of, and this is hard to wrap your head around. When you give, given the number, get like 130,000 people in

Understanding Estate Tax and Wealth Inequality

00:14:25 - who the entry point to the top 0.1% is about $50 million, okay? And so, and so about a little more than 2000 estate tax returns get filed each year. Now, and the estate tax is 40%, the exempt, the reason, the reason by the way, for, for such a low number of tax estate tax returns being filed is because the, The estate, estate tax exemption was

00:14:58 - but that, that, that covered a lot of people in, in, in the very wealthy category. and so, so a significant amount of what the estate tax collected and, and, and in effect reduced wealth inequality because of reducing the wealth at the very top. it, you know, it, it sort of work. We gave up a lot of money to, to, sorry, tax money mon monies that were being paid.

00:15:29 - I prefer the inheritance tax to the wealth tax as a phrase, a way to frame it. I mean, so dead people don't pay taxes, you know, it's those who inherit them, inherit the money. If you, if you dramatically increase the amount people can inherit without pay, without being subject to tax, and you, you at the same time, increase what's called their basis in, in the assets, they, they, they, they inherit, which in effect means that if the,

Understanding Wealth Inequality and Taxation

00:16:00 - they would've paid tax on the game. If their, if their beneficiary sells the same asset, they don't pay tax, there is no gain. So, you know, so you ch you, you, you basically have these wealth, wealth, you know, in excess of 24 or $5 million. A lot of that is simply equity in businesses that sell. 90% of the stocks in the United States are held by less than 10% of the people. 50% of the stocks in the United States are held

00:16:33 - more than 20% of the stocks held in the United States are held by less than 0.1% of the population. They all get step up in basis. I mean, so how about indexing or, or capping step up in, in, in, in, in basis so that, so that some of this mega wealth does not become dynastic wealth. I think it's a huge thing, and that's to educate people. Every, every number, everything I've said is in,

00:17:05 - and it's not, it's not from, some crazy left wing place or crazy right wing place. This is pretty much all Federal reserve data that's been collected for decades, educating people. And the importance of, of just having people understand basic, basic facts is central, I think, to their being able to make an informed decision with respect to their, their views.

Understanding Wealth Inequality: Insights from Data and Public Perception

00:17:37 - by different politicians, how it might affect some of these look two slides, you know, one pie chart that shows, wealth distribution in the United States, one pie chart that shows income distribution in the United States. And for God's sakes, don't make it all in Quintiles, you know, because all, all the magic, all, all the inequality, all the inequality in the genie coefficient is, is captured in that top one, top 0.1%.

00:18:11 - I mean, my favorite is, is this Norton and Narrowly study done. 2011, they asked just, they took, they surveyed 5,000 random Americans, you know, male, female Republicans, Democrats, high income, low income, and they, the, in this study, they asked, you know, what, what, what's an ideal wealth distribution? And, I mean, two big takeaways from that study. One was, these 5,000 people had no idea.

00:18:44 - and two, they, they, they, again, without regard to race, gender, political identity, they, they basically agreed on, on, on what would be, arguably a far more equitable distribution of national wealth. I mean, my takeaway is people don't know, and people don't know what they don't know. So two pa, two pages, the government sends out all kinds

Charts Without Context: The Power of Democracy in Decision-Making

00:19:29 - Send out a two, two charts, no words, couple numbers, my chart, and let people run with it. And then you see what happens. You, I, I mean, I don't know, but that's the beauty and, and the sort of dark downside of democracy. people decide.

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