主計總處時隔30年再次發布國富統計報告，公布台灣家庭財富分配統計結果，民國110年最富裕的20%家庭財富是新台幣5133萬元，財富資產最少的20%家庭，平均每戶僅有77萬元；兩族群差距高達66.9倍，明顯比民國80年差距16.8倍大很多。
行政院主計總處睽違30年，再次發布我國家庭財富分配統計，根據結果，1
睽違30年，主計總處今天再次公布財富分配統計，110年五等分位的家庭財富差距倍數擴大至66.9倍，台灣家庭財富吉尼係數則為0.606，優於其他國家，主計總處官員表示「我們財富分配比較均勻」。
主計總處今天公布最新家庭財富分配統計，110年底平均每家庭財富為新台幣1638萬元，但中位數僅894萬元，官員表示，兩者差距大意味著財富分配不均，不過強調經濟高度自由發展地區會出現的必然現象，世界各國都是如此。
勞力所得如薪資採累進稅率，而富人主要財富來源、錢滾錢的資本所得、利得卻採分離課稅，「資本所得越來越脫離掌握」，例如證券交易所得不課稅、股利所得僅課徵28％單一稅率，房地產部分，雖然105年實施房地合一稅有累進，但仍屬分離課稅。他強調，分離課稅無法綜合性考量，對於真正的富人有課稅效果
後20％家庭佔不到1％財富， 平均欠債卻最高達405萬元
早些年遺贈稅的確採用累進方式，最高稅率達50％，後來馬政府卻大幅調降至10％單一稅率，即使蔡政府將遺贈稅些微提高到20％（中間有分15%級距）
睽違30年，主計總處再次公布家庭財富分配統計，顯示貧富差距擴大，外界關注下一次公布統計是何時，主計總處主計長朱澤民表示，隨著調查技術與大數據發展，接下來會定期發布統計，「我認為4年做一次很恰當」。
the deliberate weakening of social protections has produced greater financial and economic insecurity
Joseph E. Stiglitz considers what 40 years of anti-government, low-tax, deregulatory advocacy have wrought around the world.
neoliberalism simply did not deliver what it promised
countries under the sway of neoliberalism have consistently failed to enact strong regulations against pollution (or, in the US, to address the opioid crisis
unregulated markets are neither efficient nor stable
expanding the freedom of corporations curtails freedom across the rest of society
The freedom to pollute means worsening health (or even death, for those with asthma), more extreme weather, and uninhabitable land
what they earn was made possible by government investment in infrastructure, technology, education, and public health ... what they would have if they had been born in one of the many countries without the rule of law
Where would Elon Musk and Tesla be if not for the near-half-billion-dollar lifeline they received from President Barack Obama’s Department of Energy in 2010?
“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,”
taxes are what it takes to establish the rule of law or provide any of the other public goods that a twenty-first-century society needs to function
if most people are forced to endure the insecurity of not having reliable health care or adequate incomes in old age, society has become less free: at a minimum, they lack freedom from the fear of how traumatic their future might be
dishonesty, socially destructive profiteering, and rent-seeking will prevail, public trust will continue to crumble, and materialism and greed will triumph
selfish
scoundrels and opportunists
a society without trust
if we want to live in a society that values all citizens and strives to create ways for them to live full and satisfying lives
people suffering from precarity, which means existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare ... lack of job security
In sociology and economics, the precariat (/prɪˈkɛəriət/) is a neologism for a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which means existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmanteau merging precarious with proletariat.[1] Unlike the proletariat class of...
蒲公英族（英語：precariat；/prɪˈkɛəriət/)，或譯作「流眾」[1]、「不穩定無產者」[2]、「殆危族」、「飄零族」[3][4]等，在社会学和经济学中，是由飽受不稳定之苦的人组成的階級。蒲公英族是不稳定（precarious）与无产阶级（proletariat）的混成词。 [5][6]...
A growing body of research shows that the corporate rate cut has delivered large gains to top earners but done little for everyone else.
Policymakers and the public should understand that the 2017 Trump tax law was skewed to the rich, was expensive and eroded the U.S. revenue base, and failed to deliver promised economic benefits. A 2025 course correction is needed.
“double damage” inflicted by the wealthiest corporations and individuals who disproportionately contribute to climate breakdown through their outsized carbon emissions and who rob governments of the funding needed to address the fallout from climate breakdown by abusing tax
“Double damage” inflicted by wealthiest corporations and individuals highlights twin crises of climate breakdown and inequality The amount of tax lost every year to multinational corporations and wealthy individuals using tax havens is on par with the amount of money needed each year to cover the estimated cost of climate-induced loss and damage. In a […]
amount of tax lost every year to multinational corporations and wealthy individuals using tax havens is on par with the amount of money needed each year to cover the estimated cost of climate-induced loss and damage
The holiday season is upon us, which for the millions of dust-covered board games that have spent the year hibernating in cupboards and cabinets means making the annual pilgrimage to the family dinner table to collect the biscuit crumbs and greasy finger stains they need to sustain themselves for another a year. In honour of […]
"It’s instant replay of the same old crap. The first time they went to jail. The second time, nobody went to jail, but there were some significant financial penalties. And the third time, it was a complete pass that allowed people to get the idea that if you’re big enough and important enough, you can get away with anything. And that, I’m afraid, has permeated the society."
The latest Corruption Diaries episode is out! A new podcast episode every Wednesday: "It’s instant replay of the same old crap. The first time they went to jail. The second time, nobody went to jail,...
their wealth has grown three times faster than the rate of inflation ... The wages of nearly 800 million workers have failed to keep up with inflation and they have lost $1.5 trillion over the last two years, equivalent to nearly a month (25 days) of lost wages for each worker
The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020 —at a rate of $14 million per hour— while nearly five billion people have been made poorer, reveals a new Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power. If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire...
Fortunes of five richest men have shot up by 114 percent since 2020
The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020 —at a rate of $14 million per hour— while nearly five billion people have been made poorer
the world could have its first-ever trillionaire ... within a decade
Monopolies harm innovation and crush workers and smaller businesses
148 of the world’s biggest corporations together ... a 52 percent jump compared to average net profits in 2018-2021
"war on taxation" by corporations has seen the effective corporate tax rate fall by roughly a third in recent decades
seven out of ten of the world’s biggest corporations have a billionaire as CEO or principal shareholder. These corporations are worth $10.2 trillion, equivalent to more than the combined GDPs of all countries in Africa and Latin America
Share ownership overwhelmingly benefits the richest. The top 1 percent own 43 percent of all global financial assets. They hold 48 percent of financial wealth in the Middle East, 50 percent in Asia and 47 percent in Europe
This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else…… through squeezing workers, dodging tax, privatizing the state, and spurring climate breakdown
analysis of World Benchmarking Alliance data on more than 1,600 of the largest corporations worldwide shows that 0.4 percent of them are publicly committed to paying workers a living wage and support a living wage in their value chains
But they’re also funneling power, undermining our democracies ... No corporation or individual should have this much power over our economies and our lives
Bernard Arnault is the world’s second richest man who presides over luxury goods empire LVMH ... He also owns France’s biggest media outlet, Les Échos, as well as Le Parisien
at least 228 of America’s biggest (Fortune 500) corporations — representing more than two-thirds of some 300 companies with political action committees — have given $26.3 million to election deniers during the 2021-2024 election cycles... giant corporations that announced they wouldn’t support election deniers but reversed course include FedEx, which has given the deniers $303,000 since January, 2021. Home Depot, $602,500. Johnson & Johnson, $138,000. McDonald’s, $107,000. UPS, $575,000. Verizon, $250,500. Walmart, $297,000. Wells Fargo, $244,500
They say they want to build public trust and avoid political upheaval, but they’re bankrolling election deniers
Note that these numbers show only the donations that corporations are openly disclosing — not funds they’re channeling through trade associations, super PACs, and dark money groups
And the same companies will be giving millions to the “others side” too. As my dearly departed Mother used to say, “playing both ends against the middle”
In this case, the "other side" is the United States of America
Big money has created a deep cynicism about our democracy, which Trump and election-deniers are exploiting to the hilt. Those of us who care about democracy must do more than vanquish Trumpism. We...
烏衣巷在南京秦淮河南岸，原為東吳烏衣營的駐地，故名，後為東晉時高門士族的聚居區，東晉開國元勛王導和指揮淝水之戰的謝安都住在這裏，在刘宋、南齐时期，定居于乌衣巷的琅邪王氏支系因为官位不高，门第被琅邪王氏定居于马粪巷的一支马粪诸王压倒。...
According to conservative Oren Cass, private equity captures wealth rather than creating it, and this capture can be "zero-sum, or even value-destroying, in aggregate." He describes "assets get shuffled and reshuffled, profits get made, but relatively little flows toward actual productive uses....a tax loophole enshrined in the U.S. tax code, carried interest that accrues to private equity firms is treated as capital gains, which is taxed at a lower rate than is ordinary income. Currently, the long term capital gains tax rate is 20% compared with the 37% top ordinary income tax rate for individuals. This loophole has been estimated to cost the government $130 billion over the next decade in unrealized revenue. Armies of corporate lobbyists and huge private equity industry donations to political campaigns in the United States have ensured that this powerful industry receives this favorable tax treatment by the government. Private equity firms retain close to 200 lobbyists and over the last decade have made almost $600 million in political campaign contributions.In addition, through an accounting maneuver called "fee waiver", private equity firms often also treat management fee income as capital gains. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) lacks the manpower and the expertise that would be necessary to track compliance with even these already quite favorable legal requirements. In fact, the IRS conducts nearly no income tax audits of the industry. As a result of the complexity of the accounting that arises from the fact that most private equity firms are organized as large partnerships, such that the firm's profits are apportioned to each of the many partners, a number of private equity firms fail to comply with tax laws, according to industry whistleblowers.
In the field of finance, private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public. Private equity is offered instead to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the companies. In casual usage, "private equity" can refer to these...
我常感慨：台灣的頂尖學生絕大部分在浪費青春，因為沒有人告訴他們有什麼值得學的，以及去哪裡學。 譬如，YouTube 上面有那麼多精采絕倫的演講與課程，很多頂大學生還是在忙著學一堆幼稚、膚淺的東西而且洋洋得意（譬如，把 備受學術界質疑而無法進入學術主流 的「...
According to conservative Oren Cass, private equity captures wealth rather than creating it, and this capture can be "zero-sum, or even value-destroying, in aggregate." He describes "assets get shuffled and reshuffled, profits get made, but relatively little flows toward actual productive uses."
a tax loophole enshrined in the U.S. tax code, carried interest that accrues to private equity firms is treated as capital gains, which is taxed at a lower rate than is ordinary income. Currently, the long term capital gains tax rate is 20% compared with the 37% top ordinary income tax rate for individuals. This loophole has been estimated to cost the government $130 billion over the next decade in unrealized revenue. Armies of corporate lobbyists and huge private equity industry donations to political campaigns in the United States have ensured that this powerful industry receives this favorable tax treatment by the government. Private equity firms retain close to 200 lobbyists and over the last decade have made almost $600 million in political campaign contributions.In addition, through an accounting maneuver called "fee waiver", private equity firms often also treat management fee income as capital gains. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) lacks the manpower and the expertise that would be necessary to track compliance with even these already quite favorable legal requirements. In fact, the IRS conducts nearly no income tax audits of the industry. As a result of the complexity of the accounting that arises from the fact that most private equity firms are organized as large partnerships, such that the firm's profits are apportioned to each of the many partners, a number of private equity firms fail to comply with tax laws, according to industry whistleblowers.
私立學校與大學都是以慈善機構的名義課稅，因為它們是為公共利益做出貢獻：校友的捐款可以減稅，學校與大學來自捐贈基金的所得也不必繳稅。這樣的操作使得菁英教育實際上變成一個只有菁英階層可以利用的避稅天堂……儘管菁英學府是以公益慈善機構的地位課稅，但是菁英體制的不均卻使其成為專屬俱樂部。他們在稅賦上所享有的優惠就有如貴族體制下發給王親貴族的津貼。然而菁英教育的學費卻是由中產階級家庭來承擔，而且他們自己的子女永遠無法獲得這樣的教育
incentive for taxpayers to retain appreciated property until death
The tax code of the United States holds that when a person (the beneficiary) receives an asset from a giver (the benefactor) after the benefactor dies, the asset receives a stepped-up basis, which is its market value at the time the benefactor dies (Internal Revenue Code § 1014(a)). A stepped-up basis can be higher than the before-death cost...
Nothing can be done.
Cynicism is an attitude characterized by a general distrust of the motives of others.[1] A cynic may have a general lack of faith or hope in people motivated by ambition, desire, greed, gratification, materialism, goals, and opinions that a cynic perceives as vain, unobtainable, or ultimately meaningless. The term originally derives from the...
不相信別人的熱情，不相信別人的義正辭嚴，不相信有所謂正義的呼喊，他們甚至不相信還能有什麼辦法改變他們所不相信的那個世界。他們把對現有秩序的不滿，轉化為一種「不拒絕的冷漠」、一種「不反抗的清醒」、一種「不認同的接受」，獨善其身，只要自己不受傷害即可。「既然世界是如此大荒謬，大玩笑，我亦惟有以荒謬和玩笑對待之。」
憤世嫉俗
放棄理想，放棄追求，甚至反過來嘲笑理想，嘲笑追求
Get ready for the ride.
How finance has contributed to widening inequality
The jobs of the future
Widening inequalities of place
Friends, good morning. Our fifth class begins our focus on power — and on the relative weakness of workers and the relative power of big corporations. Just double-click below, and you’re in the class. Background: It’s one of the oldest struggles inside the American economy and within capitalism worldwide: between labor and capital. And it has a direct effect on inequality.
Wealth isn’t a zero-sum game in which the rich get richer only if others become poorer, but political power is zero-sum
Friends, This week brings us to one of the core problems of widening inequality — the inevitability that concentrated income and wealth at the top comes with political power. Wealth isn’t a zero-sum game in which the rich get richer only if others become poorer, but political power
difference between “pre-distribution” and “redistribution” of income and wealth
We now turn to policies where widening inequality is directly implicated. The first and most obvious (and most politically contentious) involves taxing higher-income people and redistributing to lower-income people. My goal today is to get students to reexamine their assumptions, both about how the system of taxing and redistributing actually works (or doesn’t) and about the practical consequences.
Friends, Today I examine the morally and politically complex question of who deserves public assistance. Just click below, and you’re in the class. I reach back into history — to the 14th century, as well as to the last 40 years in America — to see how this question has been answered differently over time. And contrast the dominant view since the Clinton administration with a remarkable experiment America conducted between July and December 2021.
