Inside Job is a 2010 American documentary film, directed by Charles Ferguson, about the 2008 financial crisis. Ferguson, who began researching in 2008,[3] said the film is about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption",[4] amongst them conflicts of interest...
When you train people to be good in learning the rules, it is harder to have a rebellious spirit ... people who are not afraid to break the norm, to fail a little
SINGAPORE — They have hopped around countries to build up businesses, before settling on Singapore to sink their roots more than 10 years ago. To them, there is no better place than Singapore for entrepreneurs, so much so that one of them, fish farm Barramundi Asia’s managing director Joep Kleine Staarman declares
culture of defining success a single way
people grow up trying to thrive in school, which, here, focuses on structured learning, and systematic and logical thinking; less on creativity and risk-taking
the education system produces workers good in thinking about structures and algorithms, besides being highly efficient.“But it is still a workforce that is not highly innovative
the results-driven, exam-centric approach in Singapore’s education system does not require students to think creatively
most of entrepreneurial nature is about people
There is this whole obsession for people to be similar to other people
/what needs changing first is for society to be less critical of those who fare less well academically. “If people are not good in school, don’t write them off. Work on their specialties. Oftentimes, they may be the ones with the potential to be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow/
"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.
It’s impossible to reform our economic system without altering the allocation of political power that prevents such reform
What we must do
They hypothesized that even though the voices of individual Americans counted for little, most people belonged to a variety of interest groups and membership organizations — clubs, associations, political parties, and trade unions. “Interest-group pluralism,” as they called it, was responsive to the needs and aspirations of most citizens
Small retailers were protected against retail chains through state “fair trade” laws requiring wholesalers to charge all retailers the same price and preventing chains from undercutting prices. At the same time, the retail chains were allowed to combine into national organizations to counter the significant market power of large manufacturers.Small investors gained protection under the Securities and Exchange Acts against the power of big investors and top corporate executives.Small banks were protected against Wall Street by regulations that barred interstate banking and separated commercial from investment banking
Because wages stagnated, most people had to devote more time to work in order to makes ends meet. As sociologist Robert Putnam has documented, Americans stopped being a nation of “joiners.” By the 1980s, the expansive mosaic of local organizations that had given meaning to American pluralism was being replaced by national advocacy organizations headquartered in Washington.“Membership” no longer meant activism at the local and state levels. It meant sending money in response to mass solicitations
Many small retailers went under due to repeals of state “fair trade” laws and court decisions finding that resale price maintenance violated antitrust laws. Large chains that spearheaded such moves argued that consumers would get better deals as a result. But the moves also opened the way to giant big-box retailers, such as Walmart, that siphoned away so much business from the Main Streets of America that many became ghost towns.These changes also led to the closings of millions of locally owned businesses that had provided communities with diverse products and services, some produced locally or regionally, and many jobs
In the 2012 elections, the Koch brothers’ political network alone spent more than double on politics than the 10 largest labor unions put together. Corporations spent $56 on lobbying for every $1 spent by labor unions
The loss of American workers’ collective economic power compounded their loss of political power, which in turn accelerated their loss of economic power
Half of all daily newspapers in the U.S. are now controlled by financial firms
The deregulation of finance — demanded by Wall Street — allowed the Street’s biggest banks to become far bigger, taking over markets that state and local banks had previously served and thereby cutting off financing for many small local and regional enterprises
In the 1990s, Democrats voted against Bill Clinton’s health care plan because their corporate sponsors opposed it
In his first two years in office, Clinton pushed for two items of central importance to big business. He got Congress to enact the North American Free Trade Agreement, followed by the establishment of the World Trade Organization. And he committed to reducing the federal budget deficit.Clinton and his allies in Congress also deregulated Wall Street. In 1993, Democrats supported the Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act, which ended restrictions on interstate banking. In 1999, Clinton pushed for repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act that had separated commercial from investment banking. In 2000, he supported the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which prevented the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating most over-the-counter derivative contracts, including credit default swaps
Barack Obama presided over one of the most pro-business administrations in American history. He pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into Wall Street in order to save the Street (and the U.S. economy) from imploding after the crash of 2008
The career paths of Democratic officials in the Clinton and Obama administrations confirmed their close ties to business and Wall Street
The major fault line in American politics has shifted from Democrats versus Republicans to anti-establishment versus establishment.The strongest and most powerful force in American politics is a rejection of the status quo, a repudiation of politics as usual, and a deep and profound distrust of elites — including the current power structure of America
Trump is a fake populist, of course. Many big corporations and wealthy individuals are solidly behind him. After they bankrolled his 2016 election, he rewarded them with a giant tax cut
Trump’s 2024 campaign has nothing to do with conservative orthodoxy emphasizing small government. To the contrary, Trump is proposing to centralize government power under his authority and extend it over a range of issues now outside the scope of federal control
But Biden has not taken direct aim at the growing political power of giant corporations, Wall Street, and the ultra-wealthy. He has not explained how they have abused their wealth and power to alter the economy to their advantage — and the disadvantage of most other Americans... He has not fought to get big money out of politics.Yet polls show strong public support for getting big money out of politics. For cutting the biggest Wall Street banks down to a size where they are no longer too big to fail. For resurrecting the Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated commercial and investment banking until its repeal in 1999
a strong coalition — trade unions, working men and women, local political organizations, small businesses, young people, and others. In other words, a new countervailing power
movement... to unite the poor, working and middle class, people of color and white people — everyone who has barely had a raise in 30 years and who now feels cynical, powerless, and disenfranchised
starting in July 2021, 36 million American families began receiving pandemic payments of up to $3,000 per child ($3,600 for each child under six).The result? Child poverty dropped by at least a third, and the typical family gained some breathing space.This hugely successful experiment ended abruptly in December 2021 when Senator Joe Manchin joined 50 Republican senators in rejecting President Biden’s Build Back Better Act, which would have continued it.They cited concerns over the experiment’s cost — an estimated $100 billion per year, or $1.6 trillion over 10 years. But that’s less than big corporations and the rich will have saved on taxes from the Trump Republican tax cut of 2018. Repeal it, and there would be enough money. The cost is also less than the increase in the wealth of America’s 745 billionaires during the pandemic. Why not a wealth tax?The experiment died because, put simply, the oligarchy didn’t want to pay for it
Capitalism is consistent with democracy when democracy is in the driver’s seat — reducing the inequalities, insecurities, joblessness, and poverty that accompany unbridled profit-seeking
human domination and destruction of nature follows from social domination between humans
Murray Bookchin (January 14, 1921 – July 30, 2006[2]) was an American social theorist, author, orator, historian, and political philosopher. A pioneer in the environmental movement,[3] Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of social ecology and urban planning within anarchist, libertarian socialist, and ecological thought. He was the...
Bookchin's vision of an ecological society is based on highly participatory, grassroots politics, in which municipal communities democratically plan and manage their affairs through popular assembly, a program he called Communalism. This democratic deliberation purposefully promotes autonomy and self-reliance, as opposed to centralized state politics. While this program retains elements of anarchism, it emphasizes a higher degree of organization (community planning, voting, and institutions) than general anarchism. In Bookchin's Communalism, these autonomous, municipal communities connect with each other via confederations
The best arena to do that is the municipality—the city, town, and village—where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy
an ecological social society that maintains a balance between its parts and whose communities can organize their lives independently
Democratic confederalism[1][2] (Kurdish: Konfederalîzma demokratîk), also known as Kurdish communalism or Apoism,[nb 1] is a political concept theorized by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan about a system of democratic self-organization[4] with the features of a confederation based on the principles of autonomy, direct...
Social trust is a belief in the honesty, integrity and reliability of others - a "faith in people." It's a simple enough concept to describe. But it's never been easy to figure out who trusts, or why.
Sorry for the hiatus. I keep doing podcasts and articles on other sites for Trust in a Polarized Age, and I don’t want to irritate my readers on social media with too much content. When I get done talking about the book so often, I’ll return to my regularly scheduled blogging. Lots of people talk […]
Read the report > The UK public are among the most trusting globally, with internationally high levels of trust in people of different nationalities, people they meet for the first time, and people they know personally.Of the nations included, the UK ranks second for trust in foreigners, with such trust now at a record high following a rise over...
Americans’ views of politics and elected officials are unrelentingly negative, with little hope of improvement on the horizon. 65% of Americans say they always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics. By contrast, just 10% say they always or often feel hopeful about politics.
Public trust in government remains low, as it has for much of the 21st century. Only two-in-ten Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” (2%) or “most of the time” (19%).
A median of 62% of adults across the 14 countries surveyed this summer generally believe most people can be trusted.
Trust is essential for community, wellbeing, and effective cooperation. How does trust vary between different societies and locations and what matters for levels of trust?
