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.
