Tag Archives: 1%

Wall Street Declares War on Bernie Sanders

Posted on January 25, 2016 by William Black | 20 comments

By William K. Black

Wall Street billionaires are freaking out about the chance that Bernie Sanders could be elected President. Stephen Schwarzman, one of the wealthiest and most odious people in the world, told the Wall Street Journal that one of the three principal causes of the recent global financial trauma was “the market’s” fear that Sanders may be elected President. Schwarzman is infamous for ranting that President Obama’s proposals to end the “carried interest” tax scam that allows private equity billionaires like Schwarzman to pay lower income tax rates than their secretaries was “like when Hitler invaded Poland.”

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged 1%, banksters, bernie sanders, wall street

Rising Tides Lift All Yachts: Why the 1% Grabs all the Gains From Growth

Posted on October 1, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | 16 comments

By L. Randall Wray

You’ve probably seen references to the work of my colleague (and former student), Pavlina Tcherneva in recent days. If not, take a gander at this:

The NYT article includes links to her published article in the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, the first issue edited by me and my Levy Institute colleague Jan Kregel. Pavlina also presented her results at the just finished International Post Keynesian Conference at UMKC. We’ll soon have a website up with many of the powerpoints and papers. The next conference will be held in 2016. Mark your calendars.

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Posted in L. Randall Wray

Tagged 1%, Growth, nyt

Forget Taxes for Redistribution: What to do about Inequality

Posted on May 19, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | 31 comments

By L. Randall Wray

America has discovered inequality. But, as Jared Bernstein says, dealing with that will be expensive. He comes up with a nice wish list of policies to help the poor:

What will work here is a large, publicly funded infrastructure program to begin to repair our deteriorating public goods, with the jobs targeted at the working poor. All of the above — the expanded earned-income tax credit, universal preschool, job-creating infrastructure — will take more tax revenue, and much of that new revenue will need to come from those at the top of the wealth scale.

He wags his finger at those who think there’s some free lunch that would let us help the poor without soaking the rich. Nope, he claims. Uncle Sam needs those taxes. The rich will have to pay-up.

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Posted in L. Randall Wray

Tagged 1%, banksters, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, one percent, redistribution, Taxes

Rescuing the 1%

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Devin Smith | 35 comments

By J.D. ALT

lsaver In an earlier essay I suggested we just forget the 1%. This was an idea not entirely supported by the commentary that followed. On reflection, I’ve decided it isn’t the right approach after all. What we really need to do is rescue the 1%.

They may seem like the last people who need rescuing, but when you consider the facts it becomes clear they really do need to be tossed a life-preserver. The problem is their basic business model is self-annihilating. This is not a new observation in history, but it is worth thinking through again. CEOs and board members are required by fiduciary law to maximize profits for their shareholders. If they fail to aggressively pursue this goal with every business decision, they might actually get sued by an angry shareholder deprived of his maximum return on investment. So maximizing profits is the order-of-the-day—every day. This imperative has been dramatically reinforced (and distorted) over the past three decades—as explained and illustrated by William K. Black—by evolving corporate compensation rules awarding huge bonuses to upper level managers based on the short-term profits their business and “accounting” strategies are able to generate.

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35 Comments

Posted in J. D. Alt

Tagged 1%, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory

FORGET THE 1%

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Devin Smith | 53 comments

By J.D. Alt

All this talk about the 99% versus the 1%? I say the easiest—and likely the most useful—thing to do is just forget the 1%. Write them off. Let them have their gated communities, their mega-yachts, their island retreats and off-shore bank accounts. What do we need them for?

For one thing, we DON’T need their money. Even if we could get it—which we can’t because they steadfastly refuse to use it for anything other than casino gambling in their private and secretive financial networks. We wonder why we have a “jobless recovery”? Does it have anything to do with the fact that such a large percentage of our “capital” has, for all practical purposes, been removed from the economy?

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