Higher taxes? Billionaire hedge fund kingpin Leon Cooperman says he could personally afford to pay half his income in taxes. But don’t get Cooperman started on taxes on grand private fortunes. The 76-year-old hates the idea of taxing personal wealth over $50 million at a 2 percent annual rate, as White House hopeful Elizabeth Warren has proposed, and he’s been busy making his opposition clear, most recently last week in a Financial Timesop-ed. The wealthy, says Cooperman, “should pay more,” but our society simply cannot afford, he maintains, to let that more become “confiscatory.” Hedge fund movers and shakers like Cooperman, economist Gabriel Zucman tweeted after the op-ed appeared, certainly do know a thing or two about “confiscatory” rates. Hedge funds typically charge their investors a 2 percent annual fee on the money they ask hedge funds to manage — and then charge those same investors another 20 percent fee on any profits that managing should make.
Steve Wamhoff, A Wealth Tax Might Be Easier to Implement than You Think, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. A fresh approach to assessing the value of the wealth of the wealthy.
Elsewhere on the Web
Steve Wamhoff, A Wealth Tax Might Be Easier to Implement than You Think, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. A fresh approach to assessing the value of the wealth of the wealthy.
George Monbiot, From Trump to Johnson, nationalists are on the rise – backed by billionaire oligarchs, Guardian. How corporate power has evolved — and the political implications.
Jeff Hauser and Eleanor Eagan, Private Equity’s Next Leveraged Buyout Might Be the Oval Office, American Prospect. Several White House candidates who’ve taken donor cash from private-equity barons have remained silent about the threat the industry poses.
David Bollier, Reclaiming the Commons, Boston Review. The silent theft of our shared civic inheritance need not continue.
Donald Low, Two myths the Singapore government has been repeating about inequality, Mothership. The rich the world over spout the same rationalizations for their fortunes. An economist sums up the best retorts.
Alex Braae, Don’t eat the rich. Just set hard limits on their greed, Spinoff. A New Zealander pitches capping the wealth of the wealthy.
Shawn Gude, The Ultra-Rich Are Ultra-Conservative, Jacobin. The latest academic research on the political perspectives of the awesomely affluent
