Showing posts with label income inequality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label income inequality. Show all posts

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Student Robbed at Gunpoint, Says He Deserved It Due to His 'Privilege'

Kristin Tate, Nov. 29, 2014, Breitbart

In an oped for the GU newspaper, The Hoya, Friedfeld wrote that he "can hardly blame" the assailants for robbing him. He argued that income inequality is to blame for the incident.

"Who am I to stand from my perch of privilege, surrounded by million-dollar homes and paying for a $60,000 education, to condemn these young men as ‘thugs?’ It’s precisely this kind of ‘otherization’ that fuels the problem," Friedfeld wrote.

Read more: www.breitbart.com


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Friday, October 31, 2014

Bill Gates' Solution To Income Inequality

Chris Matthews, Oct. 15, 2014, Fortune

Gates shares Piketty’s goal of spreading wealth, yet he doesn’t want to discourage the uber wealthy (like Gates) who are taking risks, investing in value-creating businesses, and helping the world through philanthropy. Gates’ solution? Shift the American tax code from one that taxes labor to one that taxes consumption. Now, this sounds like standard, right-wing economic theory. Consumption taxes are usually favored by the wealthy and by conservative economists because they tend to be regressive in nature. Since everyone—rich and poor—have to consume some amount of goods and services, and because the proportion of income spent is much higher for the poor than the rich, consumption taxes like state and local sales tax burden the poor more than the rich.

But this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. Economists like Cornell University’s Robert Frank have long advocated for progressive consumption taxes that could do much to solve what they perceive as the ills of growing income inequality.

Read more: www.fortune.com

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