Sam Pizzigati
Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, the Institute for Policy Study's online weekly newsletter on excess and inequality.
Articles by this author
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Views Sunday, October 20, 2013 Worse than Watergate The U.S. Supreme Court is mulling a case that could end up giving America’s wealthy a perpetual green light to contribute as much as they want directly to politicians and political parties. Read more |
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Views Thursday, October 10, 2013 Subsidizing Economic Inequality The debate over America’s federal budget is getting stale — and getting us nowhere, as the latest government shutdown depressingly reminds us. Political obsession over budget deficits has now morphed into legislative extortion. Read more |
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Views Saturday, September 14, 2013 Danger Ahead: Our Disappearing Pensions How’s your 401(k) doing? Working Americans ask themselves this question — and angst about the answer — a great deal these days. And why not? For most Americans, retirement reality has turned chillingly stark: Either you have a robust set of investments in your 401(k) or you’re facing some really rocky happy years. Read more |
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Views Wednesday, August 07, 2013 Blowing the Whistle on the 'Charitable-Industrial Complex' Inequality has a silver lining. At least the awesomely affluent think so. If we didn’t have grand fortunes, their claim goes, we wouldn’t have grand philanthropy. No foundations and handsome bequests for underwriting good causes. No gifts and grants by the tens and hundreds of millions. Read more |
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Views Monday, July 15, 2013 Why Do Americans Live Lives So Short? Let’s talk life expectancy. The stats first. They tell a clear story: Americans now live shorter lives than men and women in most of the rest of the developed world. And that gap is growing. Read more |
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Views Monday, June 24, 2013 A Congress Only CEOs Could Love Only 10 percent of Americans now have confidence in Congress, Gallup has just informed us . No other major institution in American life today has this low an approval rating. In fact, adds Gallup, no major American institution has ever had an approval rating this low. Read more |
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Views Tuesday, June 04, 2013 Let’s Talk Taxes; Let’s Talk Trillions A hundred years ago, in 1913, Congress wrote into law a federal income tax. Lawmakers have been dotting the tax code, almost ever since, with an assortment of “never-minds” that hand most of us, at one time or another, discounts at tax time. Read more |
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Views Sunday, May 26, 2013 Money Still Can’t Buy Happiness What makes us happy? In America, we’ve been asking this question ever since 1776, the year we declared for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Back then, Americans seeking more happiness had little more than guesswork to go by. Now we have help: a new science of happiness with years of research findings behind it. Read more |
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Views Monday, May 06, 2013 Austerity Will Leave Us Crying ’96 Tears’ Aging baby boomers may remember a 1960s rock band that sported an all-time great name. That band — Question Mark and the Mysterians — may now have a worthy rival on the name front. Make way for Reinhart-Rogoff and the Austerians. Read more |
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Views Wednesday, March 06, 2013 The Luxury Fortress in Your Future A dozen years ago, Brazil ranked as the world’s most unequal major nation . Brazil’s most affluent 10 percent were grabbing nearly 50 times more income, on average, than Brazil’s poorest tenth, over double the U.S. Read more |