Sam Pizzigati

Sam Pizzigati

Sam Pizzigati co-edits Inequality.org and also contributes regularly to OurFuture.org. His most recent book: The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970 (Seven Stories Press).

Articles by this author

"In 1980, the year Ronald Reagan won the White House, America’s most affluent still faced a 70 percent tax on their top-bracket income." (Photo: Fight Back! News/Kim DeFranco) Views
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Why Should We Tax the Rich?
The orthodoxy that dominates today’s Republican Party — and the ranks of “business-friendly” Democrats — rests on a simple approach to economic policy. Let’s be nice, this orthodoxy holds, to rich people. Let’s be particularly nice at tax time. Let’s keep taxes on rich people, conservatives advise...
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Nations "turbocharge their inequality" when they "let their wealthiest carve generous loopholes in their tax codes," the author writes. (Photo: Joe Brusky/flickr/cc) Views
Sunday, April 01, 2018
A Bigger Welcome Mat for America’s Tax Evaders
Every nation levies taxes. Some nations levy well. In these admirable nations, tax systems spread the tax burden fairly. Those who can readily afford to pay more in taxes do pay more. Other nations tax poorly. They set low tax rates on high incomes. Officials in these nations let their wealthiest...
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"Musk is essentially investing our billions in his own pet projects, everything from the Mars gambit to establishing a mass-market niche for high-tech flamethrowers." (Photo: Steve Jurvetson / Flickr) Views
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Billionaires Won’t Save the World — Just Look at Elon Musk
Will Mars save humanity? Or will our savior be billionaire Elon Musk? Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, humbly believes we don’t have to choose. Mars will save us, he promises, and Musk himself will engineer this Mars miracle. In 2019, Musk claims, SpaceX will start making short trips to Mars. By...
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President Woodrow Wilson asking Congress to declare war on Germany on April 2, 1917. Views
Monday, March 12, 2018
A Media Mogul’s Noble Challenge to Moguldom
In today’s monopolistic media environment, the E.W. Scripps Company doesn’t rate as anything close to a top-tier power. The Cincinnati-based TV and digital media provider’s main claim to fame these days may well be its sponsorship of America’s National Spelling Bee. How inconsequential has Scripps...
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"We’re talking about the mega-billionaire family behind one of America’s most profitable drug-industry empires, the privately held Purdue Pharma." (Photo: A./flickr/cc) Views
Thursday, February 22, 2018
The Big Pharma Family that Brought Us the Opioid Crisis
If the devil wears Prada, what do America’s most destructive drug pushers wear? They wear smiles. The drug pushers we have in mind here have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, enough fatalities to decrease overall U.S. life expectancy at birth for the last two years running. Yet no police SWAT...
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The “stratospherically rich,” observed Beverly Hills psychotherapist Fran Walfish, do often care more about “achievements, status, and how they are viewed by others” than relationships. (Photo: Farid Iqbal Ibrahim/flickr/cc) Views
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
What Is the Price of Love?
Valentine’s Day must be former billionaire Tim Blixseth’s least favorite day of the year. The 67-year-old timber baron turned real estate developer has not exactly been, you might say, lucky in love. A first wife came and went. Ditto a second. Wife number three did seem, for a serious spell, to be...
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"Societies that believe themselves democracies can do better. They taxed the rich progressively, at high rates, and endeavored to democratically decide how to spend the tax revenue that progressive tax rates raised." (Photo:JD Lasica/flickr/cc) Views
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Enormously Lucky Man? Or Ultra-Deserving Deep Pocket?
Eric Schmidt, a top executive at Google ever since he joined the company as CEO back in 2001, is stepping down later this month. He’s leaving his latest executive slot about $14 billion richer than when he began his Google career. Expect a digital avalanche of praise for Schmidt over the next few...
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Saturday, January 06, 2018
The Free Market Made Us Do It!
Apologists for the many millions in compensation that America’s largest corporations regularly dole out to their top executives have essentially one basic, all-purpose go-to defense. America’s corporate giants, this defense goes, are just paying the going “market rate” for top-notch executive...
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"The rich who dominate politics are altering humankind’s age-old bargaining dynamics – and right on America’s grandest political stage!" Views
Friday, December 15, 2017
The Grand Tax ‘Bargain’ Is Just a Bigger Bonus for the Rich
Did you ever bargain with an auto dealer over the price of a car? Most of us have, at one time or another, so we know how this drill works. The car has a sticker price. We want a lower price, so we make an offer. Sometimes the dealer doesn’t budge. More typically, dealer and buyer agree on a price...
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The Senate-passed tax bill, as Intercept Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim catalogs, raises $1.3 trillion “by going after deductions for state and local taxes, mortgage interest, charitable contributions, interest on student loans, medical expenses, teachers’ out-of-pocket expenses for paper and pencils for students, and a bunch of other nickel-and-diming of the middle class.” Views
Thursday, December 07, 2017
GOP Tax Cuts Hardwire Inequity for Poor and Middle Class
The U.S. Senate has now passed the most significant tax “reform” legislation since 1986. The legislation, most pundits believe, will likely become the new law of the land within weeks. What will that mean? We already have all sorts of numbers from reputable researchers on who will now see really...
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