The main reason to watch “American Insurrection” is that you don’t want to see our government — flawed as it is — overthrown. Better to reform it in a peaceful way.
[The unrelated reason I bring it to your attention is the little 1X you’ll see next to the CC closed-captioning icon below the film. Click, and you can watch in 1.25X or 1.5X or even faster speeds, cutting 84 minutes down to under an hour, as I did. I’ve long touted this feature for Audible.com listeners — I regularly listen to books at 1.2X or 1.4X. Time is money after all. But until recently I’d not realized YouTube (and most podcasts) offer the same option. On YouTube, click the little “gearbox” (or the tri-bar menu icon) to change playback speed.]
One of the things in deep need of reform is the tax code. Which is why I commend to you — just-released and wonderfully readable — Tax The Rich: How Lies, Loopholes and Lobbyists Make The Rich Even Richer.
Don’t worry, Ken Griffin; when we’re done taxing you, you’ll still be able to afford your $238 million New York City apartment, your $122 million mansion near Buckingham Palace, and your $100 million Hamptons estate.
Tax The Rich and “American Insurrection” mesh, because along with grotesque inequality, anger has been rising in the land — on both the left and the right.
I’ve got a message — a warning really — for my fellow rich people, both in the United States and around the world. You cannot continue to sit by and enjoy your riches while the rest of the world falls further into poverty and chaos. We have seen the results of gross inequality over and over again. Dysfunctional societies don’t end well for rich people either.
Yes, of course we should move the corporate tax-rate at least partway back up to put millions of Americans to work at good jobs revitalizing our infrastructure — as argued yesterday.
Yes of course we should embrace the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act — as also argued.
And why is the estate tax on billionheirs so much lower now than it used to be?
And the loopholes!
You may not agree with everything in the book — a couple of the suggested reforms strike me as well-intentioned but unworkable.
But I think you’ll agree with most of it; learn some things you hadn’t known; and enjoy the cartoons.
Let’s reform the tax code, revitalize our economy, expand the middle class, and avoid the insurrection, let alone the revolution.
Watch the film. Read the book. Work to lower the anger — and despair — on both sides of the political divide.
And don’t worry! Ken Griffin will still be able to afford his $238 million New York City apartment, his $122 million mansion near Buckingham Palace, and his $100 million place at the beach.
Happy April 15th. (Postponed to May 17th, but even so.)
