Who Wants to Be a Trillionaire?
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.Forbes’ annual list of the 400 richest Americans debuted in 1982 with shipping magnate Daniel Ludwig in the top slot. Ludwig’s wealth, the magazine reported, was $2 billion (about $6.3 billion in today’s dollars). That only 13 billionaires graced the…
“What Can I Even Say Without Having to Go to Jail?”
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.When Heather Williams, an advocate with the Tulsa-based nonprofit Domestic Violence Intervention Services, gets a call from the local hospital, she has to drop whatever she’s doing and go. The call normally comes in when a survivor of sexual assault…
It’s Time the Word “Oligarch” Lost Its Russian Veneer
Mother Jones; Getty; Unsplash Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.Back in 2011, the New Yorker published a Charles Barsotti cartoon that I, as a scholar of wealth power in liberal democracies, found brilliant: A rotund executive in a business suit is saying to his C-suite…
Global Millionaires Say Yes to Taxing Extreme Wealth, Poll Finds
German-Austrian millionaire heiress Marlene Engelhorn, part of the effort described below, expresses her views during a rally at the World Economic Forum in Davos.Hannes P Albert/dpa/Zuma Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.Millionaires from around the world support wealth taxes as a way to curb…
The Supreme Court Case That Could Upend a Century of Tax Law
Mother Jones illustration; George Marks/Retrofile RF/Getty Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday in Moore v U.S., a case that nominally involves the right of the US government to tax a couple, Charles and Kathleen Moore, on…
Those “Giving Pledge” Billionaires Had Better Pick Up the Pace
Mother Jones; Nati Harnik/AP, Evan Agostini/Invision/AP; Getty Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.As the author of a book about runaway wealth in America, I’ve thought a fair bit about the Giving Pledge, the exclusive do-gooder club Bill and Melinda French Gates launched in 2010…