Placeholder Image

字幕列表 影片播放

  • BILL MOYERS: Welcome. The

  • new Gilded Age is roaring down on us, an uncaged tiger on a rampage. Walk out to the street

  • in front of our office and turn right and you can see the symbol of it: a fancy new

  • skyscraper going up two blocks away. When finished, this high rise among high rises

  • will tower a thousand feet, the tallest residential building in the city.

  • The New York Timeshas dubbed it "the global billionaires club," and for good reason.

  • At least of two of the apartments are under contract for more than $90 million each. Others,

  • more modest, range in price from $45 million to more than 50 million.

  • Simultaneously, the powers-that-be have just awarded Donald Trump -- yes, that Donald Trump

  • -- the right to run a golf course in the Bronx which taxpayers are spending at least $97

  • million to build. Whatamounts to a public subsidy,” says the indignant city comptroller,

  • "for a luxury golf course." Good grief. A handout to the plutocrat's plutocrat.

  • This, in a city where economic inequality rivals that of a third-world country. Of America's

  • 25 largest cities, New York is now the most unequal. The median income for the bottom

  • 20% last year was less than $9,000, while the top one percent of New Yorkers has an

  • average annual income of $2.2 million.

  • Across America, this divide between the superrich and everyone else has become a yawning chasm

  • and studies indicate it may stifle jobs and growth for years to come. At no time in modern

  • history has the top one hundredth of one percent owned more of our wealth or paid so low a

  • tax rate. But in neither of the two presidential debates so far has the vastness of this astounding

  • inequality gap been discussed. Not by Mitt Romney, who is the embodiment of the predatory

  • world of financial capitalism. And not even by Barack Obama, whose party once fought for

  • working men and women against the economic royalists.

  • So just in time, if not too late, comes this definitive examination of inequality: “Plutocrats:

  • The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.” Its author is

  • Chrystia Freeland, whose journalism is steeped in years of covering robber barons from Russia

  • to Mexico and India. Once deputy editor ofThe Globe and Mailin Canada and a correspondent

  • forThe Financial TimesandThe Economist,” she is now the editor ofThomson Reuters

  • Digital.”

  • We're joined by the perceptive and merciless Matt Taibbi, who has made the magazineRolling

  • Stone” a go-to source for understanding the financial scandals that roil America.

  • Who can forget his 2009 article on "The Great American Bubble Machine," which described

  • investment bank Goldman Sachs as quote, "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face

  • of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”?

  • Welcome to you both.

  • MATT TAIBBI: Thank you.

  • BILL MOYERS: Income inequality has soared to the highest

  • level since the Great Depression, with the top one percent taking 93 percent of the income

  • earned in the first year after the recovery, the first full year after the recovery. Why

  • are the two candidates not talking about inequality growing at breakneck speed?

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: You know, I think because it is still a taboo

  • in American political life and in American cultural life. One of the economists I talk

  • to he works for the World Bank. And he said to me, you know, and he's a specialist in

  • income inequality.

  • And he said, "When you go to think tanks you say you'd like to do a study about poverty,

  • they say, 'That's fine. That's great. We're happy to fund it,' because writing about poverty

  • makes everybody feel good and feel that they're being charitable and beneficent. But if you

  • say, 'Actually, I want to study income inequality,' and even most dangerously, 'I want to study

  • what's happening at the very top of the distribution," what Branko Milanovi

  • said to me is the think tanks immediately pull away because they say, "Our donors won't

  • like it."

  • And that actually challenges the whole economic setup of the United States and of western

  • capitalism. It’s very, very threatening. And I think that that’s why you've had the

  • billionaire class. You know, the minute Barack Obama, I would actually say rather gently

  • suggested that the millionaires and the billionaires should pay a little bit more, you had immediate

  • cries of class warfare from the plutocrats. And very emotional. You know, there was an

  • activist investor who sent an e-mail to his friends. The subject line is, "battered wives."

  • And in the e-mail he compares himself and his fellow multi-millionaires to battered

  • wives who are being beaten by the president. He actually uses those words.

  • MATT TAIBBI: And I thought it was really interesting in

  • your book how you pointed out that Bill Clinton, himself, responded to Obama's criticism by

  • saying, "You know, I would have done it a little bit differently. I think, you know,

  • you can't attack these people for their success." And I think that's very relevant because if

  • you go back in time, it wasn't always this way.

  • But I think the shift really began with Clinton and the New Democrats. I think after, you

  • know, Walter Mondale lost in 1984, the Democrats decided, "You know, we're never going to lose

  • the funding battle again." And they began this sort of imperceptible shift, where they

  • continued to campaign on social issues the same way they had before.

  • They retained their liberalism in that sense. But economically, they began to side more

  • and more with Wall Street and more and more with the very rich. And they've, I think we've

  • now reached the point where neither party really represents the very poor in the way

  • that the Democrats maybe used to. And so, that there's, that's why, you know, you don't

  • see it in the debates, because neither party is really an advocate for that kind of left

  • behind class anymore.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: It is the people at the bottom, as Matt says.

  • But it's also the people in the middle.

  • MATT TAIBBI: Right.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: You know, the middle class is being--

  • MATT TAIBBI: Decimated, yeah.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: --hammered. Those jobs are hollowed out. And

  • where are the people pulling back and saying, "Okay, technology revolution, we love it."

  • Globalization, I love that too. And I think it's great people are being raised up in India

  • and China and now Africa. But let's think about how our society and our politics need

  • to change to accommodate this. And no one is doing that. And meanwhile, the guys at

  • the top, who are making, who are doing so, so well actually are saying, "We need to slant

  • the political system even more in our own favor."

  • BILL MOYERS: Why are we so passive about this?

  • MATT TAIBBI: Well, I think the, first of all the poor in

  • this country have been incredibly demoralized whether it's the relentless attention of,

  • you know, bill collectors. Or if you go to poor neighborhoods, you know, I was out in

  • Queens last night interviewing a kid who's been stopped and frisked 70 times already.

  • He's 22 years old. You have this constant interference by the police if you live in

  • a bad neighborhood. There're all these obstacles to getting up

  • and rising up and having your own voice. And also I think in the media we get these relentless

  • messages that being poor is actually your own fault and that people who are rich deserve

  • to be rich. And a lot of Americans are disillusioned about their situation. They believe, they

  • actually do believe on some level that if they're poor, they deserve to be that way.

  • I think they're, and so they're reluctant to go out and revolt the way maybe Europeans

  • in the last century, early in the last century would have.

  • BILL MOYERS: Left unanswered, left unanswered where does

  • this vast inequality take America?

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Well, I think to a very bad place. And I see

  • two real and present dangers. One is that you see an increase of the political capture.

  • BILL MOYERS: Of what?

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Of the political capture. So of the people

  • at the very, very top, capturing the political system. And most crucially, I think something

  • that an economist, a guy called Willem Buiter, who's the chief economist at Citigroup, he

  • calls it cognitive capture. Where he says, look, it's not like this vast conspiracy.

  • It's not as if, you know, everyone is on the payroll of the plutocrats.

  • And this guy, okay, he is now the chief economist of Citigroup. He wrote this when he was an

  • academic economist. But so it's, he's hardly, you know, some kind of Marxist on the barricades.

  • His argument was that part of the reason the financial crisis happened is the entire intellectual

  • establishment, not just people inside investment banks, but regulators, academic economists,

  • financial journalists, had all been captured by the financial sector's vision of how the

  • economy should work. And in particular, light touch regulation.

  • And I think there is a broader cognitive capture of, you know, you might call it the intellectual

  • class, the public intellectuals, around maybe the inevitability of plutocracy. You know,

  • as Matt was saying, this notion that if you're poor, it's your own fault. You're part of

  • this dependent 47 percent. Unions are very bad. All of that sort of stuff.

  • So I think that that cognitive capture increases. And I think what you see increasingly is,

  • you know, elites like to think of themselves as acting in the collective interest, even

  • as they act in their personal vested interest. And so what I think you'll end up seeing is

  • social mobility, which is already decreasing in the United States, being increasingly squeezed.

  • You see particularly powerful sectors, finance, oil. I would say the technology sector is

  • going to be next in line, getting lots of government subsidies.

  • And meanwhile, I think you see much less money spent on the things that the middle class

  • and the poor need. That's why have this, you know, full bore attack on entitlements, right?

  • Why is the plutocracy so enthusiastic about cutting entitlement spending? Because they

  • don't need it. But they're very worried about their tax dollars funding it.

  • MATT TAIBBI: Right. Where was that outrage when the $5

  • trillion or $6 trillion in bailouts was coming their way?

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Right. So I really worry about that. And then

  • the other thing that I worry about is you do start actually stifling economic growth.

  • So, you know, if you want my dystopia scenario for the United States, it is that America's

  • moving into a more Latin American structure of the economy.

  • BILL MOYERS: People at the top, rich. And a lot of people

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: A few incredibly rich, you know, having just

  • great lives. And then people at the bottom really struggling.

  • MATT TAIBBI: We both lived that. We saw that in Russia

  • and it happened in the mid-'90s. And

  • BILL MOYERS: Yeah, you both cut your teeth in journalism

  • covering Russia. What do you take away from that that is relevant to what's happening

  • in this country?

  • MATT TAIBBI: You know, I, that experience completely shaped

  • the way I look at the present situation in the, in America. In the mid-'90s, suddenly

  • when Russia became a "capitalist society" you suddenly has this instant division of

  • the entire society into this very, very tiny group of people at the top who had more money

  • than anybody in the world. And then there was everybody else who had nothing. And

  • BILL MOYERS: And they got it through privatization, the

  • government sold off the resources of--

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: "Sold" in quotation marks--

  • BILL MOYERS: Yeah. So--

  • MATT TAIBBI: But that was, that's the key part that I think

  • people don't understand, is that what happened in Russian was really a merger of state and

  • private power that empowered this one tiny little class. There was this moment in Russia's

  • history called loans-for-shares. The loans-for-shares privatizations, where a few people, a lot

  • of them were ex-KGB types, were essentially handed the jewels of Russian industry by the

  • people in the Yeltsin government. There were companies that were put in charge of their

  • own auctions. So they--

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: They were all in charge of their own auctions.

  • MATT TAIBBI: They were all in charge of their own auctions.

  • So they, you would have an auction for an oil company and a bank would be put in charge

  • of that auction. And the bank magically, you know, would win the auction for the oil company,

  • which was worth, you know, billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars. And that's

  • how they instantly created this super wealthy class of people. And everybody else had nothing.

  • This one story, for me this image that I'll never forget. I went to a coal mine up in

  • the Russian arctic north where workers hadn't been paid their salaries for nine, ten months

  • at a time. And when I went to the mine, the mine owners, the first thing they wanted to

  • do was to take me to their bright shiny new lounge that they had built for themselves

  • and show off their brand new slate pool table that they had built with the money that they

  • weren't paying to their workers.

  • And that, to me, perfectly expressed the divide in modern Russian society. You had these people

  • who were living off nothing on the one hand. And then you had these super wealthy people

  • who had been enabled who had just kept the money for themselves. And that's I think,

  • you know, it's a caricature of what we're experiencing here in America. But I think

  • that's where the world is drifting toward now.

  • BILL MOYERS: You write about some of these super rich,

  • not only with insight, but with empathy. That is, you've gotten to talk to a lot of them.

  • You have moved among them as a financial journalist, been to Davos and other places like that.

  • And I'm wondering, how did you crack what is clearly a tight knit world?

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Well, I guess the way journalists do it, just

  • by talking to people, writing about them. I think you write stories that show people

  • that actually you're interested in what they're doing. And what I would also say is, you know,

  • I believe in capitalism. And I also actually believe in globalization and the technology

  • revolution. If you gave me the option of turning the clock back to the 1950s, I wouldn't do

  • it. Partly because I'm a woman and things were not that great for us then.

  • BILL MOYERS: Well.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: And, you know, it's important, you know, I

  • think a mistake that the left can make in criticizing income inequality is to behave

  • as if this is entirely a political confection. It's entirely about political capture. There

  • are no genuine, legitimate and actually benign economic forces driving it. Because I think

  • there are. I think the winner take all economic dynamic is something that is existing separate

  • from the politics. The politics in the United States are exacerbating that division rather

  • than mitigating it.

  • But I do think that when you pull back and look at the global picture, which is something

  • that was important for me to do in the book, it becomes a little bit harder to say, "this

  • particular American tax break," or even, "this particular American financial reform is the

  • only thing driving income inequality," because the really remarkable thing is the extent

  • to which this is a global phenomenon.

  • It's happening across the western industrialized world. I'm Canadian. So I'm practically born

  • a socialist in the view of many Americans. But even in Canada, income inequality is increasing.

  • It's even, you know, for a while in the economic literature the one outlier was France. And

  • so, insofar as economists make jokes they would say, "oh, the French. They have to be

  • exceptional even in this area." But now you're seeing it increase in France too. And you're

  • seeing it increase in the emerging market economies. So I think we do have to accept

  • that there are some economic drivers.

  • Now those economic drivers are partly put in place by the politics. It was politics

  • that allowed globalization to happen. And in the United States really crucially, and

  • I think you can't emphasize this too much. Look at what happened with the tax code. I

  • mean, in the 1950s, this era when America felt itself to be a very conservative society,

  • and it was, the top marginal tax rate was above 90 percent.

  • BILL MOYERS: Yeah, 91 percent, I believe.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Right, just think about that. Imagine if Barack

  • Obama had said in the debate this week, "You know what Governor Romney? I think America

  • in the '50s was a wonderful place. That was the age of the greatest generation. They,

  • too, faced a real budget deficit they had to pay off. And the people at the very top

  • were willing to pay a 90 percent top marginal tax rate. Would you be willing to do that,

  • Governor?" I mean, imagine if he had said that.

  • BILL MOYERS: You cover some of the same crowd that Chrystia's

  • writing about, but you do so with a, with complete irreverence. Do you still gain access

  • to them? Or have all the doors been slammed in your face?

  • MATT TAIBBI: Well, the very, very top people won't talk

  • to me. You know, I don't have access to the same people that Chrystia maybe talks to.

  • But I do talk to a lot of people who work on Wall Street. In fact I got started down

  • the road of this whole topic, you know, after I wrote a couple of articles. And then suddenly

  • on this there was this outpouring of people from Wall Street who suddenly wanted to talk

  • to me because they were upset about the direction that the financial services industry was taking.

  • So I'm hearing a lot from people sort of from the middle on down on Wall Street. And what

  • they're really upset about is corruption. Is this merging of state and private power,

  • where the losers don't lose anymore. I think the people who get really upset are small

  • hedge funds, small banks. And they see companies like, you know, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs

  • and J.P. Morgan Chase make mistake after mistake. And they get rewarded for it what with bailouts

  • and even greater market share than they had before.

  • And so, you know, my analysis is informed by those people. And I think, you know, I

  • think Chrystia and I agree about a lot of things about, particularly about the growing

  • divide and how extreme it's become. My analysis just might be a little bit angrier just because

  • the, you know, from the point of view that I'm particularly looking at is the corruption

  • and the use of force and state power to keep divide where it is and increase it.

  • BILL MOYERS: You both have pointed out that we tend to

  • talk as if Wall Street and the plutocracy were a monolith. But it's not. Do you think

  • there is a civil war within the one percent?

  • MATT TAIBBI: There is absolutely a schism developing in

  • this community. about it just on one level, on the level of banking, right? If you have

  • these too big to fail banks, everybody in the world knows that nobody's going to l allow

  • the very biggest commercial banks to go out of business. It will never happen. 2008 proved

  • it, that if they ever get in trouble the government will come in and rescue them. So what does

  • that mean for those banks?

  • It means that it allows them to borrow money more cheaply because anybody who lends them

  • money knows they're always going to get paid off. The government if, in the worst case

  • scenario, they're going to get paid off. So this gives them an inherent financial advantage

  • over the small, regional commercial bank, which does not have that implied government

  • guarantee. And so those people are furious.

  • They're furious that they have to compete against these gigantic monoliths that have

  • the implicit backing of the U.S. government. Then there's the other problem of corruption.

  • I mean, I hear all the time from hedge funds you know, these smaller guys who believe that

  • some of the big investment banks are selling them out to even bigger hedge funds, that

  • are, you know, giving away information about their positions to even bigger clients so

  • that somebody else can trade against them.

  • Or maybe the banks themselves are front running their positions and trading against their

  • own clients. There's this schism developing between the smaller guy the medium size financial

  • player and the very, very big too big to fail companies that are perceived as getting a

  • break, and getting the backing of the government. And also are perceived as getting away with

  • stuff that they wouldn't get away with.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: I agree with Matt. And I think what youre

  • really seeing , actually, it's sort of the battle of the millionaires versus the billionaires

  • because this winner take all dynamic is not just between, you know, the 10 percent and

  • the 90 percent or the one percent and the 99 percent.

  • What's quite interesting and leads me to really believe that there're some deep economic forces

  • involved is it's happening just as much within the top one percent. We saw it in the recovery.

  • You sited those statistics, Bill, about 93 percent of the recovery going to the one percent.

  • Thirty-seven percent of the recovery went to the top 0.01 percent.

  • So even in there, there's, you know, even more of a gap. And the people one layer down

  • can be very, very aggrieved precisely because, you know, they see what's going on. They see

  • that unfairness. And it makes them really, really mad.

  • You know, one of the things that I found as I was writing my book and talking to plutocrats

  • was, you know, as Matt says, these are very, very smart people. And many of them, not all,

  • some

  • BILL MOYERS: They work very hard too, don't they?

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: This is not Downton Abbey. These are not people,

  • this is not a landed gentry. These are people who even, and even if they're sort of a Mitt

  • Romney or a Bill Gates who grew up very affluent, their actual business, they did build themselves.

  • They built in a society that was very supportive of that, but they built it. So, you know,

  • they're hardworking. They have to be thoughtful about the world because they're making investments.

  • And what I found was very interesting was they were very keen to divide the world into

  • the good plutocrats and the bad plutocrats. And what was very funny was everyone was happy

  • to make that division. But everyone felt that they themselves and their particular type

  • of business belonged to good plutocrats, and somebody else belonged to bad ones. So you

  • talk to the Silicon Valley guys, they love talking about this, especially after the financial

  • crisis because their view was, "Of course income inequality is a problem. Of course

  • there has been state capture by those bad guys in New York.

  • "We however, are the innovators. We created value ourselves. We are completely pure and

  • good. And these issues really have nothing to do with us."

  • BILL MOYERS: Do you think they think they're really defending

  • honest capitalism?

  • MATT TAIBBI: Oh, absolutely. I, you know, the one thing

  • that's consistent in my exposure to the financial services industry is that the people who work

  • within it, and particularly the people you know, at the very, very top, sincerely believe

  • that they have not done anything wrong. And, you know, when you bring up things like the

  • mass sale of fraudulent mortgage backed securities, it's just like you say.

  • It's always somebody else who made that mistake. You know, "We didn't know at the time that

  • we were selling billions and billions of dollars of junk and we were dumping this on pension

  • funds and foreign trade unions." It was always somebody else who was doing that. And they

  • also have built up this very, very powerful insulating psychological justification for

  • their lifestyles. They've adopted this sort of Randian point of view, where--

  • BILL MOYERS: Ayn Rand.

  • MATT TAIBBI: Yeah exactly, you know, they genuinely believe

  • that they are the wealth creators and that they should get every advantage and break

  • whereas everybody else is a parasite and they're living off of them. So when you bring up to

  • them, for instance, how is it that nobody, despite this mass epidemic of fraud that appears

  • to have happened before the 2008 crash, how come nobody of consequence has gone to jail

  • after that?

  • They always, you know, they always argue against more regulation and more enforcement because

  • they say, "We need room to, we need air to breathe, we need room to create jobs. And

  • this is just counterproductive to put people in jail. It'll cast a pall over society.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: If I may say so Bill, this very sincere, absolutely,

  • absolutely sincere self-justification, I think, is one of the most dangerous things that's

  • happening because in our society, and I would say this is particularly powerful in America.

  • Really since the Reagan era, there has been this vision of the successful businessperson

  • as really a leader for the whole society. And there has been a view that the businessperson,

  • what he thinks, and, by the way, all of my plutocrats are men.

  • But, you know, what he thinks about how society should be ordered, we should all listen to

  • because he, after all, is the hero of our time, is the hero of capitalist narrative.

  • And I think it's so important for us to really understand that what is good for an individual

  • business, particularly in this age of very high income inequality and the ways of thinking,

  • the ideas that are no doubt absolutely the right ones for this particular business, may

  • very well not be good for society as a whole.

  • BILL MOYERS: Both of you write in different ways that,

  • with irony, that they threaten the system that created them.

  • MATT TAIBBI: Well this was another thing, another image

  • from Russia that always stuck in my mind. And I studied in Russia when it was still

  • communist. I remember going through the countryside. And you had all these villages and people

  • walked around in the villages.

  • And then suddenly in the mid to late '90s in Russia you drove through the Russian countryside.

  • And suddenly there were these big brick houses that had these huge walls on the outside,

  • these big brick walls with guards on the outside. It was the rich had sort of built this wall

  • that insulated them from the rest of society.

  • They were living, there was one society on one side of those walls, and then one society

  • on the other side of it. And I think that's where we're headed now. We have this kind

  • of community of rich people who sort of live, hop from place to place. And they never have

  • any sort of intercourse with the rest of the world.

  • BILL MOYERS: Disconnected?

  • MATT TAIBBI: They're completely disconnected. And so they've

  • built this kind of nation where inside, it's all, you know, nice and everything works logically.

  • And it makes sense to them. But they never really see what goes on on the outside.

  • BILL MOYERS: Do they feel entitled?

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Yes. Absolutely. And, you--

  • BILL MOYERS: For what reason?

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Because they are treated so well. So my favorite

  • story about this was when I was at Heathrow Airport, about to go to a fancy conference.

  • And I ran into someone also going to a fancy conference, a Silicon Valley senior technology

  • person. You know, I didn't have a car. But he had a car coming to picking him up and

  • so he offered to share the ride. So we're in the car and this technology guy said to

  • me, when you live our life, you are surrounded by such power and such entitlement, you lose

  • touch with reality." And his very personal example was he said,

  • "I was recently staying at this lovely Four Seasons Hotel. And I was beside the pool.

  • I was eating a melon. And my spoon fell to the ground. And he said, "Before I could summon

  • anyone, someone rushed up to me with three spoons of different sizes on a linen napkin

  • so that, God forbid, you know, I shouldn't have the wrong size spoon."

  • And what he said was, "You know, what was amazing to me," he's talking about himself,

  • "is when I reentered my real life," he said, "I was kind of a jerk because I like, I expected

  • to live a life where I was constantly being presented with three spoons of different sizes.

  • And I just I couldn't deal with the frustrations of everyday life." What makes this a totally

  • ironic story is here he's telling this kind of self-aware story about the plutocracy.

  • But when we had been in the airport waiting for the car, he was on the phone, screaming

  • at someone about "Where is my car," et cetera, et cetera.

  • So this is, you know, morning in Heathrow. Middle of the night, you know, in San Francisco.

  • And he's yelling at someone there because she hasn't organized his car and we had to

  • wait for five minutes. And then he tells me this story about how entitlement can make

  • you not an ideal person. That kind of says it all, right?

  • BILL MOYERS: But political behavior's another thing. And

  • there's no doubt in either of your minds, is there, that they tilt the rules in their

  • favor through their influence and power over the politicians.

  • MATT TAIBBI:
Absolutely. I mean--

  • BILL MOYERS: I mean, our own government relaxed the regulations,

  • upended the rules, leveled the laws to make way for them.

  • MATT TAIBBI: They have this power and influence over the

  • government to and they've been continually deregulating the atmosphere to legalize whatever

  • it is that they want to do, whether it's, you know, merging insurance companies and

  • investment banks, whatever it is. The derivatives, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of

  • 2000, they lobbied heavily to create a completely deregulated atmosphere for that. And we saw

  • what happened with that in 2008 with the collapse of companies like AIG. They've been incredibly

  • successful in creating their own landscape where they get to do business the way they

  • want to do business.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: And what I think is crucial is, this is not

  • framed as, "I want government to do this so I can get rich and my company can prosper."

  • This is framed as "We need to do these things for the greater good." And this is where I

  • think another big problem in America today is a disempowering and a devaluing of the

  • role of government and of its authority as an independent, respected arbitrating body

  • in the center of the ring. And one of the great contrasts for me in the

  • past decade has been looking at what happened in bank regulation in the United States and

  • looking at what happened in Canada. Matt has just spoken about bank mergers. And with hindsight,

  • you know, one of the great brave decisions taken by the Canadian government was to not

  • allow the Canadian banks to merge. They wanted to. Huge lobbying effort.

  • And they made the same arguments about, "Oh, if we can't merge, we'll never operate on

  • a global scale. You know, Canada will be left behind. We'll be a provincial backwater."

  • And the government just said no. And that decision I think flows directly into the Canadian

  • government's ability to regulate the financial sector.

  • Leverage at U.S. levels was not allowed. And the consequence was Canada didn't have a financial

  • crisis. It's the only G7 country that didn't have to bail out its banks. So government

  • can actually hold the line. Government can--

  • BILL MOYERS: But not if it's captured, Chrystia.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Not if it's captured. Not if it's captured.

  • And so--

  • BILL MOYERS: And it is captured

  • MATT TAIBBI: But now we're completely captured, with the

  • banking example, now we have these banks that are literally too big to fail in America because

  • we didn't do the same thing.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: But government can act. I mean, I think it's

  • important not to have a counsel of despair. That you can have a sophisticated, industrialized

  • western economy. People can live, you know, civilized lives. They can have bankers. Their

  • bankers even, maybe they're not going to earn $25 million. But they can earn $5 million

  • or $6 million.

  • They can be perfectly affluent. And government can actually stand up to its banks and stand

  • up to other sectors of industry and say, "You know what? I'm sure that would be great for

  • you guys. My judgment is it's wrong for the country. And you're not going to do it."

  • BILL MOYERS: They resent any criticism, despite all the

  • advantages and entitlements they have. also exhibit disdain, as Mitt Romney made clear

  • in that infamous or famous 47 percent video. You know, when he talked about other people

  • being dependent on government.

  • MATT TAIBBI:
I've heard that attitude more than once, and not just from Mitt Romney.

  • I think it's, again, it's consistent with this mindset that there is an intellectual

  • atmosphere that these people I think have to work within in order to justify a lot of

  • what they do, because you have to be completely disconnected from the real world in order

  • to do things like sell fraudulent mortgages to a state pension fund. If you're actually

  • thinking about that, you know, you're taking somebody's life savings away when you do that.

  • But you can't think about that.

  • BILL MOYERS: Matt, you quoted the billionaire Charlie Munger

  • of Berkshire Hathaway, who said that anyone who wants to complain about the Wall Street

  • bailout should realize they were, "absolutely required to save your civilization." What

  • did he mean by that?

  • MATT TAIBBI: Well, again, this group of people believe

  • that all of civilization depends on their health and their wellbeing. So when they were

  • threatened in 2008, when they were all about to collapse, it made absolute sense to them

  • that the government should immediately intervene and give them as much money as they needed,

  • to not only to get back on their feet, but to restore their lifestyles to the level that

  • they had been accustomed to.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: So I'm going to, here, step in as a voice

  • in favor of the bailout. I think that Munger was right. I do actually believe--

  • BILL MOYERS: Saving civilization?

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Yeah, I think it was. I think that the bailouts

  • were absolutely essential. I think that, had there not been a bailout, which, by the way,

  • let's remember, voices on the right as well as the left were objecting to the bailout

  • at the time. I think had there not been a bailout, you would've had a much more severe

  • crisis. You would've had a full financial collapse

  • and a much, much deeper economic recession. Now, I think where you can and should criticize

  • is first of all, why was the crisis allowed to happen in the first place and the regulatory

  • failure beforehand. I think second of all, you know, where were the strings attached?

  • And actually Charlie Munger's great business partner, Warren Buffett, drove a much harder

  • bargain with Goldman Sachs than the U.S. Treasury did.

  • You know, 2008 is not so long ago. And already, the anti-regulation chorus is so strong. You

  • know, I think the re-regulation was not done well at all.

  • But the fact that people are already making a very, you know, powerful and proud argument

  • against government regulation, bankers are making this argument. I mean, how dare they.

  • How dare they have the gall to actually argue that too much regulation of American financial

  • services is what is killing the economy.

  • MATT TAIBBI: Right. Right. Just to be clear, I actually

  • agree that the bailouts were necessary. What I completely disagree with was the way they

  • were done. They just simply threw a whole bunch of money at this community and didn't

  • have any conditions at all. They didn't sweep in and change any rules. You know, and after

  • the S&L crisis, for instance, we went in and there were massive criminal investigations.

  • We put 1,000 people in jail. There were no such investigations this time around. So this

  • was just making everybody well again and restoring everybody to the status quo, which I think

  • was a major mistake because it produced precisely the result we're talking about now. It allowed

  • everybody to think that the previous status quo was okay.

  • BILL MOYERS: Let me talk about the CEO class because it

  • seems almost every day now there's a new story of some CEO, some boss of a big company who's

  • attempting to tell voters to vote as they say.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: If you really see yourself as a job creator,

  • someone who is not just pursuing their business interest in getting richer, but someone who

  • is creating jobs, doing great things for America and for your workers, and you also sincerely

  • believe that Barack Obama is a bad guy, then you feel you have to help your workers to

  • understand this. You know, you have to let them know that you, the job creator, believe

  • that this job creation of which they are the fortunate beneficiaries, you know, that engine

  • is going to slow down. It's going to grind to a halt.

  • BILL MOYERS: Do you see this as different from what unions

  • do in urging their voters to go out and vote for the candidates of their choice? Do you

  • see it differently?

  • MATT TAIBBI: I think it's a little different just because

  • there's an implied threat. It's very, very vague, but, you know, if the CEO of your company

  • suggests to you that you have to vote for Mitt Romney or you have to give money to the

  • Romney campaign, I think the tendency to, you know, to not break ranks, is going to

  • be a little stronger than maybe it would be in a union.

  • But I think it grows out of this, you know, companies and corporations, they're not democracies.

  • They're authoritarian structures. And the people who work in those companies-- they

  • start to adopt those attitudes after a while. And especially the people at the very top.

  • I think they've begun to actually believe that their authority extends beyond that.

  • And I just think that peopleit’s a little bit different when it’s something your boss

  • tells you to do something than when your union brothers tell you something.

  • BILL MOYERS: Matt, you have written a lot about the tax

  • code and these plutocrats. Exactly how do they work the tax system?

  • MATT TAIBBI: Well the plainest example is Mitt Romney.

  • I mean, you know, if you look at his tax returns, he paid, you know, rates of 14, 13 percent.

  • That's totally normal in this world if you work in a private equity fund. Your income

  • is

  • BILL MOYERS: Again, he's not an exception, he's an embodiment.

  • MATT TAIBBI: He's an embodiment. In the financial services

  • industry for sure, the very, very rich mostly receive income as capital gains or if they're

  • private equity people, as carried interest.

  • In both of those, the max rate is 15 percent. So people who make $20 million, $30 million,

  • $50 million a year like Mitt Romney and like, you know, Steve Schwarzman of whoever it is,

  • they pay half the tax rate of, you know, a nurse or a doctor or a fireman or a teacher.

  • And it's considered totally normal in that world.

  • BILL MOYERS: So they really do consider tax reform a threat?

  • MATT TAIBBI: Absolutely. I mean every time that there's

  • been any discussion about rolling back the carried interest tax break in particular,

  • there's suddenly been this intense, you know, hurricane of lobbying. And it never seems

  • to get rolled back. Barack Obama promised to repeal that tax break and didn't do it.

  • BILL MOYERS: Give us a working definition in the vernacular

  • of carried interest.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: So basically, what this means is that if you're

  • in, if you work in a private equity firm, the money that you earnso, you invest

  • a little bit of your own money. And the gains that you make on that investment would be

  • treated under any definition as a capital gain taxed at 15 percent. But you also earn

  • money because you are investing on behalf of all of your investors.

  • That money that you earn, it's called carried interest. And it is treated as a capital gain

  • in the same ways that the gains to the investors are treated.

  • The economic arguments in favor of the carried interest tax break are so weak. I mean, even

  • Mike Bloomberg, who is, you know

  • BILL MOYERS: The tenth richest man

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: --very far from being a socialist. He has

  • come out and said he doesn't support it. And it says something to you about the power of

  • a very well heeled, very focused lobby group. That, you know, Barack Obama is president.

  • He is opposed to this. He says he's opposed to it. Even Mike Bloomberg is opposed to it.

  • So there's a body of Wall Street opinion that thinks it should go away. It's still there.

  • BILL MOYERS: But when there was an effort, when the Obama

  • White House and others made an effort to revoke carried interest, the fight was led by people

  • like Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer, representing Wall Street--

  • MATT TAIBBI: It’s always the New Yorkers.

  • BILL MOYERS: Yes, the New Yorkers. Of course, that's their

  • constituency, they would say if they were sitting here. But the Democratic Party didn't

  • come to the aid and relief of working people at that time.

  • MATT TAIBBI: Well right, because again, it's because you

  • have a small, very, very concentrated lobby that is very, very noisy and is very, very

  • specific in what it wants and what it needs. And then there's the rest of us who, how many

  • people are really thinking about the carried interest tax break? So the advocacy against

  • the carried interest tax break is dispersed. It's sort of random. It's not focused, whereas

  • the advocacy for it is incredibly organized. It's disciplined. And it has a ton of money.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: And it is bipartisan.

  • BILL MOYERS: Who's looking out for the rest of us?

  • MATT TAIBBI: Well, there are, I mean, there definitely

  • are good people in Washington. You know, I meet and talk to a lot of them. There are

  • a lot of honest politicians who are trying to do the right thing. But the-- my experience,

  • the money issue is so overwhelming to people in Congress that--

  • BILL MOYERS: Raising money for their campaign?

  • MATT TAIBBI: Raising money for their campaigns. It's so

  • central to their daily lives, really. And especially in the House, where you have to

  • essentially start raising money the instant you get elected because the reelection campaign

  • is only a couple years away that -- it's just too overwhelming for most legislators to get

  • past that issue.

  • BILL MOYERS: Despite how the plutocrats have reacted to

  • Barack Obama, he does not seem to be like FDR, taking on the economic royalists or like

  • Theodore Roosevelt, fighting the guys he says are taking the country down. How do you explain

  • Obama's attitude toward these plutocrats?

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Barack Obama in many ways is one of them.

  • He is educated the way a plutocrat is educated. He had an opportunity to join the plutocracy.

  • He could very easily right now be a top corporate lawyer. And they know that.

  • He thinks the way they do. He's a technocrat in the accepted manner of the current plutocracy.

  • And I think they like that. I think that's why he had such a strong reception in 2008.

  • So I think that's one element. Another element though, and I think that this is something

  • that sort of bothers them, is he isn't over-awed by them. And that kind of bugs them too, because

  • they do think theyre pretty great.

  • MATT TAIBBI: To answer your question about, you know, why

  • doesn't he take the sort of fist shaking attitude of an FDR or a Teddy Roosevelt, I just think

  • Barack Obama has surrounded himself with people, like Larry Summers, like Bob Rubin. And I

  • think he's accepted a lot of the justifications and the arguments that come from Wall Street

  • and the business community.

  • So I don't think he feels genuine class based rage towards this community. I just don't

  • think that's in him. You know, I think the-- if you listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity

  • and the likes, they really believe that somewhere under there, there's this raging socialist.

  • And, you know, there's Lenin ready to break out and put them all up against the wall in

  • a firing squad. That guy just isn't there. He really is more one of them than they think.

  • BILL MOYERS: So you don't think he's fighting a class warfare

  • as the right says he is?

  • MATT TAIBBI: Definitely not. No. No, I think he's very

  • emotionally and culturally much closer to those people than he is to the rest of us.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: No, but he is moving-- he is and I don't think

  • he says this as directly as perhaps, you know, some of his supporters would like. He is challenging

  • this notion of the successful businessman as the hero and the driver of the American

  • narrative. And that actually is a big-- if you think it through to its logical conclusion,

  • that is a big challenge. And I think that accounts for this hurt. This seemingly completely

  • disproportionate emotional reaction.

  • MATT TAIBBI: He's made a rhetorical mistake in the way

  • he's occasionally described this community. And that's what's inspiring this whole reaction

  • against him, this feeling that we are like battered wives because they've occasionally

  • been described as rich.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: So it's easy to laugh about this, and we should.

  • But this hurt feelings, the fact that this is really playing out in the emotional space

  • as well as in the balance sheet space, I think is really an important point.

  • I think it's hard for us civilians to get it because it seems so absurd. You know, really?

  • That would hurt your feelings? Are you so thin skinned? But it is real. And I think

  • that it's real for a reason, which is I think that Barack Obama, the Democratic party, but

  • also the political discourse more generally is posing an existential threat, or certainly

  • an existential question to the plutocrats, which makes them very, very anxious.

  • BILL MOYERS: I haven't heard that, Chrystia.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Well, I'll tell

  • BILL MOYERS: Barack Obama said

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND:

  • --I'll tell you what it is-- BILL MOYERS:

  • --in the debate this week that-- CHRYSTIA FREELAND:

  • No, but I'll tell you

  • BILL MOYERS: --he sounded like, he said, "I'm for free

  • enterprise, I'm for--"

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: And I'm for free enterprise too. But what

  • he had started to say

  • BILL MOYERS: That sounds very tough on them.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: No, but there is an underlying point that

  • he does make. I think he should make it more explicitly which is to say that American capitalism

  • is not working the way it was in the '50s. That we are not living in a time when a rising

  • tide is lifting all boats. That we are seeing the people at the very top take off. Their

  • economic fortunes actually disconnect from those and from --

  • BILL MOYERS: Stratospherically leaving earth.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: --most everybody else. And they're not dependent.

  • You know, that old Henry Ford model, where you needed the middle class to be well paid

  • to buy Henry Ford's stuff, that that has broken down. And we can argue a lot, and we should,

  • about the reasons. But the facts are that it has. And to say that, to actually state

  • that, is profoundly threatening because it starts to break down this equation of my wealth

  • equals my virtue.

  • The size of my bank account doesn't-- it isn't just good for me. It is a manifestation of

  • my civic contribution. And that, in some ways, is Mitt Romney's campaign. He's saying, "I'm

  • a successful businessman. So I will make a good president." And Barack Obama, he is actually

  • saying, "You know what? I don't think that that equation works and is automatic." And

  • actually, in saying that, the plutocrats are not wrong to detect there a very powerful

  • ideological challenge.

  • BILL MOYERS: If plutocrats keep on winning, if they manage

  • to avoid tax reform, if they keep low regulation, if they get a president who is sympathetic

  • to them or even enables them, what's ahead for us?

  • MATT TAIBBI: Well, I mean, I fear that what's ahead is

  • just a continual worsening of the situation. You know, what we've seen in our lifetime

  • even since we've come back from Russia is this decimation of the middle class in America.

  • If we continue on this path, what we'll end up with is, you know, is Russia or some other

  • third world country where, again, you have this handful of people who are protected and

  • who have expanding wealth. And then there's this sort of massive population of everybody

  • else. And that's what I worry about.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: I would like to really issue a clarion call

  • to progressives because I think the sort of the progressive public intellectuals are to

  • blame as well. I think a big reason people aren't protesting is no one is offering sufficiently

  • compelling alternatives and solutions.

  • And when you think back to the history of the Industrial Revolution, the Progressive

  • Era, the New Deal, these were brand new ideas and brand new institutions designed to cope

  • with changed economic circumstances. What I think is the challenge for everyone who

  • is worried about this, and I think all of us should be worried about it. We should be

  • terrified. But I think we need to start taking the next step. And we need to realize the

  • 1950s are not coming back. What angers me sometimes about these debates is people talking

  • about manufacturing jobs coming back.

  • That-- it's just not going to happen. So let's really face the facts of how the world economy

  • works. And really come up with what needs to be the political and social response.

  • And frankly, you know, I see the right not interested in addressing this issue at all.

  • And I see the left not offering enough new thinking. And people know that. And that's

  • why people aren't on the barricades. There's no manifesto to be waving.

  • MATT TAIBBI: One caveat I would like to just throw anytime

  • you propose anything that has any kind of government, you know, component to it, there's

  • this automatic criticism that it's communist and socialist. So, when you come up with a

  • solution, the boundaries are let's come with a solution that doesn't have-- that can't

  • be criticized as being communist or socialist. And that is incredibly difficult for people

  • to work around.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Okay, but let’s at least see the new ideas.

  • I mean, my argument is we are living through equally profound economic transformations.

  • And we're just trying to rehash and re-tinker with the twentieth century institutions. I

  • don't think it's enough.

  • BILL MOYERS:
Matt Taibbi, Chrystia Freeland, thank you very much for being with me.

  • MATT TAIBBI: Thank you.

  • CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Thank you, Bill.

  • BILL MOYERS: Here’s a significant revelation of which

  • you may not be aware. The plutocrats know it and love it, and the rest of us should

  • be forewarned. When the Supreme Court made its infamous Citizens United decision, liberating

  • plutocrats to buy our elections fair and square, the justices may have effectively overturned

  • rules that kept bosses from ordering employees to do political work on company time. Election

  • law expert Trevor Potter told us that nowcorporations argue that it is a constitutionally

  • protected use of corporateresourcesto order employees to do political work or

  • attend campaign eventseven if the employee opposes the candidate, or is threatened with

  • being fired for failure to do what the corporation asks.”

  • Reporter Mike Elk atIn These Timesmagazine came across a recording of Governor

  • Mitt Romney on a conference call in June with some business executives. The Governor told

  • them there is quote, “nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you

  • believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election

  • decision, their voting decision and of course doing that with your family and your kids

  • as well.”

  • And here’s Governor Romney two months later, campaigning at an Ohio coal mine:

  • MITT ROMNEY: This is a time for truth. I listened to an

  • ad on the way here. I’ll tell you, you got a great boss. He runs a great operation here.

  • And heBob? Where are you Bob? There he is.

  • BILL MOYERS: Look at all those miners around him, steadfastly

  • standing in support, right? They work for a company called Murray Energy and attendance

  • at the rally, without pay, was mandatory. Murray Energy is notorious for violating safety

  • regulations, sometimes resulting in injuries and deaths. And the company has paid millions

  • in fines. The CEO, Bob Murray, a well-known climate change denier and cutthroat businessman,

  • insists that his employees contribute to his favorite anti-regulatory candidates, or else.

  • In one letter uncovered byThe New Republicmagazine, Murray wrote quote, “We have been

  • insulted by every salaried employee who does not support our efforts.” So much for voting

  • rights and the secret ballot at Murray Energy.

  • Mike Elk discovered that the Koch Brothers, David and Charleswho have pledged to

  • spend $60 million defeating President Obamahave sent a “voter information packet

  • to the employees of Georgia Pacific, one of their subsidiaries. It includes a list of

  • recommended candidates, pro-Romney and anti-Obama editorials written by the Koch’s and a cover

  • letter from the company president. If we elect the wrong people, Dave Robertson writes, “Many

  • of our more than 50,000 US employees and contractors may suffer the consequences, including higher

  • gasoline prices, runaway inflation, and other ills.” Other ills? Like losing your job?

  • This is snowballing. Timeshare king David Siegel of Westgate Resorts reportedly has

  • threatened to fire employees if Barack Obama is re-elected and Arthur Allen, who runs ASG

  • Software Solutions, e-mailed his employees, “If we fail as a nation to make the right

  • choice on November 6th, and we lose our independence as a company, I don’t want to hear any complaints

  • regarding the fallout that will most likely come.”

  • Back in the first Gilded Age, in the 19th century, bosses and company towns lined up

  • their workers and marched them to vote as a block. As we said at the beginning of this

  • broadcast, the Gilded Age is back with a vengeance. Welcome to the plutocracy. The remains of

  • the olUSA.

  • That’s it for this week. On our website, BillMoyers.com, at your request, were starting

  • a book club. Our first is Chrystia Freeland’s “Plutocrats.” Read the book, ask questions,

  • share your thoughts. Then let’s have a lively conversation.

  • That’s at BillMoyers.com. I’ll see you there and I’ll see you here, next time.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome. The

字幕與單字

單字即點即查 點擊單字可以查詢單字解釋

B1 中級

莫耶斯公司節目141:財閥崛起 (Moyers & Company Show 141:Plutocracy Rising)

  • 209 13
    孫子文 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
影片單字