she has been called Canada’s Michael
Moore for her opposition to the
establishment hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with journalist Linda mcquaig
about her book the trouble with
billionaires in the opening pages of
your book you put into sharp focus just
how much a billion dollars really is
would you mind elaborating on this
forest if you were to be given a dollar
every second which is quite nice then
after 60 seconds you’d have sixty
dollars after an hour you’d have three
thousand six hundred dollars and after
12 days at that rate all day and all
night you’d have a million dollars
twelve days but in order to become a
billionaire you’d have to keep that rate
up not just for 12 days but for 32 years
so the book is called the trouble with
billionaires what is the trouble with
billionaires what’s happened is in the
last few decades virtually all the
income growth has gone to the top what
problems stem from having super rich in
society probably the most basic problem
is it undermines democracy when you have
a class people with that much economic
clout that translates into enormous
political clout in fact in terms of open
mobility the United States has one of
the worst rates of upward mobility among
the developed nations the truth is you
know if you want to get ahead if you
want your children to have a chance at
improving themselves in love you much
better off to live in a Scandinavian
country you know if you want to live the
American dream move to sweden it turns
out how is the problem solved I think
one idea that really kind of captures
sort of what what is possible is the
idea of introducing an inheritance tax
and it would only click in after someone
had received 1.5 million dollars you
could receive 1.5 million an inheritance
tax free but above that you pay a small
gradually rising tax would be enough
revenue from that to fund educational
trust funds for every Canadian child so
that every Canadian child when they turn
16 would have sixteen thousand dollars
deposit into this trust fund to be as
exclusively for education or training
think of what that would do to change
the lives of Canadian Canadian young
people how has wealth distribution
changed in recent years the simple truth
is we were paying our top people 10 20
30 times often more than they were
getting decades ago then there are
counterparts we’re getting decades but
we’re not getting any improved
performance I mean that that’s the
striking pin and you actually can
measure that quick quite easily i mean
you know back in the 1970s Hank Aaron
was the top baseball player and he made
two hundred thousand which was the top
baseball salary today the talk baseball
player is Alex Rodriguez makes 28
million a year even if you adjust for
inflation Rodriguez is making more than
30 times more than Hank Aaron mate he’s
got 30 times the incentive but he’s not
performing 30 times better in fact
there’s no evidence he’s performing any
better at all explain to us the
discrepancy in taxes paid by the
ultra-rich today versus yesterday in the
pre-1980 period we had marginal tax
rates both in Canada and the United
States it went as high as eighty percent
in fact for some years they were ninety
percent now the top marginal tax rate in
Canada is forty six percent so it’s like
half what it was then one idea i’ve seen
you discuss on this issue is the idea of
philanthropy could you tell us you take
on this the question is should the rich
give money to the tax system or should
they give it through philanthropy is it
if they give it through philanthropy
they call all the shots they determine
where the money goes and they determined
to a large extent how the money is spent
what the priorities will be if we tax
them and that money is collected then
put into the public part then the
Democratic electorate decides how that
money is going to be spent and important
democracy which we are that’s very
important thank you very much thank you
Moore for her opposition to the
establishment hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with journalist Linda mcquaig
about her book the trouble with
billionaires in the opening pages of
your book you put into sharp focus just
how much a billion dollars really is
would you mind elaborating on this
forest if you were to be given a dollar
every second which is quite nice then
after 60 seconds you’d have sixty
dollars after an hour you’d have three
thousand six hundred dollars and after
12 days at that rate all day and all
night you’d have a million dollars
twelve days but in order to become a
billionaire you’d have to keep that rate
up not just for 12 days but for 32 years
so the book is called the trouble with
billionaires what is the trouble with
billionaires what’s happened is in the
last few decades virtually all the
income growth has gone to the top what
problems stem from having super rich in
society probably the most basic problem
is it undermines democracy when you have
a class people with that much economic
clout that translates into enormous
political clout in fact in terms of open
mobility the United States has one of
the worst rates of upward mobility among
the developed nations the truth is you
know if you want to get ahead if you
want your children to have a chance at
improving themselves in love you much
better off to live in a Scandinavian
country you know if you want to live the
American dream move to sweden it turns
out how is the problem solved I think
one idea that really kind of captures
sort of what what is possible is the
idea of introducing an inheritance tax
and it would only click in after someone
had received 1.5 million dollars you
could receive 1.5 million an inheritance
tax free but above that you pay a small
gradually rising tax would be enough
revenue from that to fund educational
trust funds for every Canadian child so
that every Canadian child when they turn
16 would have sixteen thousand dollars
deposit into this trust fund to be as
exclusively for education or training
think of what that would do to change
the lives of Canadian Canadian young
people how has wealth distribution
changed in recent years the simple truth
is we were paying our top people 10 20
30 times often more than they were
getting decades ago then there are
counterparts we’re getting decades but
we’re not getting any improved
performance I mean that that’s the
striking pin and you actually can
measure that quick quite easily i mean
you know back in the 1970s Hank Aaron
was the top baseball player and he made
two hundred thousand which was the top
baseball salary today the talk baseball
player is Alex Rodriguez makes 28
million a year even if you adjust for
inflation Rodriguez is making more than
30 times more than Hank Aaron mate he’s
got 30 times the incentive but he’s not
performing 30 times better in fact
there’s no evidence he’s performing any
better at all explain to us the
discrepancy in taxes paid by the
ultra-rich today versus yesterday in the
pre-1980 period we had marginal tax
rates both in Canada and the United
States it went as high as eighty percent
in fact for some years they were ninety
percent now the top marginal tax rate in
Canada is forty six percent so it’s like
half what it was then one idea i’ve seen
you discuss on this issue is the idea of
philanthropy could you tell us you take
on this the question is should the rich
give money to the tax system or should
they give it through philanthropy is it
if they give it through philanthropy
they call all the shots they determine
where the money goes and they determined
to a large extent how the money is spent
what the priorities will be if we tax
them and that money is collected then
put into the public part then the
Democratic electorate decides how that
money is going to be spent and important
democracy which we are that’s very
important thank you very much thank you
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