Written by Dean Baker
Published: 11 February 2019
Of course, he wouldn't do
that. Steven
Rattner isn't concerned about the hundreds of billions (perhaps more than $1
trillion) that the government redistributes upward each year in the form of
patent and copyright rents. These rents, which come to close to $400 billion
annually for prescription drugs alone, are a direct and intended result of the
monopolies that the government gives companies and individuals as a way of
paying for innovation and creative work.
But Steven Rattner isn't
concerned about this enormous burden on our children, which makes folks like
Bill Gates incredibly rich. Instead, he is worried about
the much smaller burden of the interest on the debt, which currently nets out
(after deducting money rebated by the Federal Reserve Board) to around $200
billion a year or 1.0 percent of GDP. He also is not concerned about the fact
that the income of our children may be $1 trillion a year less, which has the
same effect on living standards as paying another $1 trillion a year in higher
taxes ($3,000 per person), because of the
austerity that people like him demanded in the years following the
Great Recession.
For some reason, no matter how
much damage these people cause and how little sense their arguments make, we
are still supposed to take their views seriously. Any ideas why?
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