Robert Reich's 5 ways to abolish billionaires

https://rwer.wordpress.com/2019/07/09/robert-reich-suggests-5-ways-to-abolish-billionaires/







Robert Reich suggests that one thing we could do to deal with our nation's problems would be to abolish billionaires. 

Reich lays out the ways billionaires are able to accumulate that much money. 

First, monopoly. 

We can address this by vigorously enforcing anti-trust laws already on the books. 

Second, copyrights and patents. 

Reich suggests shortening these by half or more. 

Third, insider information. 

Here we need to both enforce fines to take away all the money gotten in this way, and in egregious cases send those who seek out and use such information to prison. 

Fourth, pay offs to politicians. 

Congress must take private money out of elections completely. And impose long prison sentences on those convicted of giving and receiving private money. This was accomplished during the 1970s after the last major government scandals. But Americans seem to constantly forget history. 

Fifth, inheritance. Again, a problem addressed before. High inheritance taxes and a limit on the amount that can be inherited address this problem. 

These are not revolutionary changes. We’ve done them before in the US. But 50 years of propaganda by the American oligarchy have reversed most. We need to address them now before another 50 years of propaganda makes them impossible to even conceive.