How a Historian Nailed Billionaires for Their Greed at Davos | NowThis

[Music] this is my first time at Davos and and I find it quite a bewildered stew be honest I mean 1,500 private jets flown in here to here Sir David Attenborough speak about you know how we recomm to planet and I mean I heard people talking the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency but then I mean almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance right and of the rich just not paying their fair share I mean it feels like I met a fire fighters fighters conference and no one's allowed to speak about water right there was there was only one panel actually we've had two Pierre the second one let's go there one panel hidden away in the media center that was actually about tax avoidance and I was about I was one of the 15 participants so something needs to change here I mean 10 10 years ago the World Economic Forum asked a question what must industry do to prevent a broad social backlash the answer is very simple just stop talking about philanthropy and start talking about Texas Texas Texas we need to I mean just two days ago there was a billionaire in here what's his name Michael Dell and he asked a question like name me one country where a top marginal tax rate of 70% has actually worked mm-hm and you know I'm a historian the United States that's where it has actually worked in the 1950s during Republic and President Eisenhower you know the war veteran the top marginal tax rate in the US was 91 percent for people like Michael Dell you know top estate tax for people like Michael Dell was more than 70% I mean this is not rocket science I mean we can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes we can invite Bono once marpa come on it's we got to be talking about Texas yeah that's it taxes taxes taxes all the rest is in my opinion we have a tax system that leaks so much that allows a hundred and seventy billion dollars of money every year to be taken to tax havens and to be denied the developing countries that need that money Mo's so we have to look at the business model and we have to look at the role of governments to tax and pluck money into people's lives I have to say honestly this is a very one-sided panel the u.s. basically has the lowest unemployment rate ever the lowest black unemployment rate ever lowest youth unemployment ever we've actually reduced poverty around the world no one's talking about that at all so I like for the panel to talk about beyond taxes which every one of you have talked about the only thing you've talked about in this whole panel on inequality what can we really do to solve and it helped solve inequality over time beyond taxes the gentleman who talked about who said we've just talked taxes and that jobs are there and this law and unemployment rates are low let me tell you something we talk about jobs but the quality of those jobs and we also work with poultry workers in the richest country in the world the United States poultry workers these are women who are cutting the chickens and parking them and we buy them in the supermarket's dollar is one woman we work with there told us that she and her co-workers have to wear diapers to work because they are not allowed to eat breaks this isn't the richest country in the world that's not a dignified job those are the jobs they are being told about that globalization is bringing jobs their quality of their jobs matter it matters these are the jobs of dignity in many countries workers no longer have a voice they are not allowed to unionize they are not allowed to negotiate for web for salaries so we're talking about jobs but jobs that bring dignity we are talking about health care the World Bank has told us that 3.4 billion people who earn five point five dollars a day all that verge are just medical bills away from sinking into poverty they don't have health care they are just a crop failure away from sinking back into poverty they have no crop insurance so don't tell me about low levels of unemployment you are counting the wrong things you're not counting dignity of people you're counting exploited people I want [Applause]

Channel: NowThis Impact

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Keywords: NowThis, NowThisNews, Now This News, NowThis News, Now This Media, NowThis Media, Current Events, news, world economic forum, davos economic forum, davos world economic forum 2019, Rutger Bregman, Davos, Billionaires, David Attenborough, prviate jets, justice, equality, rich, taxes, tax avoidance, Michael Dell, marginal tax rate, Republican President Eisenhower, Eisenhower, Republican, marginal tax, Bono, OxFam, winnie byanyima, unemployement rate, black unemployment, poverty, inequality

Id: paaen3b44XY

Length: 4min 34sec (274 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 30 2019