money moves the world and banking moves money welcome to the public bank solution conversations about an emerging new american institution a publicly owned partnership banks able to rebalance the scales of monetary control in service of the public interest and our common wealth brought to you by the public banking institute and its national association of partners and organizations hello and welcome back to the public bank solution television show i'm walt mccree chairman of the public banking institute today we've got a very special guest in a very special discussion that we think will one that you'll recognize because it is really swept through the national culture and through the the economy the reality of the fact of the inequality between the classes and the economic system of america our guest is less leopold the founder of the labor institute and an author of several books the first one of the first ones that he wrote a couple of years ago in two thousand and nine was the the looting of america six years later his newest book that we'll be talking about today the runaway inequality a name that speaks for itself and the subject is i think precipitated the conversations precipitated by a couple of questions that that he mentions on the back of the book he says do you feel yourself working harder and longer basically for less for making having trouble making ends meet are you afraid that your job might disappear are you angry at wall street does it seem like america is falling behind you feel the big money is buying up politicians are you frustrated about government policies and inaction would you be worried are you worried that your kids may not have the life that you had the opportunity that you had well all those questions are ones that will be talking with a less you know your your book runaway inequality talks about a new era of american economy that is dramatically different than the one that you and i grow up with back in the fifty's we had a presumption back then that the middle class would always be with us that there would be brighter futures and more prospects better prospects for us for citizens what happened well not only  gap period between the rising productivity and what we actually get paid so why did that happen that became kind of the mystery driving the book what happened that could have changed the they found that there was one that was much bigger than all the other one that i had never really thought about you may call it financial station and they're saying something dramatic happens in the economy  wealth that gets accumulated how what does the wealth on wall street look like to bear to the average american let's say oh it's it's hard to wrap our minds around it but here's the trunk that we top it is there's so much wealth there we we can't wrap our minds around i can imagine one home for you and eight hundred forty four for a cop not just one c e o the top hundred on the on average and the top five hundred  transformation with happening in the academic community and this is being taught in all our economic classes they were all the woodrow wilson school everybody with the numbers with the kind of free enterprise model no freedon gaining paid attention to it and nobody cared about the regulating fine but i i don't believe that milton friedman himself ever thought through what would happen but once you see where the late finance all hell breaks loose that's when the fargo enormously and that and the c e o stuff was i think receiving well the considerable amount millions tens of millions of dollars as a result of that exactly that example that give now here is the transformation that takes place now that it is actually quite difficult for us to wrap our minds the nature of the corporation absolutely changed why because when the five percent of all corporate profits in the whole economy went to buy back their own shares so think about that you go to work every day you try to you try to squeeze the company to get cash flow and you borrow money to build and you take all that money and you find that the company you don't hear i just read yesterday target announced a five billion dollar stock by this is on top of the ten billion dollars stock by they just to read it so they share the big investors the hedge funds and the private equity companies they want the stock back there because it drives the price of their share in the c leopold the founder of the labor institute and the author of this book called runaway inequality we're talking about the systemic trends and that and the design of how profits are being concentrated to the top and how that is taking out the financial power of the wealth the common wealth of the populace and of our economy systemically intentionally as opposed to how it used to be where we would grow the economy based on real production  interesting so so debt is not taxable corporate taxes are reduced as well so when the financial interests control the needs of the game and by the politicians and regulation disappears but also taxes declined that's part of our scenario as well isn't it yeah well actually the book started because my son was doing an internship in new york and stepping over all the people sleeping on the street if that happened the richest to build our infrastructure our you know we don't have any money for schools there's all these complaints about taxes well when you look into this financial strip mining two things become apparent one is because of all of this put on shelter money unethically or internationally and we losing about one hundred fifty billion dollars a year in taxes that should be paid that aren't being paid because the money's so if they're not paying that means the taxes runaway this inequality the systemic inequality promotes a new social philosophy in you and you mention four things that now in this new economic reality if you want an education go into debt if you're poor fend for yourself if you want to job go find it if you want to poverty program code in jail now this is you know what we're left with another interesting development i think and this has to do with your offshore reference to wealth henry paulson the former secretary of treasury of goldman sachs exact the guy who was largely and in involved in the glass steagall reversal if i recall correctly or was it that you know and also two thousand and eight suggested that the that the forty trillion dollars that we need for infrastructure development around the country is now available and you know we have it it's in private hands we have money  offshore we can bring it and will lend it to you to do to build your infrastructure now that's an example i think of where we would like to take the conversation now and that is that there the trend is that they have the control they have the resources how do we break that you point out that there isn't anything systemically that will require a turnaround toward fairness and balance that we really have to do this on our own and of course this program is the public bank solution so let's take a look at how having a public banking on a state level or community level would help to reverse some of those trends what is it about that that changes the to build schools roads bridges and so on and so that they're totally reliant again on wall street the same people who are paying the taxes that allow them to build in the first place they now to go back into money their point is  i think this leads to two solutions one is we have to get the money back from wall street to main street and that's the financial transaction tax that robs taxes and  that very small sales tax on their number one truck or write everything we buy there's a sales tax on but when you buy stocks and on wall street by the so we're just about out of time but i wanted to point to something you just said above the point you make is that what we need to do is create a movement and so that's the only way we can really move through that the only way to get there to take inequality we'll see how to get that on the screen and we will call that a day for our edition this edition of bank solutions let's thank you very much thank you and thank you for joining us