well i'm tom arbonne a washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture billionaires tell you whom warren buffett calls out his fellow rich buddies to pay their fair share america's support is important all action congress plus our corporations really people as mitt romney and sarah palin and rand paul say all of it that controversy will issue of corporate personhood later and so.

you need to know this let's listen to warren buffett the billionaire and one of the richest men on planet earth as some advice for lawmakers when it comes to taxes in an article in today's new york times buffett argued for his own taxes to be raised as well as others just like it writing while the poor and middle class fight for us in afghanistan and while most americans struggle to make ends meet we mega rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks my friends and i have been coddled long enough by a billionaire friendly congress it's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice off its message fell on the ears of president obama who is hosting a town hall in minnesota to kick off a three day bus tour across the midwest promoting his economic agenda take a look. if it had an op ed that he wrote today. where he

said we better stop coddling billionaires like me he pointed out that he pays a lower tax rate that anybody in his office including the secretary and the reason is because most of his wealth comes from capital gains you don't get those tax breaks you're paying more the merrier. most of us to pay more than that and we have been now for a decade since president bush put the reagan tax cuts on steroids back in two thousand and one and two thousand and three and as a result of the richest of the rich getting massive tax breaks and you and me getting screwed the wealth inequality in america is enormous so much so that back in october of two thousand and five a report came out of citigroup suggesting that that bank should stop worrying about what happened to the bottom ninety nine percent of americans all the action they wrote was with the top one percent who earned more than the entire bottom sixty percent and who were richer than the

bottom ninety percent citigroup even claimed a new word for our economy forget about quaint notions like the american dream or the middle class we are now a plutonic me working people drove the engine of our economy from the one nine hundred thirty s. to the one nine hundred eighty s. but when the reagan revolution turn the economy upside down not only did all the growth for the middle class stopped but it went into reverse wages for most working people today inflation adjusted are lower than they were when jimmy carter was president since then we've lost about a third of all our manufacturing jobs our engineering and software work are being done in india since then eighty percent of all the new wealth created in america is going to just the top one percent of the richest americans so today four hundred people just the four hundred richest americans now own more wealth than one hundred fifty million other americans combined our nation has not seen such any quality levels this high since the years before the great depression america has gone from

one of the countries in the world where people were most able to move from poverty to riches to one of the most rigidly stratified nation where if your parents are poor most likely you and your children will be if your parents are rich most likely you or your children will be. but there are billionaires among us virtually all of them got that way either through being at the top of the food chain in the banking and finance world which by the way makes nothing of value and crashed the world's economy in two thousand and eight or they made is c.e.o.'s of transnational corporations or they inherited it like the main characters and i in rand's book atlas shrugged working your way to riches or even to a comfortable spot in the upper middle class of america is pretty much a thing of the past and make sure it stays that way but billionaires have radically rewritten our laws and tax code to protect themselves as warren buffett wrote in today's new york times the mega rich pay income taxes at

a rate of fifteen percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes it's a different story for the middle class typically they fall into the fifteen percent twenty five percent income tax brackets and then they are hit with every payroll taxes to boot as billionaire heiress leona helmsley famously said we don't pay taxes only the little people pay taxes writing that dictum into law ronald reagan began his reaganomics revolution in the united states within a few years of the time that margaret thatcher began a similar transformation of the united kingdom now our nations are among the least equal societies on earth and in both nations the results are showing in ways they are not in countries like most of the rest of europe which never drank the factual reagan kool-aid of massive tax cuts breaking the back of organized labor and cutting government services that would help people break the cycle of poverty. the

man who literally wrote the book on the consequences of this situation is professor richard wilkinson co-founder of the equality trust equality trust or get u.k. and co-author along with kate pickett of the brilliant book the spirit level greater equality makes societies stronger professor wilkinson welcome. to the summary i thought thank you thank you very much for joining us to use spent thirty years studying wealth inequality around the world of the of the developed nations the u.k. and the us. seem to have the highest rates of wealth inequality are among the four highest what is really a research tell us comes out of this these levels of inequality what we found there's a whole range of social problems like violence drug abuse mental illness life expectancy the proportion of the population in prison now teenage birth rates all

those kinds of problems seem to be much worse in more unequal countries not just a little bit worse but anything from traces common to ten times as common in countries like britain and the united states compared to more equal countries like some of the scandinavian countries or perhaps is there a direct line of causality can you say that the inequality caused the social problems or could it be that countries with a lot of social problems for other reasons demographic reasons or historic reasons or recent wars or whatever then end up as very unequal countries. we are number of cases we know the causal ordering. people have done a lot more research than we cover in our book but we also know some of the processes involved for instance why violence becomes more common in morny societies is not because the poor start attacking the rich but because we all judge each

other more by status. things like disrespect our the most common triggers to violence loss of face humiliation and people become more sensitive to that when status becomes more important but in other cases i mean the reasons why death rates are higher and more unequal countries there seems to be partly that social relations become more stressed or you know community life weakens people trust each other less and as i say we've become more. if you like into status competition more status insecurity so lot of the causal process is a mode. to walk. to what extent is the portrayal of inequality on television. you'd have to tell me how this has played out in the u.k. but in the united states around the time reagan came to the office prior to that

the average family shown on american television was literally a middle class family the old shows you know lucille ball they lived in a you know in a cheap apartment in new york you know the etc and then after the eighty's we started seeing multimillion dollar homes and in shows like dynasty and dallas and that kind of thing and it kind of continues that way does that provoke a feeling among middle class working class people of of that was of status in that area i'm sure television adds to it but i don't think it's. the most important or only source like a cork a cultural slightness. we well a advertisers definitely play on our sensitivity to issues around status trying to get us to buy goods on the grounds that more exclusive or whatever. but see even if you have none of that we'll see what's in the shops we read about the lives of the

celebrities and the shops are full of things that separate our lives from the lights and the celebrities. i think peace process is to do with the. divisive affects of inequality has been recognized and understood in a sort of intuitive sense since before the french revolution it really doesn't depend just on modern media the streets of london have quieted. over the last few days it seems is what we saw last week a result of inequality and. i think it is this it happened in the poorest neighborhoods and of course most of that rioting although it started with a police shooting of somebody most of that road rioting i think was unrelated to that. and. it as i said it happened in the poorest

areas it was young people and that's among young people it's unemployment is high it's also most the poorest people that it's the markers of status of most and most common so what people in king. tut's the sun the cell phones and the sneakers and so on the right brands all the things that are as i say separate the headlights on the lives of the celebrities or we have just about a minute left a. very important question how do developed countries resolve this issue or reduce inequality successfully but we thought it there are quite clearly two quite different approaches and there are some countries like france and sweden which start off with a very large difference that he couldn't and then redistribute heights accident benefits but there are also countries like japan which start off with a much smaller difference in earnings and have lowered taxes it looks to us as if

you don't it doesn't matter how you get your great a quality as long as you get there somehow and for instance new hampshire is a society it is a state that becomes more equal because it has smaller differences in earnings to start treatment so it has very low taxes mccrystal those low. and they think that basically own wow would look up so an equal is runaway incomes at the top as warren buffett was describing but the way we should reduce those i think is to make those people at the top or aren't sure will to employees in the company. in the companies they have to rector ship so and so on companies that are neutrals friendly's cooperatives employee owned companies usually have much smaller income differences between rich and poor or. an injury and serling's and certain. yes

germany so yeah i was going to wrap with that that they require that any corporation with more than a thousand employees fifty percent of their board members have to come from organized labor you know to sit on the board but professor wilkinson thanks so much for joining us tonight. thank you for having me thank you we need to bring back the issue of inequality which has been pretty much off the table since the reagan revolution lyndon johnson tackled any quality with his great society programs and cut poverty in america almost in half in less than four years if we really believe in a humane society if you really take seriously that word happiness as the human right that thomas jefferson wrote into the declaration of independence and we need to start again a conversation in this country to deal with the horrible inequality that is driving so many of our social ills.

it's time for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's question warren buffett says it's time for shared sacrifice from the mega rich will congress loosen your choices are yes every single poll shows the vast majority of americans agree with warren buffett or no with the republicans in congress have signed grover norquist anti x. pledge will still prevail log on to thom hartmann dot com to let us know you think the polls will be open until tomorrow morning. coming up the idea that corporations are people is spreading like a bad buyer is among republicans. unfortunately five of the nine members of the supreme court agree so how have corporations managed to wiggle their way in a person who is of the base that. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to

break through it through to get it made who can you trust no one who is in view with the global machinery see where are we heading state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

if corporations are really people the rest of us are screwed you may remember last week when mitt romney stepped in it by saying those. and there are various ways of doing that one is we could raise taxes on people that's the way that. corporations are people my friend we can raise taxes and of course they are everything corporations are and also because the people so what do you think it go so. why was. it ok yeah human beings might read well romney isn't the only one who believes the corporations are human beings like you and me so does kentucky senator rand paul. if you want to. see all these people. there's a middle class we all. corporations are the middle class perhaps the best defense of those corporations are people who claim came from sarah pale in this weekend walk right up this rather convoluted response when asked if she agreed with mitt

romney take a look at three thousand excuse me excuse me. and it romney was right right of course this whole notion of corporations as people would be laughable if there wasn't one straight in problem the supreme court of the united states agrees with mitt romney rand paul and sarah pailin of corporations are indeed people so how can that be your offer has taken this question of identity as andrew langer president of the institute for liberty and welcome back thanks for back good to have you with us this whole idea that corporations are people nike has claimed the first amendment right to lie to get to the supreme court citizens united did so there's no doubt. the tobacco companies over the years have claimed fifth amendment rights against authors and f.c.c. lost this year. i'm sorry at the f.c.c. and i'm not the f.c.c. eighteen to last this year and that case there are limitations that this you know

that that was a case that arguably if you or i had taken that case probably would last as well but i mean they want to be want to be upheld level i mean you know not to destroy it not been so i think the point that i was making is that we have corporations that have claimed first amendment rights successfully for the memorized alchemical privacy fifa member rights ready it's often carbonation tobacconist best as companies and fourteenth a member yes repeatedly for over one hundred years so you know bottom line should corporations in your opinion have constitutional right that gets down to their actual one of the things you just said which is the fact that. this is been going on for over a hundred years i mean this is a this is longstanding supreme court case law the reasons for the. very simple creating this fiction that corporations are people and it's essentially what they call a legal fiction it's a framework that the courts have invented so that they can get at this question of how you best go about regulating these corporations how you go about treating them in the eyes of the law and so if the government can turn around to do things like confiscate private property from

a corporation as it does they do want to understand or that actually goes back to the tenth century in england the literally i mean go back you know read blackstone's law in the seventy's in the eighteenth century and seventeen hundreds and he points out that from the tenth century there had been this distinction between artificial persons which was the king in the kingdom and the churches and in modern days also corporations and natural persons but up until the eight hundred ninety s. in the united states and up until the one nine hundred twenty s. in fact in some states wisconsin being one of them corporations had to have one single purpose they could only do one thing corporation can do multiple things their licenses revokable being in court in a member of a corporation did not relieve corporate management of stockholders of responsibility or only the loss of financial liability corporate directors officers or agents couldn't break the law and claim they were doing their jobs directors were required to come from the most stockholders their headquarters had to be in their state they could not live for more than thirty years so they had to go through to quote a probate and they were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations so they

couldn't get too large but of course all of you know as opposed to the what the same but by the same token the left uses to sort of talk about this mutable constitution the constants the constants that happen in terms of the way people live their lives change and so the definitions of what corporations do and how they operate are going to changes as information moves at the speed a lot of this is not the left i mean this is stuff the barry goldwater we're very concerned with this could be an aggregation of this massive power outage that you know where a corporation can accumulate wealth well passable that's why there are limitations on that power and not right corporations we are considered business records just didn't see it as we both said in this one thousand nine hundred forces f.c.c. kate. yes in which you know the high court said no corporations don't have a right to privacy that your i have so there are limitations to those rights that it was ordering and so it's put as it's going to be and it's going to be nuanced with a point in time is that in the end if we want to do all the good things that the left talks about in terms of regulating these corporations and tamping down and

making sure that they are behaving properly in the environment in the legal world and in the world we all have to live we have to treat them in a certain way we have to sort of give them to school so real so little i don't know nothing with respect to them but in order to give all respect coder sort of treatment will first in order to treat them as a regulated entity is the way to be regulate everybody else you have to record them a certain measure we have remnants of the sound century there are official records that have a texas all property be sued and that's exactly it and that's the one the supreme court has knows the way beyond that allowing them to live forever goes way beyond paying taxes ensues i'm in the end it you know in terms of the sense when folks start a business and move forward it's i'm just sort of looking around this building let's say to russia today you get to you know the corporate ownership of russia today is it going to live beyond you think it's going to live beyond thirty years i would hope that this and that it was beyond thirty years if you know to put the limitations i want to put on it places like good things like a let's say the major the major news networks that's not fox news put let's say a.b.c. c.b.s. n.b.c.

those things would have to go away either way used to be was. the the the the thirty year lifespan for corporations was at the end of thirty years you dissolve you reincorporate and you basically go through probate just like if you develop a personal fortune where you die you need to pay you know there's nobody you know would think of thinking of all of the marquis brands that are in america today that have existed for many many years and it was a brands are existing by virtue of government welfare programs you know they are status copyrights and patents you know seventy five years they you know how they they if you're e read the copyright laws for the most copy you will you know some of the but the fact is you know that disney is still. a loved and cherished brand by many many people and folks want to go to disney parks which he would clearly have to after had thirty years and they should have without him of speech that doesn't mean that they shouldn't do it anyway if you know if the public is going to get out there it is going to start to tamp down and say is nation is the evil doers of speech oh i certainly have just like just like arts you should have freedom of speech you want

the government coming in here and regulating what you have to say as a corporation i disagree but then hilary thank you for very much for trouble once ok this idea that corporations are people didn't just spring out of nowhere it goes back a very very long way actually there is a contrast to if you would go back to one thousand nine hundred justice chief justice john marshall the third chief justice of the united states supreme court president thomas jefferson was appointed by john adams the guy who actually initiated arguably the doctrine of judicial review with margaret versus madison an eighteen nineteen in a case called dartmouth versus woodward john marshall said corporation is an artificial being invisible intangible and existing only in contemplation of law this is eighteen nineteen being a the mere creation of what up as this is only those properties which the charter of its creation confer upon it period that's it. in one thousand nine hundred six however the so the pacific railroad there was a case called the southern pacific railroad versus santa clara county and in that

case the southern pacific railroad came forward. and started to assert and they were one of about seven cases like this that came before the supreme court over about a three year period there they were called to california texas cases started to assert that they could find rights for themselves in the fourteenth amendment the fourteenth amendment reads all persons born or naturalized in the united states now that would make you think we're talking about human beings right born or naturalized and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the united states and of the state wherein they reside we're still obviously talking about human beings or no state show. show of bridge show of force any law would show a bridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the united states nor shall any state deprive any person and so far it's all pretty obvious with normal human beings here of life liberty or property without due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws now that we're

person is like really magical because as i pointed out all the way back to the tenth century there were artificial persons corporations churches and governments and there were natural persons you and me. and clearly when the fourteenth amendment was written in and ratified one thousand nine hundred six to free the slaves thirteenth fourteenth and fifteenth amendments stripped slavery out of the constitution this was necessary to do this the fourteenth amendment is clearly there to free the slaves not to free the corporations but they didn't before that were person with the word natural so the railroads came in one thousand nine hundred six the supreme court in this character said of her county versus the pacific railroad case and they said we're persons were corporations are artificial persons but we're persons the lawyer for santa clara county gelfand dulness a guy who is fighting against this idea he said it's bs to speak in the forty's the moment he says its mission was to raise the humble the downtrodden the oppressed to the level of most exalted upon the broad plain of humanity to make man the equal of

man in other words african-americans and white people but not to make a creature of this state the body loose soulless and mystical creature called the corporation not to make that the equal of a crew of a creature of god therefore i venture to repeat that the fourteenth amendment does not command equality between human beings and corporations and in fact that's how the supreme court ruled in santa clara county but over thirty times since then actually what had happened was the core of puerto john chandler bancroft davis slipped into the ed note but the court had ruled that way even though the ruling said no corporations are not people but he said yes they are and over thirty times since then the supreme court has ruled that justice hugo black for example in one nine hundred thirty eight said of the cases in this court which the fourteenth amendment has applied during its first fifty years after its adoption less than one half of one percent invoked in it protection of the negro race and more than fifty percent as that its benefits be extended to corporations and in fact it was

a stablish to end slavery now we scots and there were every state of the union basically have this law this with this is the wisconsin version and these this one that was repealed the one nine hundred fifty s. these were all across the country hello. contributions by corporations and the side of the law no corporation doing business in the states shall pay or contribute or offer consent or agree to pay or contribute directly or indirectly any money property free service of its officers or employees or thing of value to any political party organization committee or individual for any political purpose whatsoever or for the purpose of influencing legislation of any kind or to promote or defeat the candidacy of any person for nomination appointment or election to any political office but was the penalty any officer or employee agent or attorney or other representative of any corporation acting for to be half of such corporation which will violate this act shall be punished upon conviction by imprisonment in the state prison for a period of not less than one nor more than five years if

a domestic corporation shall be dissolved and if a foreign or a nonresident corporation its right to do business of the state is declared forfeit this is what we need to return to reregulate the corporations and say sorry you are not people corporations your people and you don't have first amendment rights of free speech and get out of our political lives in our political world it's time to bring politics back of buy in for to paraphrase abraham lincoln we the people. coming up is there an alliance between hollywood the pentagon to brainwash americans in a lot of the war i'll discuss this topic after the break with my guest and sort of . what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions complete couldn't break through a good sort of way who can you trust no one who is in view with the global

machinery city where we had a state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more. well about.