from the streets in canada. for asians rule today. hello i'm tom arbonne in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture of billionaire tell you coon warren buffett calls out his fellow rich buddies to pay their fair share america's supports is important call to action. plus our corporations really people as mitt romney and sarah palin and rand paul say that controversy will issue 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 has 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 about the poor and middle class fight for us in afghanistan and why most americans struggle to make ends meet we measure rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks my friends and i have been coddled long enough but a billionaire friendly congress it's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice buffett's 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 you. had an up at the world today. where he

said we've got a stock karl and billionaires like me he pointed out that he pays a lower tax rate than anybody in his office including the secretary and the reason is present most of his wealth comes from capital gains you don't get those tax breaks you're paying more than that. 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 report came out of citigroup suggesting that banks 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 more and more than the entire bottom sixty percent and who were richer than the bottom ninety percent

citigroup even coined 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. when the reagan revolution turn the economy upside down not only did all 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 are 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 were actually 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 as 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 that's 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 if 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 they 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 two 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 fasher 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 quality trust equality trust or got u.k. and co-author along with kate pickett of the brilliant book the spirit level why greater equality makes societies stronger professor wilkinson welcome. to the summary i thought thank you thank you very much for joining us to you spent thirty years studying wealth inequality around the world of the developed nations the u.k. and the u.s. . seem to have the highest rates of wealth inequality are among the four highest what is your research tell us comes out of this these levels of inequality well we found there's a whole range of social problems like violence drug abuse mental illness life expectancy proportion of the population in prison. birth rates all

those kinds of problems seem to be much worse in more unequal countries not just a little bit worse but only thing from traces common to ten times as calm in countries like britain and the united states compared to more equal countries like some of the scandinavian countries or. 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. and 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 more unequal societies is not because the course starts attacking rich but because we all judge

each other more by status. things like disrespect are the most common triggers to violence loss of face humiliation and people become more sensitive about when status becomes more important but in other cases i mean the reasons why death rates are higher and more unequal countries but seems to be partly that social relations become more stressful you know community life weakens people trust each other less and as i say we've become more or. if you like into status competition more status insecurities so a lot of the causal process is a note. to want to to what extent is the portrayal of inequality on television. you'd have to tell me how this has played out 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 in a 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 alice and that kind of thing and it kind of continues their way does that provoke a feeling among middle class working class people of of that was of status and you're talking about 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 site this. we well a advertisers definitely play on our sensitivity to issues around status trying to get us to buy goods on the grounds that lucent 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 of the celebrities. and i think these processes to do with the. divisive affects of inequality in recognized an understood in us of the 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 in the. entity to is it happened in the poorest neighborhoods and of course most of that rioting although it's started with the police shooting of somebody most of that road writing i think was unrelated to that . and. it as i said happened in the poorest areas

it was young people and that's among young people it's unemployment is higher it's also. the poorest people that the markers of status of most and most common so what people are taking what pops that 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 the quake clearly two quite different approaches and there are some countries like france and sweden which start off with a very large difference and then redistribute it high taxes and benefits and there are also countries like japan which start off with much smaller differences or no means and have learned tax since it looks to us as if you don't it doesn't matter

how you get your greater equality 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 capsis mcchrystal as well oh. and they think that basically own wowed with the cuts so unequal 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 aren't cerebral to employees in the company. and the companies they have direct a 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. any injuries or meanings and so. yes germany

so 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 or the notice of 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 tackle inequality 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 we really take seriously that we're to happiness as the human right that thomas jefferson wrote into the declaration of independence then 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 the republicans in congress have signed grover norquist anti at x. pledge will still prevail. in dot com to let us know what you think the poll will be open until tomorrow morning. coming up the idea that corporations are people is spreading like a bad virus among republicans. unfortunately five of the nine members of the supreme court agree so how have corporations managed to whittle away the person who are the base that. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to create through thirty people 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 sections when nobody dares to ask we do our tea 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 that goes to people so how do you think it goes. well romney isn't the only one who believes the corporations are human beings like you and me such as kentucky senator rand paul. i think if you want to. see something else to reach people. there is a middle class we all. corporations are the middle class perhaps the best defense of this corporations are people 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. hundred. eighty three thank you i mean mitt 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 paling of corporations are indeed people so how can that be your offer is take in this question of identity is enter langridge president of the institute for liberty and welcome back thanks very much that's 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 as united as one of. the tobacco companies over the years and claimed fifth amendment rights against office and f.c.c. lost this year. i'm sorry the f.c.c. and not the f.c.c. eighteen to last this year and case there are limitations that this you know it is

that that was a case that the arguably if you or i had taken that case probably were lost as well well i mean they want to be one of the appellate level i mean you know not to start not confined to the point that i was making is that we have corporations that have claimed first amendment rights successfully for the memorized privacy fifth member rights ready and self incrimination tobacconist business companies and fourteenth a member repeatedly for over one hundred years so you know at bottom line should corporations in your opinion have constitutional right as gets down to the 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 he 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 a corporation can do multiple things their licenses revokable they'd be in court in a member of a corporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders of responsibility or only loss of financial liability corporate directors officers or agents couldn't break the law and claim they were doing their jobs directors were hired 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 the quota or probate and they were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations so they couldn't

get to lurch but of course all of us as a bit of a work of the same provide 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 corporations do would how they operate are going to changes as information moves at the speed a lot of this is out the left i mean this is stuff the barry goldwater we're very concerned with those who has the aggregation of as massive as the sort of knowledge that you know where a corporation can accumulate wealth well and that's why there are limitations that power and why corporations we are considered why business records just didn't see it as we both said in this eighteen thousand forces f.c.c. kate. in which you know the high court said that no corporations don't have a right to privacy that your i have so there are limitations to those rights that it was ordered and so it's put as it's going to be and it's going to be nuanced but the 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 and in the the legal

world and in the world that we all have to live we have to treat them in a certain way we have to sort of give them a discourse real to the i don't know nothing with respect to them but in order to have always been called a sort of little person in order to treat them as regulated entities the way that we regulate everybody else you have to accord them a certain measure we have rounded since the sound century there are official records they got a texas or 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 now and what ensues i'm in the end it you know in terms of the since when folks start a business and move forward because i'm just sort of looking around this building let's say to russia today you do you do 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 sense that it was beyond thirty years if you know to put the limitations i want to put on it places like good things like oh let's say the major the major news networks that's not fox news but 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 first of all it's. the the the old 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 there is status copyrights and patents you know seventy five years c'mon you know how they do they if you're a reg the copyright laws for the mouse copy you well you know some of the put the fact is you know that disney is still. the loved and cherished brand by many many people and folks want to go to disney parks which he would clearly have to after thirty years and they should have without him of speech that doesn't mean that they should have they 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 his nation is the evil doers of speech so i certainly have just played just like r t should have freedom of speech you would want the government coming in here and regulating what you have to say as

a corporation i disagree but thank you very much for very much for dr owens 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 just as 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 marbury vs madison an eighteen nineteen in a case called dartmouth purses woodward john marshall said corporation is an artificial being invisible intangible an existing only in contemplation of why this is eight hundred nineteen being a mere creation of law because 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 called california texas cases started to assert that they could find a 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 very 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 shall. 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 eight hundred eighty 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 we're corporations we're artificial persons but we're persons the lawyer for santa clara county gelfand dulness the 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 the 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 a body was 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 thousand 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 that protection of the negro race and more than fifty percent as the benefits be extended to corporations and in fact it was a stablished and slavery now we scots and they would every state of the union basically

have this law going to redo this with this is the wisconsin version and these this one that was repealed the one nine hundred fifty s. but these were all across the country. contributions by corporations and the side of the law no corporation doing business in the state shall pay or contribute or offer consent or agree to put 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 what was the penalty any officer or employee agent or attorney or other representative of any corporation acting for in behalf of such corporation 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 should 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 to corporations and say sorry you are not people corporations you are not 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 loving war i'll discuss this topic after the break why yes to that's really. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions come to the bridge through to people who can you trust no one who is in view with a global missionary see where we had

a state controlled capitalism school sessions when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more. i. welcome back to the big picture.