All You Need to Know about Tax Policy

In the 1966 movie Harper starring Paul Newman, there is a line that my memory ranks as one of the top 10 or so all-time best—”You’ve got a way of starting conversation that ends conversation!”  That’s what it frequently feels like when I try to talk to...

Dayenu

Why is this Passover different from all other Passovers? Well, not all others, but it is the only time this century that Passover falls on April 1 (for you trivia buffs, it happened 5 times in the 20th century). I grew up enjoying the Passover celebration: it brought...

Wankers, Wink-ers, Wonk-ers… and Workers

I have been so repulsed by the Epstein revelations that I was certain I wouldn’t write about them. But how could I not add my voice to the chorus of people pointing to this as one of the best (worst) examples of the consequences of greed and extreme wealth. When those...

The Second Greediest Man in America

If one ever wanted to know why extreme wealth and the people who have it are so bad for America, we now have a case study. People are starting to feel the effects of one of the cruelest pieces of legislation enacted in our lifetimes, the OBBBA, the One Big...

2025 – The Last Greedy Year

For many of us, Christmas conjures up “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, a tale of society’s moral obligation to provide for those in need, with Scrooge’s character embodying the selfishness, heartlessness and indifference of that era’s (mid-19th century)...

The Philanthropy Issue

We all have status anxiety. In the must-read book, Inner Level, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, the authors lay out the case that wealth inequality significantly exacerbates people’s status anxiety, which explains the near-perfect correlation between unequal...