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There’s no free market — just businesses doing whatever they please with virtually zero accountability. 

(1) The tax loss from one scheming businessman could have paid the salaries of 30,000 nurses

The lack of regulation in the financial industry allowed hedge fund manager John Paulson to conspire with Goldman Sachs in a plan to create packages of risky subprime mortgages and then short-sell (bet against) the sure-to-fail financial instruments. The ploy paid him $3.7 billion. Deregulation in the tax code allowed him to call his income “carried interest,” which is taxed at a 15% rate. More deregulation allowed him to defer his profits indefinitely.

The lost taxes of $1.3 billion (35% of $3.7 billion) could have paid the salaries of 30,000 LPNs, 10 nurses for every county in the United States. Instead, one clever businessman took it all. 

(2) The 10 richest Americans made enough money last year to feed every hungry person on earth for a year

The richest 10 Americans increased their wealth by over $50 billion in one year. That’s enough, according to 2008 estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN’s World Food Program, to feed the 870 million people in the world who are lacking sufficient food.