https://znetwork.org/author/sampizzigati/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Sat, 22 Nov 2025 20:27:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/author/sampizzigati/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-welcome-new-twist-on-americas-tax-future/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-welcome-new-twist-on-americas-tax-future/#respond Sun, 13 Apr 2025 11:40:44 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1282379 Republican leaders in Congress have been working feverishly over recent days to renew the rich people-friendly 2017 Trump tax cuts set to expire at this year’s end. Both the House and Senate have now passed bills that do that renewing — and also add in some assorted new goodies. All that remains before this latest [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-welcome-new-twist-on-americas-tax-future/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/can-our-richest-dodge-the-climate-change-bullet/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/can-our-richest-dodge-the-climate-change-bullet/#respond Mon, 07 Apr 2025 15:39:59 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1282126 So where do you see yourself living the rest of your life? The richest among us are keeping their options all open. On the one hand, our deepest pockets are buying up new super-luxury abodes as if the gravy trains that their lives have become will never stop running. On the other hand, our richest are [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/can-our-richest-dodge-the-climate-change-bullet/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/are-the-trumpistas-seeking-to-shrink-the-irs-or-actually-sink-it/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/are-the-trumpistas-seeking-to-shrink-the-irs-or-actually-sink-it/#respond Mon, 07 Apr 2025 15:26:25 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1282120 Conservative economists have been treating the 18th-century Scottish philosopher Adam Smith as their “free market” hero for quite some time now. But in his own time, as Steve Wamhoff of the progressive Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy recently noted, Smith took positions that today’s free-marketeers regularly gag on. Smith, for instance, felt strongly that the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/are-the-trumpistas-seeking-to-shrink-the-irs-or-actually-sink-it/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/could-elon-musk-actually-destroy-social-security-as-we-know-it/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/could-elon-musk-actually-destroy-social-security-as-we-know-it/#respond Mon, 24 Mar 2025 15:17:34 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1281482 Why is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, hyperventilating about Social Security? Why is he inventing unhinged tales about “fraudulent” hordes of Social Security grifters? Why is his “DOGE” chopping away staffers at the already understaffed Social Security Administration? Let’s start with the political reality that most Americans see Social Security as absolutely essential to their future financial security. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/could-elon-musk-actually-destroy-social-security-as-we-know-it/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-new-plan-to-create-a-world-without-elon-musks/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-new-plan-to-create-a-world-without-elon-musks/#respond Mon, 17 Feb 2025 17:20:54 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279886 Americans these days don’t much like billionaires. Our ultra-rich, Americans overwhelmingly believe, aren’t paying enough in taxes. Polling earlier this month found that nearly three-quarters of the nation’s likeliest voters — 74 percent — feel billionaires are paying “too little’ at tax time. Just how concerned about billion-dollar fortunes have Americans become? Nearly half of us overall, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-new-plan-to-create-a-world-without-elon-musks/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-the-current-musk-coup-define-our-future/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-the-current-musk-coup-define-our-future/#respond Sun, 09 Feb 2025 17:19:19 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279524 A classic coup d’état has guns. Uniformed men run wild seizing government agencies and claiming control over what government does and who government serves. But in our new cyber age, the Yale historian Timothy Snyder reflected this past week, a coup can unfold without any armed overthrow. We can have “a couple dozen young men go from government office [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-the-current-musk-coup-define-our-future/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-super-bowl-and-the-super-rich-partners-in-slime/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-super-bowl-and-the-super-rich-partners-in-slime/#respond Sun, 02 Feb 2025 15:47:50 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279188 About three score years ago, on a January Sunday afternoon in 1967, some of us gathered in college dorm basement lounges to watch pro football’s historic first “Super Bowl.” A good bit has changed since then — in football and America. The changes in pro football could hardly be more striking. Today’s players dwarf the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-super-bowl-and-the-super-rich-partners-in-slime/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/does-a-new-roaring-twenties-now-beckon/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/does-a-new-roaring-twenties-now-beckon/#respond Sat, 25 Jan 2025 14:52:41 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1278869 Life in the United States has never been better — if your personal fortune stretches well into the thousands of millions. Our new year has dawned with 813 Americans cavorting in billionaire land. These deep pockets ended 2024, notes an Institute for Policy Studies analysis, with a combined wealth over $6.7 trillion. They averaged over $8.2 billion each. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/does-a-new-roaring-twenties-now-beckon/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/of-the-plutocrats-by-the-plutocrats-and-for-the-plutocrats/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/of-the-plutocrats-by-the-plutocrats-and-for-the-plutocrats/#respond Sat, 11 Jan 2025 15:44:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1278278 “Every morning,” the billionaire Marc Andreessen smiled a few weeks after Donald Trump’s re-election this past November, “I wake up happier than the day before.” The stoked Andreessen, with Trump’s re-entry into the White House only days away, must by now be sitting in seventh heaven. He no doubt has plenty of deep-pocket company. We’ve never before [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/of-the-plutocrats-by-the-plutocrats-and-for-the-plutocrats/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-murder-on-the-streets-has-fear-rising-in-the-suites/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-murder-on-the-streets-has-fear-rising-in-the-suites/#respond Mon, 09 Dec 2024 17:57:04 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1276861 Over 8,000 Americans, on average, die every day. Many of these Americans die unnecessarily. Their cause of death? The United States — our planet’s richest nation — still does not have in place a national health care system that guarantees everyone adequate medical attention. One particular American’s death this past week has refocused attention on that absence. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-murder-on-the-streets-has-fear-rising-in-the-suites/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-baku-at-the-latest-global-confab-on-climate-hand-wringing-abounds/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-baku-at-the-latest-global-confab-on-climate-hand-wringing-abounds/#respond Sat, 16 Nov 2024 13:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1275480 The world desperately needs to pull the plug on fossil fuels. So agree most of the official delegates from nearly 200 nations who have gathered this month by the Caspian Sea for the 29th annual global “Conference of the Parties” on climate change — COP29 for short — in Azerbaijan’s capital city Baku. But not [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-baku-at-the-latest-global-confab-on-climate-hand-wringing-abounds/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/no-time-to-play-just-defense/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/no-time-to-play-just-defense/#respond Sat, 09 Nov 2024 13:52:25 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1275062 With Donald Trump about to re-enter the White House and his sidekicks about to assume control over Congress, America’s progressives are once again shifting — to playing defense. But the best defense, as one old football adage suggests, almost always turns out to be a good offense. In the coming Trump redux, can we progressives [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/no-time-to-play-just-defense/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/two-words-that-haunt-so-many-hurricane-victims-claim-denied/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/two-words-that-haunt-so-many-hurricane-victims-claim-denied/#respond Sat, 12 Oct 2024 15:49:03 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1273590 Do you know that you’re in good hands with Allstate? Or how about State Farm? Do you know that, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there? Of course you do. Insurance companies have been blasting slogans like these at us for years now. In 2022 alone, Allstate spent $617 million on advertising. State Farm spent an [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/two-words-that-haunt-so-many-hurricane-victims-claim-denied/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/could-2025-end-up-a-nightmare-for-our-tax-averse-rich/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/could-2025-end-up-a-nightmare-for-our-tax-averse-rich/#respond Tue, 24 Sep 2024 16:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1272791 We haven’t of late had much in the way of political “consensus” here in the United States. But we do today have one consensus of sorts — on our tax system of all things. Most everyone considers how we go about taxing ourselves to be, at best, distinctly suboptimal. How do we change that? Where [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/could-2025-end-up-a-nightmare-for-our-tax-averse-rich/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-coming-tax-the-rich-rumble-in-rio/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-coming-tax-the-rich-rumble-in-rio/#respond Wed, 07 Aug 2024 15:44:09 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1270509 For the richest among us, life on Earth can sometimes get rather boring. But worry not for our world’s deepest pockets. At least five firms worldwide, notes the swanky lifestyle Robb Report, are now racing “to deliver passengers to the stars on giant balloons attached to pressurized luxury capsules.” Sometime next year, those passengers will be making six-hour [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-coming-tax-the-rich-rumble-in-rio/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-the-uk-a-new-reminder-why-inequality-must-go/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-the-uk-a-new-reminder-why-inequality-must-go/#respond Thu, 01 Aug 2024 15:47:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1270219 Remember the fabled midnight ride of Paul Revere? Remember the storybook warning Revere shouted out that evening in 1775 to his fellow patriots just outside Boston? “The British are coming!” Revere declaimed as he rode. “The British are coming!” Well, one thing then led to another, and some fifteen months later a Virginia slaveowner named [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-the-uk-a-new-reminder-why-inequality-must-go/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/to-best-understand-inequality-think-class-not-generation/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/to-best-understand-inequality-think-class-not-generation/#respond Fri, 12 Jul 2024 14:22:15 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1269210 How much does the generation we belong to define the comfort of the lives we lead? Just about nothing impacts our comfort, suggests a recent spate of major media news analyses, more than our generation. “Millennials had it bad financially,” as a Washington Post feature put it last month, “but Gen Z may have it worse.” Demographers typically define millennials as [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/to-best-understand-inequality-think-class-not-generation/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-practical-prescription-for-taxing-our-worlds-richest/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-practical-prescription-for-taxing-our-worlds-richest/#respond Fri, 28 Jun 2024 16:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1268564 Ever wonder why the divide between the world’s richest and everybody else keeps getting wider? Gabriel Zucman, one of the world’s finest young economists, has just produced a report that riffs on one key reason: Our super rich pay next to nothing in taxes. Just how close to nothing? This close: Over the past four decades, the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-practical-prescription-for-taxing-our-worlds-richest/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-france-a-bold-new-take-on-liberte-egalite-fraternite/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-france-a-bold-new-take-on-liberte-egalite-fraternite/#respond Fri, 21 Jun 2024 16:53:46 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1268201 France has rendered unto the world, over the past quarter-century, a distinct public service. Thanks to the trailblazing research of three French scholars — Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman — we know much more about the world’s maldistributed wealth than ever before. Could France now be on the brink of making another significant [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-france-a-bold-new-take-on-liberte-egalite-fraternite/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/for-the-rich-one-nation-isnt-rolling-out-the-red-carpet/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/for-the-rich-one-nation-isnt-rolling-out-the-red-carpet/#respond Fri, 07 Jun 2024 16:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1267525 Do you think the rich have life easy, do you? Just try telling that to the deep pockets who’ve spent tens of millions buying condos at 432 Park Avenue, the 11-year-old Manhattan luxury tower that once rated as our hemisphere’s tallest residence. Condo owners in the tower have had to put up with “faulty elevators, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/for-the-rich-one-nation-isnt-rolling-out-the-red-carpet/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/can-democracy-and-billionaires-coexist/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/can-democracy-and-billionaires-coexist/#respond Fri, 31 May 2024 16:21:21 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1267173 One person, one vote. The classic essence of democracy. But what if that one person happens to be a fabulously rich? Does that one person actually have just “one” vote? Can we have anything approaching democracy when some among us are sitting on fortunes grander than the rest of us can even imagine? Americans have [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/can-democracy-and-billionaires-coexist/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/massachusetts-proves-it-is-possible-to-make-the-wealthy-pay-their-fair-share/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/massachusetts-proves-it-is-possible-to-make-the-wealthy-pay-their-fair-share/#respond Sun, 26 May 2024 14:30:47 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1266954 This spring has been an exceedingly good one for Flightline Aviation Limited, a London-based enterprise that specializes in helping the world’s deepest pockets find the private jet of their dreams. “We have closed six sales in the past five weeks,” Flightline’s Anna Campbell gushed at London’s most celebrated luxury trade fair earlier this month. “Everyone seems to want to [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/massachusetts-proves-it-is-possible-to-make-the-wealthy-pay-their-fair-share/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-massachusetts-some-tax-the-rich-inspiration/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-massachusetts-some-tax-the-rich-inspiration/#respond Fri, 24 May 2024 16:21:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1266866 This spring has been an exceedingly good one for Flightline Aviation Limited, a London-based enterprise that specializes in helping the world’s deepest pockets find the private jet of their dreams. “We have closed six sales in the past five weeks,” Flightline’s Anna Campbell gushed at London’s most celebrated luxury trade fair earlier this month. “Everyone seems to want to [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-massachusetts-some-tax-the-rich-inspiration/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-toughest-job-todays-richest-ever-face/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-toughest-job-todays-richest-ever-face/#respond Thu, 16 May 2024 17:01:49 +0000 Once upon a time, back in the middle of the 20th century, the smallest theater on Broadway could have comfortably accommodated a get-together of all the New Yorkers worth at least $100 million. Not anymore. Broadway’s landmark Helen Hayes Theater holds a mere 597 seats. The number of “centi-millionaires” who currently call the City of New York home: 744. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-toughest-job-todays-richest-ever-face/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-well-heeled-and-our-personal-well-being/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-well-heeled-and-our-personal-well-being/#respond Sat, 04 May 2024 11:51:26 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1265886 Just what exactly happens when a society becomes substantially more unequal, when a few become fabulously richer than the many? Defenders of our deepest pockets have a ready answer. What happens when wealth starts concentrating at a society’s summit? Nothing we need worry about. In fact, the richer our richest become, these cheerleaders for grand [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-well-heeled-and-our-personal-well-being/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/are-the-flat-tax-folks-winning-or-have-they-already-won/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/are-the-flat-tax-folks-winning-or-have-they-already-won/#respond Sun, 21 Apr 2024 15:03:13 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1265319 What makes an income tax “fair”? Right-wing lawmakers the nation over have a ready answer. To be fair, they tell us, an income tax needs to be “flat.” Their core claim: In an evenhanded tax system with no axe to grind, everyone would pay tax at the same rate. What approach, flat taxers argue, could [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/are-the-flat-tax-folks-winning-or-have-they-already-won/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mass-layoffs-have-our-rich-thriving-and-workers-writhing/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mass-layoffs-have-our-rich-thriving-and-workers-writhing/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 15:58:02 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1264978 How do you know when you can finally rate as certifiably super rich? One simple test: You can look at the menu that greeted the over 100 wealthy souls who gathered earlier this month at the Palm Beach home of hedge fund billionaire John Paulson and understand exactly what you’re going to be feasting upon. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mass-layoffs-have-our-rich-thriving-and-workers-writhing/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shouldnt-every-american-enjoy-the-luxury-of-a-roof/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shouldnt-every-american-enjoy-the-luxury-of-a-roof/#respond Tue, 02 Apr 2024 16:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1264517 America, a new report details, is minting millionaires at a record pace. Some 37 percent of the world’s millionaires, analysts at the wealth advisory firm Henley & Partners calculate, now call the United States home. And these analysts are talking real millionaires, not those Americans who rate as “millionaires” only because they’re living in homes that have wildly [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shouldnt-every-american-enjoy-the-luxury-of-a-roof/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/for-americas-wealthy-a-sweet-start-to-our-21st-century/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/for-americas-wealthy-a-sweet-start-to-our-21st-century/#respond Fri, 15 Mar 2024 12:44:21 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1263655 How those years do fly by. We’ve now come nearly a quarter of the way through our 21st century.  Who’s “winning” this century so far? An easy question to answer: the richest among us. Those rich are riding high. In the Hamptons, the prime Long Island summer getaway for Wall Street’s finest, realtors are now [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/for-americas-wealthy-a-sweet-start-to-our-21st-century/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gilded-age-then-the-gildest-age-now/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gilded-age-then-the-gildest-age-now/#respond Sun, 10 Mar 2024 13:23:42 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1263389 How many people in India are going hungry? Researchers working on the Global Hunger Index are currently tracking 125 nations across the world. Exactly 110 of those nations, those researchers reported last fall, are suffering less hunger than India. But India, by contrast, is doing quite well on the gluttony front. Few nations today can lay claim to a [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gilded-age-then-the-gildest-age-now/feed/ 0