I would argue to my wealthy cohort and billionaires and others, it's not in our interest to allow these inequalities to keep festering and growing.

We can't have rich people opting out and building little landing strips in New Zealand where they're going to ride out the apocalypse and let everyone else be damned.

Welcome back to the podcast, bribe, swindle or steel.

I'm Alexander Rogge, and today we bring you another in our ongoing series about the impact of extreme wealth.

As in past episodes, we're speaking with guests who have a unique portal into this world

and have been willing to share their thoughts on how it changes the rules that people live by.

We're continuing our Extreme Wealth series with a conversation today with Chuck Collins.

Chuck is the director of the program on inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies.

He's a prolific author on the

subjects of inequality, the racial wealth divide philanthropy, and billionaire wealth dynasties. He's also

a founding member of patriotic millionaires, a group of high net worth Americans who advocate

for public policies, including higher taxes on the wealthy, meant to rein in the political power of the richest Americans.

Chuck, thank you for joining me.

Hey, thanks for having me, Alexandra.

Can we start with the more personal and then maybe move to the public work that you have done?

Most people don't give away their inheritance, but that's exactly what you did when you were 26 years old.

What motivated you to do that and then perhaps put that in the context of why you think

that's a minority of people that do that?

Yeah, so the context is I won the lottery at birth. I picked successful parents and grandparents.

My great-grandfather was the Meatpacker, Oscar Meyer. And when I was in a teenager,

my dad told me, I've set up a trust friend for you, you're going to inherit substantial wealth.

You may not have to work, but work is really important. He's sort of giving me his pep talk about work.

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