How Biden’s budget proposal takes on corporate power (with Niko Lusiani)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

The Biden Administration’s 2023 budget proposal includes a Billionaire Minimum Income Tax and a rewrite of stock buyback practices. Will these changes actually take effect? If so, will they do enough to curb runaway corporate power? Niko Lusiani from the Roosevelt Institute breaks down what’s inside Biden’s budget. Niko Lusiani is the Director of Corporate Power at the Roosevelt Institute. Twitter: @NikoLusiani Budget of the U.S. Government https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/budget_fy2023.pdf Roosevelt Institute Responds to Billionaire Minimum Income Tax Proposal in Biden Administration FY 2023 Budget https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2022/03/28/statement-roosevelt-institute-responds-to-billionaire-minimum-income-tax-proposal/ Starbucks Halts Stock Buybacks as Schultz Returns https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2022-04-04/starbucks-halts-stock-buybacks-as-schultz-pivots-to-workers#:~:text=Starbucks%20announced%20late%20last%20year,the%20company%20announced%20in%202018 Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	We're going to be talking about the Biden administration's proposed 2023 budget.
0:06.0	A lot of the proposals in there affect corporate power indirectly and in a very intentional way.
0:13.0	Yeah, power is the dark matter of economics.
0:16.0	You know, there's a few thousand unelected corporate executives and shareholders and big institutions
0:21.0	and small ones that are making the decisions, really critical decisions that affect the way
0:26.0	trillions of dollars move through our economy.
0:31.0	From the home offices of civic ventures in downtown Seattle, this is pitch-fork economics,
0:37.0	with Nick Hanauer, the best place to get the truth about who gets what and why.
0:54.0	Goldie, today on the podcast, we get to talk to Nico Luciani,
0:58.0	who has this fantastic title, which is the director of corporate power at the Roosevelt Institute.
1:06.0	And I'm just amnesmerized by that title.
1:09.0	I don't think it implies that he's in charge of all power at the Roosevelt Institute.
1:15.0	Or an electrical utility, because that's what I see that I think of like Seattle City light.
1:21.0	Exactly.
1:23.0	But all joking aside, I think that, you know, it's really exciting to get to talk to somebody
1:29.0	who is focused on the real work of economics, which is dealing with power, unequal amounts of power.
1:38.0	I think what we said in the podcast before, power is the dark matter of economics.
1:44.0	It makes up close to 85% of what matters, but it's really hard to see or characterize or quantify.
1:51.0	And that's why Orthodox economists ignore it, because it gets in the way of their bullshit theories.
1:58.0	And we actually talk about power, then all of this supply demand curve stuff like its physics.
2:06.0	It doesn't work anymore.
2:08.0	And it's particularly telling Nick, because we're going to be talking about the Biden administration's proposed 2023 budget.
	...

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