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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Eduardo Porter

The survival of American democracy depends on taxing billionaires

Rally crowd listens to Bernie Sanders, with
Supporters listen to Senator Bernie Sanders during a campaign rally in support of California Proposition 40, known as the billionaire tax, in Los Angeles, on 5 October 2026. Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP

Money doesn’t buy happiness, we’re told. Even some economists agree. The Nobel Prize-winning economists, Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, once proposed that rising income increased people’s emotional wellbeing only up to a ceiling of about $115,000 in today’s money.

They probably hadn’t met many billionaires. The ultra-rich may not pursue happiness in the joyful sense of the word. But they will try every trick in the book to hang on to their stash and woe befall the tax authority that tries to lay a finger on their treasure.

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