America's Billionaires: Borrowing Their Way to Ever More Fabulous Fortunes [View all]

[douglas9]

No widely acclaimed artist in the 20th century baited and battled the rich with as much gusto as Diego Rivera. The Mexican painter’s Great Depression-era confrontation with Nelson Rockefeller, then the twenty-something grandson of the world’s single richest individual, captured front-page real estate all across the United States — and far beyond.

The Rockefeller family had hired Rivera to paint the artistic centerpiece of the newly constructed Rockefeller Center in New York. Rivera’s resulting mural contrasted the “debauched rich” with workers on the rise. Right-wingers went apoplectic. Young Nelson, getting hammered, asked Rivera to remove an image of Lenin from the mural. Rivera refused, offering instead to add a portrait of Lincoln.

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How can art like Rivera’s be subsidizing the super rich? These awesomely affluent are using their art collections — and any other assets they may hold, everything from classic car collections to shares of stock in the companies they run — as collateral for loans from America’s biggest banks. Why would billionaires need loans? The simple answer: They don’t need loans. They need tax breaks, and they can get them by borrowing — at exceedingly low interest rates — off their mountains of assets.


https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/02/americas-billionaires-borrowing-their-way-to-ever-more-fabulous-fortunes/