PAUL RYAN: If you tax something more, Chris, you get less of it. He said higher levels of taxation on the wealthy would reduce job creation and investment. Chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, was critical.

The idea of renegotiating them becomes unthinkable.” ĪMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about President Obama’s announcement of the Buffett Rule.ĪMY GOODMAN: As we’re broadcasting now, he has not yet made that announcement. They’re not anything set in stone,” says Graeber, author of “Debt: The First 5,000 Years.” “It’s, generally speaking, when you have debts owed by the poor to the rich that suddenly debts become a sacred obligation, more important than anything else. “Debts between the very wealthy or between governments can always be renegotiated and always have been throughout world history.

His wife, Nika Dubrovsky, tweeted on September 3, “Yesterday the best person in a world, my husband and my friend… died in a hospital in Venice.” Graeber was a world-renowned anthropologist who is often credited with coming up with part of the slogan, “We are the 99 percent.” Watch Part 1 of our interview with Graeber, just days after the 2011 launch of “Occupy Wall Street.”Īs President Obama prepares to outline a deficit-reduction plan that includes tax increases, as well as cuts to programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, anthropologist David Graeber proposes a radical solution: cancel the debt of the nation’s poor. Editor’s Note: David Graeber has died at the age of 59.

Graeber 2011