Professor Stiglitz,

I was surfing and caught the last few moments of your Bill Moyers nightmare, part 1. I focused at about the point where you impugned CEOs first for smugly suggesting that they aren’t “economists” NO, they aren’t and don’t have the luxury of fleecing Columbia University families for their financial survival. They are actually accountable to the market.

Second, what you were describing, but didn’t identify, is “rent-seeking.” And, indeed they are masterful. But, eliminating every conceivable “loophole” does nothing to stem suckling from the government teet and the partnerships formed to advantage one firm over another, much as Barry Obama’s friends Jeff Immelt and Jamie Dimon have done. You may remember Dwight Eisenhower warning about the “military-industrial complex.” He warned of rent-seeking. He was right.

Serious reductions of the corporate federal income tax, perhaps to zero after eliminating “loopholes” is the obvious answer and would cause many firms to repatriate vast sums, IF, and only if our tax code and business climate promote growth.

Further, you described “loopholes” to include taxation of “capital gains” and “high frequency” trading in the same sentence – one and the same. Clearly your knowledge of tax is limited. High frequency trading is not advantaged by a lower tax rate that applies to capital assets held one year or longer.

You count on an endless supply of ignorance and ambivalence among the U.S. electorate which allows your simple moral preening. That Bill Moyers is so gullible is sad but clear.

Alas, ignorance is our most expensive commodity.