January 18 – Obama’s Proposal to Tax the 1% of the 1%; Is China’s Anti-Corruption Crusade a Stalinist Purge?; A Third Generation Asymmetrical War Underway in Europe

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with President Obama’s proposals to increase taxes on the wealthy to benefit the middle class which he will outline in Tuesday’s State of the Union address. Joining us is Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston, whose reporting has uncovered so many loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code that he has been called the “de facto tax enforcement officer of the United States”. We discuss the details of the president’s proposals and the expected opposition from Republicans who are cutting the IRS’s budget and changing the way the impact of tax cuts on government revenues is measured to disguise the increase in the deficit.

Part 2

Then we look into the anti-corruption crusade launched by China’s President Xi Jinping that looks to many analysts as a Stalinist purge of political rivals rather than a genuine effort to clean up endemic corruption. Andrew Nathan, a Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and the author of “China’s Transition: The Tiananmen Papers”, joins us to discuss what Xi’s endgame might be given the selective nature of the purges underway in China as Xi and his fellow “princelings”, descendents of senior Communist Party founders, continue to enjoy unimaginable power and wealth while crushing any possible threats to their power.

Part 3

Then finally we discuss the recent terrorist attacks in Paris as representing a third generation of asymmetrical war, with the first stage in Afghanistan and Iraq itself, the second stage the London and Madrid bombings, and Paris and Belgium reflecting the third stage. Saskia Sassen, the Co-Chair of The Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University and author of the new book “When Territory Exits Existing Frameworks”, joins us to discuss how cities have become the front lines of conflict and violence stemming from the increased mobility between Europe and theaters of war in the Middle East.