Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett are three of the richest people in the world, but they pay little in income tax relative to their wealth.

In 2021, ProPublica published an investigation built on leaked tax documents that reveal what some of the richest Americans really pay ? or don?t. Warren Buffett had a true tax rate of 0.1 percent. Jeff Bezos: 0.98 percent. Michael Bloomberg: 1.3 percent.

Ultra-wealthy Americans have essentially been written out of the tax system. ?It?s wrong as a matter of principle. It?s wrong because we need their money. It?s wrong as a matter of fairness. It is wrong for so many reasons,? the law professor Ray Madoff told me.

She?s the author of the new book ?The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy,? and she?s interested in helping people understand how broken the American tax system is and how to fix it.

In this conversation, we discuss the techniques the ultra-wealthy use to evade the tax system, why they think ?salaries are for suckers? and what tax reform could look like.

Mentioned:

?The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax? by Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel

The Second Estate by Ray D. Madoff

Taxation: The People?s Business by Andrew W. Mellon

Philanthrocapitalism by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green

Book Recommendations:

The Age of Extraction by Tim Wu

The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order by Gary Gerstle

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of ?The Ezra Klein Show? was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Lauren Reddy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Edward Fox.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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For decades, most discussions of Israel and Palestine were framed around the eventual creation of a two-state solution. That effort has been dead for years. What has emerged in its place is what the political scientists Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami call the ?one-state reality.? Their book on this ? edited with Michael Barnett and Nathan Brown ? came out before Oct. 7, 2023.

Since Oct. 7, that reality has become further entrenched: There?s been a record pace of settlement construction in the West Bank. Israel now occupies more than half the territory of Gaza. And Israel?s push into Lebanon has displaced more than a million people.

So what does it mean to reckon with Israel?s one-state reality ? to see the facts on the ground rather than the frames of the past?

Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, College Park. Marc Lynch is the director of the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University. Lynch is the author, most recently, of ?America?s Middle East: The Ruination of a Region.?

Mentioned:

?Israel?s One-State Reality? by Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami

The One State Reality by Michael Barnett, Nathan J. Brown, Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami

Israel?s Religiously Divided Society, Pew Research Center

Summary of a Year of Terror, Expulsion, and Annexation ? 2025 in the Settlements, Peace Now

Book Recommendations:

Justice for Some by Noura Erakat

Wars of Ambition by Afshon Ostovar

The Second Emancipation by Howard W. French

Mayors in the Middle by Diana B. Greenwald

Israel by Omer Bartov

Tomorrow Is Yesterday by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of ?The Ezra Klein Show? was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Mark Mazzetti.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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When President Trump didn?t annihilate ?a whole civilization? on Tuesday, as he had threatened to do, much of the world exhaled. But the damage of his statements ? a U.S. president, the commander in chief of the world?s most powerful military, threatening to commit war crimes ? continues to linger in the shadow of an uncertain cease-fire.

Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN?s ?Fareed Zakaria GPS? and the author of ?Age of Revolutions? and other books. In this conversation, we discuss whether Trump?s threats on Truth Social worked as a negotiating tactic, the significance of crossing this kind of moral line and how the decline of American leadership is already reshaping the world.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

Age of Revolutions by Fareed Zakaria

?The Predatory Hegemon? by Stephen M. Walt

?Iran is an imperial trap. America walked right in.? by Fareed Zakaria

Book Recommendations:

A World Safe for Democracy by G. John Ikenberry

The Irony of American History by Reinhold Niebuhr

The Quiet American by Graham Greene

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of ?The Ezra Klein Show? was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Jack McCordick, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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In a couple weeks, the archives of our show will only be available to subscribers. Here?s why that?s happening and what to expect. 

To learn more, go to nytimes.com/podcasts.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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Every Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation about something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What is the future of the Republican Party? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike?

Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

?The Ezra Klein Show? is produced by Rogé Karma and Jeff Geld; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.