# Inequality: American Buy, Borrow, and Die vs. Scandinavian Wage Compression Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/unintended-consequences-6333409/inequality-american-buy-borrow-and-die-vs-scandinavian-wage-compression Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/unintended-consequences-6333409/inequality-american-buy-borrow-and-die-vs-scandinavian-wage-compression.md Podcast: [Unintended Consequences](https://stenobird.com/podcast/unintended-consequences-6333409) Published: 2025-08-14T12:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.cato.org/multimedia/unintended-consequences/inequality-american-buy-borrow-die-vs-scandinavian-wage Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/643947a1309d10001195d3e7/e/689dc83bb9b9dae0c7e276eb/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/unintended-consequences-6333409/episodes/inequality-american-buy-borrow-and-die-vs-scandinavian-wage-compression Duration seconds: 2125 ## Resource Wealthy Americans are able to avoid taxes through an accounting strategy known as “buy, borrow, and die.” It’s why Donald Trump is able to pay as little as $0 in federal income taxes some years. But, as Peter and Paul discuss, it turns out that the strategy might work differently than researchers used to think.  Then, in the second half of the show, they discuss a surprising finding about income equality in Scandanavia, which isn’t a product of any of popular progressive redistribution policies like welfare benefits or parental leave. Rather, it’s because of significant wage compression and reduced income for highly educated workers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/unintended-consequences-6333409/episodes/inequality-american-buy-borrow-and-die-vs-scandinavian-wage-compression/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/unintended-consequences-6333409/inequality-american-buy-borrow-and-die-vs-scandinavian-wage-compression.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.