Extreme Wealth – Episode 7: Chuck Collins and the Burdens of Dynastic Wealth
Release Date: 11/06/2024
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Karen Benson, Associate VP and Assistant Chief Compliance Officer with Royal Caribbean Cruises, shares a broad range of tips on how to build a targeted, innovative training program that keeps employs interested and engaged.
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This week’s podcast features an excellent presentation by Misti Mukherjee, founder and managing member of Extensio Law. Misti addresses the shifting field of diversity, equity and inclusion—including recent changes to the law—and emphasizes the critical importance of this work alongside the need to approach it with intentionality and discipline. This episode was originally published on 5 August 2024.
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Chuck Duross, partner with Morrison Foerster and former head of the DOJ’s FCPA unit, discusses lures, stings, wiretaps and INTERPOL Red Notices.
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Nick McKenzie tells the exciting story of his role in the investigation into Unaoil.
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Author, academic and former compliance professional, Alison Taylor joins the podcast to talk about her compelling book, "Higher Ground". She describes the contradictions inherent in companies that talk about “doing well by doing good” and explains why corporate reputation management can’t be an end in itself and how trying to do less can be the best strategy. “You don’t have to join every conversation”. This episode was originally published on 14 February 2024.
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Diana Henriques, award-winning journalist and author, discusses the traits of fraudsters and the menace of reputation laundering. This episode was originally published on 3 August 2024.
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Melissa Goldin, a NY-based News Verification Reporter and Editor with The Associated Press analyzes and debunks fake news. This episode was originally published on 24 July 2024.
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This week, we’re listening in on Alexandra Wrage’s keynote presentation at a Whistleblowers and Public Integrity conference hosted by the Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute (VACI). She addresses the incredible personal price that whistleblowers pay when they’re driven to expose misconduct, explores how we can begin to shift the tone of the discussion around reporting and notes how difficult it is to uncover financial crime without whistleblowers. This episode was originally published on 16 November 2022.
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Paul Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist at the Financial Times and Author of “A Death in Malta”, joins the podcast to talk about the work of his mother, Daphne, the growing danger she perceived as her investigations reached the highest circles of power in Malta, and now the criminal proceedings against the two men who killed her. Paul also discusses the Daphne Foundation and the incredible journalistic community that worked together, again, to prove that killing a journalist won’t kill their story. This episode was originally published on 12 October 2022.
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At the TRACE Prize for Investigative Reporting award ceremony last month, former prosecutor and National Observer columnist Sandy Garossino led a conversation with ICIJ’s Spencer Woodman, Bellingcat’s Aric Toler, and 2022 Prize winners Hans Peterson Hammer of Göteborgs-Posten and Lilia Saúl Rodriguez of the OCCRP. They discuss the evolution, impact and future of cross-border collaborative investigative journalism. This episode was originally published on 20 July 2022.
info_outlineIn his mid-20s, Chuck Collins made a fateful choice. The great-grandson of Oscar Meyer, and thus an heir to part of the meatpacker’s family fortune, Chuck was skeptical of the riches (some $500,000 in 1986 dollars). He didn’t want to perpetuate the imbalances he saw dynastic wealth creating in society. Rather than live off the interest, or to give a portion to charity, Chuck gave away the entire inheritance, and thus embarked on a most unusual sort of normal life.
In this episode, Chuck explains what reverberations his decision to give away his inheritance had on his family and in his career, and he lays out his case to other similarly privileged Americans: Why life is better without the insulation that great wealth provides, and how billionaires can rejoin American life.
Chuck Collins is the director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he edits Inequality.org. He is also a founding member of Patriotic Millionaires, a group of high-net-worth Americans who advocate for public policies — including higher taxes on the wealthy — meant to rein in the political power of the richest Americans. His prolific writings focus on inequality, the racial wealth divide, philanthropy, the climate crisis, and billionaire wealth dynasties. His forthcoming book "Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power and Ruining Our Lives and Planet" will be published in 2025.