Thank you, Bobby

 

The Ancient Mediterranean Diet Wasn’t What You Think

It wasn't as defined as it is today

By Konstantine Panegyres, University of Western Australia

This terracotta depiction of a baker sitting in front of an oven dates from the early 5th century BCE. Credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

For Roman emperor Julian (332–363 CE), bread occupied a central place at the table. He described it as the food that “among us is thought to be the most nourishing.”

That emphasis reflected everyday eating across much of the ancient Mediterranean. Bread and other foods made from cereals formed the foundation of many diets, supplemented by pulses, oil, wine, and whatever seasonal produce was available.

The result looked quite different from the modern idea of the “Mediterranean diet,” with its familiar emphasis on vegetables, olive oil, and grilled fish.

Bread may have been indispensable in Julian’s Roman world, but not everyone considered it desirable. Ethiopians who relied on meat and milk regarded bread as poor food with little nutritional value.

They wondered how Mediterranean peoples could survive on a “diet of dung.”

Booga booga!

Elon Musk’s Fortune Comes From Not Paying Taxes

So why does he complain all the time?

By Stephen Land, Bob Lord 

The valuation trends up and down, but one thing’s for sure: Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire this summer. At the height of the SpaceX IPO he was briefly worth around $1.45 trillion.

Then SpaceX stock tanked, rallied, then tanked again. But the most important thing about Musk’s wealth isn’t whether it stays above the 13-figure threshold — it’s that 94 percent of it comes from not having to pay taxes on unrealized gains.

That’s right: Musk’s fortune effectively comes from not paying taxes.

It’s no exaggeration to say that trillionaires (Musk likely won’t be the last) are creatures of the tax code. 

They ought to be called “taxillionaires.” If it weren’t for laws that permit the wealthy to endlessly defer paying taxes by keeping their gains unrealized, there would be no trillionaires — and many fewer billionaires.

According to Musk’s own account, when he sold his stake in Paypal in 2002, he netted $180 million, invested it all in SpaceX and Tesla, and borrowed to pay his living expenses. To get from $180 million to a trillion today implies annual returns of over 40 percent (returns that would be considered impossible for ordinary investors).

Allowing these returns to compound untaxed supercharges growth.

Musk paid some taxes along the way, when he exercised stock options or sold some Tesla shares, but any taxes he paid are insignificant compared to his wealth. By contrast, for most working Americans earning a good salary, total state and federal taxes are significant — typically around 40 percent.

Voters Are Realizing that Trump Doesn’t Care About Them

He has his own priorities

Mark Schauer for Common Dreams

This month, the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law—without Donald Trump’s signature, exactly as he’d threatened. It’s a small, recent example of a much bigger habit: Trump keeps showing voters exactly how little he thinks of them. 

The bill wasn’t controversial at all. It was negotiated by both parties’ top committee members and aimed squarely at lowering housing costs. 

But Trump let it sit for weeks rather than sign it, hoping to extract an unrelated voter-suppression bill in return.

At this point, childish behavior from the president shouldn’t be surprising.

In his first inaugural address, Trump claimed to be the champion of America’s “forgotten men and women.” But it was a lie from the start. He never cared about the poor and marginalized. 

He cared about cutting taxes for his friends; scapegoating immigrants for the struggles of the working class; and restoring a mythical era of American “greatness” characterized by the supremacy of straight, white, Christian males.

Although his lie was obvious, it was also effective. In 2016, Trump won around one-eighth of voters who’d supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Democratic primaries. In 2024, he significantly increased his share of the Black and Hispanic vote. 

When Trump calls Democratic Socialists "communists," what's he talking about?

 

The Richest 10% Cause up to $5.7 Trillion in Environmental Damage Each Year

Anyone surprised?

By University of Oxford

A relatively small share of the world’s population may be causing environmental damage on the same financial scale as the global effort needed to repair it. 

According to a new study, the highest-consuming 10% of people generate an estimated $1.7 trillion to $5.7 trillion in environmental harm each year, several times more, at the central and upper estimates, than current international commitments for climate action and biodiversity conservation combined.

Published in Communications Sustainability, the analysis places a monetary value on damage across four major planetary boundaries: climate change, biodiversity loss, nutrient pollution, and freshwater use. 

The findings offer a stark measure of how heavily environmental pressures are concentrated among the world’s most resource-intensive consumers.

Elon Musk becomes the world's first trillionaire

Did Larry Ellison (above left) play a Klingon in the original Star Trek?

New Trump plan would put healthcare decisions in the hands of Trump political appointees

Politics Should Never Decide Who Gets Care

Teri Mills and Donna A. Gaffney for Common Dreams   

As a nurse educator and a psychiatric-mental health nurse, we have built our careers on evidence-based practice, ethics, and compassion when caring for patients. Politics never entered the picture. Our responsibility has always been to provide care guided by science, professional standards, and the individual needs of our patients, not political ideology or partisan priorities. That is why the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed rule, Docket OMB-2026-0034, which would hand healthcare funding decisions to political appointees, stops us cold.

At first glance, this proposal may sound administrative or technical. In reality, it would fundamentally alter how federally funded healthcare, nursing education, behavioral health programs, and scientific research are approved, monitored, and terminated. Under rule §200.340, any grant can be ended at any point if it no longer aligns with the priorities of the administration. That is not oversight. It is political control.

For nurses, the consequences would not be abstract. They would be immediate, personal, and dangerous for the patients we care for.

Whodunnit?

They don't want you to know the REAL reason Social Security is in trouble

But I'm going to tell you anyway

Robert Reich

The trustees of the Social Security fund said Tuesday that the fund will be depleted by late 2032, a year earlier than the trustees’ projection last year of 2033. If nothing is done, benefits will automatically be cut six years from now.

The common understanding is that Social Security’s shortfall is due to the huge postwar baby boom, now retiring, and to America’s increasing life expectancy. The usual recommended fix is to reduce Social Security benefits or raise the age of eligibility. As Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, warned Monday, “entitlement programs” like Social Security “have to be adjusted and fixed.” He said Republicans will introduce a plan to do that. Brace yourselves.

I used to be a Social Security trustee, and I call bullsh*t.

The baby boom can’t be blamed for Social Security’s shortfall. The Greenspan Commission, which in 1983 recommended the reforms that Congress then made — raising Social Security payroll taxes and also raising the eligibility age for collecting Social Security benefits — knew all about the baby boom and figured it into its calculations. (Early boomers like me can now start collecting full benefits at age 66; late boomers born after 1960 have to wait until they’re 67 to collect full benefits.)

Americans’ increasing life expectancy isn’t at fault, either. While wealthier Americans are living longer, that’s not the case for lower-income Americans. The Urban Institute estimates that life expectancy in the top 20 percent of income-earners is 91 years for people born in the 1990s, four years more than people born in the 1950s. Yet the life expectancy in the lowest 20 percent of income-earners is fewer than 80 years.

So what’s the real cause of the Social Security shortfall? What did Greenspan’s commission fail to predict? Widening inequality.

Remember, the Social Security payroll tax applies only to earnings up to a certain cap. This year, that cap is $184,500. Earnings at or below this amount are taxed at 12.4 percent. The cap rises every year according to a formula roughly matching inflation.

FY27 budget heads to Gov. McKee’s desk after Senate approval

Republicans fail in effort to remove new tax on the rich

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

A $15.2 billion budget — the highest state spending plan on record — heads to Gov. Dan McKee’s desk, following the Rhode Island Senate’s approval Tuesday.

The upper chamber’s 32-6 vote followed more than two hours of debate and a dozen failed amendments, including three Republican-led attempts to strike down or weaken the millionaire’s tax headlining the fiscal 2027 budget. All four chamber Republicans voted against the budget, along with Democrats Sam Bell of Providence and Leo Raptakis of Coventry.

The Senate’s blessing marks the penultimate hurdle for the tax-and-spend plan ahead of the July 1 start date. But where McKee stands remains in question — especially because last year he declined to sign the budget, letting it take effect without his signature. 

The governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

The budget features a 1% increase in taxes on income over $1 million, followed by 1% increases in the next two years, rather than the 3% hike in one year McKee proposed in January. Lawmakers explained the phased-in approach would strike a balance between revenue generation that offsets federal funding cuts and economic and business development. 

Taxing top earners has dominated debate throughout the legislative session, including across the rotunda on Friday, where the Rhode Island House of Representatives reviewed and ultimately approved a carbon copy of the spending plan, again with opposition from its 10 Republican members.

Revenue for Rhode Islanders Coalition urge General Assembly to tax the rich

They can afford it and it's the right thing to do

Steve Ahlquist

As the Rhode Island House releases the FY2027 state budget, the Revenue for Rhode Islanders Coalition and more than 50 statewide organizations and businesses¹ are calling on legislative leaders to meet this moment with courage and urgency by including meaningful revenue solutions — including the top one percent surtax proposal — in the final budget. On Thursday, they held a rally outside the Rhode Island State House and then went inside to lobby in both chambers.

“We are here to demand that lawmakers tax the rich,” said emcee Alisha Pina, director of Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty. “We are here today because we know Rhode Island needs more revenue. We are here today because most of us are not thriving; we are struggling paycheck to paycheck. We know that tax fairness and more revenue from the 1% will bring in more money that we all need. Rhode Island can take care of itself, and we do that by doing it together. We know that federal cuts will be on the order of $400 million for fiscal year 2028, so the money found a few weeks ago is not enough. What we need is tax fairness, and tax fairness means taxing the top 1% to bring in more money for all of us and to address the inequities we see every day in education, housing, and healthcare.

“We need money for childcare, the unhoused, RIPTA, and healthcare. Every session, we tell our legislators the same thing: It is your moral obligation to help all of us, not just some of us. To think that the budget that’s going to be announced tomorrow may not include any millionaires or 1% tax ... It’s not fair, logical, or good for Rhode Island. We’re here to demand what we need. Listen to your taxpayers. We’re the ones who elect you, and yet you make decisions that are against what we want. That’s why we’re here today.”

“In April 1978, martyr and Saint Óscar Romero wrote, ‘A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed -- what gospel is that?’² The original column was written for an archdiocesan newspaper in response to secular attacks from the Salvadorian oligarchy, corrupt and fraudulent leadership supported by the U.S. government,” said Jeremy Langill, Executive Minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches. “Romero had been accused of being a communist, but like many inspired by liberation theology and the reality that the gospels compelled action, he continued to insist that his care and support for the rights of the poor were a matter of faith.

“But Saint Romero is not the only leader who understood the Christian call to action. Karl Barth, arguably the most preeminent Protestant theologian of the 20th century, wrote that the churches have injured the cause of the gospel by the way they have identified the gospel with the badly planned and ineptly guided cause of the West. Bart, too, was responding to claims that he was a crypto-communist because of his consistent critique of the attempt to identify Christian faith post World War II with the economic and political systems of the United States. His commentary was theological. It was grounded in the gospel. It could not be assimilated into market forces that prioritized profits over people.

“Friends, a marginal tax rate on the top 1% is, to speak simply, a no-brainer. It’s a no-brainer because it does not even get close to addressing the deep structural inequities that drive our dystopian and immoral economic reality. It merely addresses a symptom, the excessive accumulation of wealth by a handful of people. As a minister of the gospel of Christ, I already know what Jesus thinks about wealth. The gospels go straight to the heart of the matter: ‘The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.’ (Matthew 20:16) It is a teaching that comes just after the parable of the workers in the vineyard, where the manager paid every employee equally, regardless of the number of hours they worked.

Corruptonomics

A memo to Democratic candidates on connecting Trump’s lousy economy to his corrupt regime.

Robert Reich

Friends,

Here’s a memo to Democrats as they begin campaigning in earnest for control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections. (Please send to any candidates you care about.)

***

TO: Democratic candidates in the 2026 midterm elections

RE: Connect Trump’s lousy economy to his corrupt regime.

The purpose of this memo is to help you shape your midterm message around the crisis of affordability and Trump Republican corruption. I urge you to present these two issues as aspects of the same underlying problem: The economy is lousy for most Americans because Trump Republicans are enabling super-rich oligarchs to siphon off most of its gains while exerting increasing control over it. Their — and Trump’s — self-dealing is undermining trust and confidence in the U.S. economic system.

1. Republicans in the House and Senate have put oligarchs in charge of America.

House and Senate Republicans have allowed Trump’s war and his tariffs to drive up prices and Trump’s corruption to undermine faith in the economy. They’ve allowed Trump to gild his White House in gold leaf, plan a giant Arc de Trump, throw lavish parties, and build a Billionaire’s Ballroom — at a time when most Americans can’t afford gas or groceries.

They raided Medicaid to pay for Trump’s giant tax cut, whose benefits are going mostly to the rich. Legislative efforts advanced by House Republicans and signed into law have targeted up to $2 trillion in federal health care cuts, forcing millions of Americans off Medicaid rolls to pay for these tax reductions.

They refused to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies. This is causing average premiums to more than double and has already pushed 1.2 million people off coverage because they can’t afford it. Coverage losses are mounting as many who initially selected a plan or who were automatically reenrolled have to drop coverage.

Big Tech oligarchs — centi-billionaires Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, Ellison, and other robber barons — paid for Trump’s 2024 election, his inauguration, and his ballroom and are major donors to Senate and House Republicans. They’ve shown up at Trump’s inauguration, White House dinners, and official visits to China.

In return, these oligarchs have been allowed to monopolize and drive up the prices we pay and silence Trump critics. Bezos’s Amazon, for example, won’t allow any seller on the site to post lower prices on any other site, and Bezos won’t allow his Washington Post editorial page to criticize Trump. Larry and David Ellison have bought CBS and sanitized “60 Minutes” of Trump criticism and effectively canceled Stephen Colbert. After buying X (formerly Twitter), Musk turned it into a pro-Trump voice box.

The AI oligarchs have bribed Trump and congressional Republicans to allow unfettered and unregulated growth of AI and its data centers, threatening millions of jobs and posing potential dangers to human life itself.

The crypto oligarchs have bribed Trump and congressional Republicans to allow them to create the world’s largest Ponzi scheme — which is enriching Trump and his family while providing a means for criminals to hide insider trades, child trafficking, and drug deals.

The Big Oil and aerospace oligarchs have bribed congressional Republicans to allow Trump to go to war in Iran, resulting in massive profits for Big Oil — while the rest of us pay $1.50 more per gallon of gas — and giant profits for giant military contractors.

This war spending has also contributed to higher inflation, which the rest of us pay for in higher mortgage rates and higher rates on car loans and education loans. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate has surged to over 6.6 percent, reaching its highest level in nearly nine months, driven by rising Treasury yields, higher oil prices, and broader economic inflation concerns stemming from the war in Iran. The major beneficiaries of these higher rates — who pocket the higher payments we have to make — are the biggest banks and super-rich who make the loans.

Oligarchs have also bribed Trump and congressional Republicans to (1) get no-bid contracts, (2) deregulate Wall Street, (3) roll back environmental safeguards and worker safety, and (4) get massive subsidies for their corporations — all of which have made them even richer while making life for the rest of us more dangerous and more costly.

Candidates for Governor talk taxes and the economy

Gubernatorial candidates Foulkes, Gregerson, Guckian, and McKee speak out at EPI Tax Policy Summit

Steve Ahlquist

Front runners Foulkes and McKee

“What I’m hearing is visionary leadership,” said Weayonnoh Nelson-Davies, executive director of the Economic Progress Institute (EPI), to the audience gathered in the Hotel Providence. “The people in this room want our leaders to be moved, to dream, and to make things possible. We want leaders who can confront affordability and energy costs, but what does that mean when we’re making policy?

“I’m really inspired by the message that we don’t want a Rhode Island where we are surviving, we want a Rhode Island where we can thrive. That is my dream. I’m so competitive. Rhode Island has been my home state since I immigrated to the United States at 16. I want us to win so bad. I want that fire in our guts. We can make everyone jealous because they don’t live in Rhode Island.

“I’m also very grateful to the candidates running for governor who showed up to not just share with us what they think,” concluded Nelson-Davies, “but to listen to what the people they might be leading tomorrow think as well.”

The Economic Progress Institute held the People’s Tax Policy Summit and Gubernatorial Candidates Reception on Wednesday. The event brought together residents, advocates, and state leaders to discuss rising living costs, tax equity, and the state’s financial future. Here’s the video:

Four candidates for governor, including Helena Foulkes, Will Gregerson, Aaron Guckian, and incumbent Daniel McKee, were provided three minutes to address those in attendance. The candidates were introduced by Chelsea Speaks, from the RICJ (Rhode Island for Community and Justice), and Joseph Ortiz, a “Tax Justice Ambassador” with ARISE (Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians).

The following has been edited for clarity.

Helena Foulkes

“It’s been so fascinating to listen to all of this, and I especially love Weayonnah’s call to all of us to be bold. It’s important. It’s easy to think about the barriers, but her challenge to dream big puts us on the map.

“Four years ago, I walked into a room of about 75 carpenters, and I’ll be honest with you, I thought I knew what that conversation was going to be about: wages, job sites, material costs, etc. Then the first man stood up and started talking about childcare. He talked about what it was doing to his family. I looked around the room and watched them nod, one after another, like he was saying out loud what all of them had been experiencing for years. That moment has never left me because that man wasn’t asking for anything special. He was asking for a Rhode Island that works for families like his, and we have not given it to him.

“The cost of infant care in this state is now higher than in-state college tuition and the average rent. The people who have been running this state will tell you we have universal pre-K, but they are not the parents on the waitlist, the ones who, year after year, get a letter that says there’s no more space.

“It’s not universal if it doesn’t apply to everyone. Less than a third of low-income children are enrolled in Head Start or pre-K. That is not a gap. That is a choice the people in charge of our state government have made year after year, with a $15 billion budget at their disposal. That ends with me.

“Earlier today, I announced the Rhode Island Employer Match Childcare Fund, a $20 million pilot that brings the state and Rhode Island employers together to share the cost of childcare. Employers who invest in childcare retain their workers, grow their teams, and build stronger companies. When families win, Rhode Island wins. I’ll expand tax credits for childcare assistance, and by the end of my second term, every Rhode Island family will have access to universal pre-kindergarten, not universal in name, universal in practice. Childcare is only the beginning because the truth is the squeeze does not stop there: Rhode Island is ranked dead last in the country in new housing starts last year. There’s not a single community in this state where a family making $100,000 a year can afford to buy a home.

“I hear it everywhere I go. People who grew up here, want to stay here, and love this state are being told by the cost of living that there’s no room for them anymore. That’s wrong, and it has to stop. My Rhode Island housing program will build 20,000 new homes and apartments that Rhode Islanders can actually afford, and the wealthiest Rhode Islanders will pay for it.

“And we’re done cutting RIPTA one year and then funding it again in an election year. If people can’t afford to live here and can’t afford to get to work, it doesn’t matter how many good jobs we attract or grow. I will invest $15 million in job access transit routes connecting workers to Quonset, hospitals, and other work sites. No one should have to leave a place they love because they can’t afford to stay.

“So here’s what I’m asking of you: Do not let them tell you this is the best we can do. Do not accept taglines that say ‘affordability for all’ when our state is not affordable. Talk to your neighbors, coworkers, and the parents on the wait list. Tell them things can be different.

“Sixteen years ago, I lost my mother to cancer. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through, but before she died, she gathered my siblings and me together, and she said something I’ve always carried with me: ‘Take care of each other.’ That’s why I’m running for governor, because that is what Rhode Island has always been at its best: Neighbors looking out for neighbors and people who show up for each other even when it’s hard. That’s the Rhode Island I believe in, and that is the Rhode Island we’re going to build together.”

Will the rich run away if Rhode Island tries to tax them?

Weayonnoh Nelson Davies & Patrick Crowley call out vague claims and weak evidence in RIPEC's anti-millionaires' tax report

SteveAhlquist.news

"With the report’s vagueness about the possibility of economic consequences and failure to quantify risk, RIPEC’s warnings ought not to persuade policymakers or anyone considering the evidence." 

The Economic Progress Institute (EPI) and Rhode Island AFL-CIO find that the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC)’s recent report, Rhode Island’s Millionaires’ Tax Proposal: The Economic Risks of Becoming Less Competitive and Losing Taxpayers, falls woefully short on data or evidence to justify its claims and opposition to raising taxes modestly on the state’s highest-income filers.

Here are the Top 5 reasons why the report is unreliable and misleading – plus a critique of the report’s main data point and statistical claim:

We need to take the threat of GOP LG candidate John Loughlin's bad economic policy seriously

He's also aligned with MAGA PACs in Rhode Island pushing for lower taxes for the rich 

Steve Ahlquist

Loughlin at left (facing away from camera) at a League of
RI Businesses PAC event. 
Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current)

In a press release, Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor John Loughlin, “[c]iting hard IRS migration data from Massachusetts and New York,” labeled the proposed 3% surtax on incomes over $1 million as a “proven job-killing, wealth-repelling mistake.” 

Unfortunately, the interpretation of the “hard IRS migration data” that Loughlin cites (without attribution) comes from the wealth lobby in the form of right-wing think tanks, such as Investment News and others. 

It ignores better studies from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities demonstrating that “[s]ince its implementation in 2023, the [Massachusetts] levy has delivered billions of dollars in new funding for transformative investments [like universal free school meals, fare-free buses, and affordable childcare.] The tax has also routinely exceeded initial revenue projections — outpacing expectations by $3 billion over roughly its first three years.”

Make $105 BILLION and pay NO taxes

New Study Reveals a Simple Life Is the Real Secret to Happiness

You don’t need to be rich although poverty is not fun 

Not to mention, life in New Zealand is different than here

By University of Otago

At a time when displays of extreme wealth dominate headlines and social media feeds, a new study suggests that more consumption does not necessarily translate into a better life.

Research from the University of Otago indicates that stepping away from material excess may be linked to greater day-to-day satisfaction and stronger social connections.

The team set out to examine how consumption relates to well-being. Their findings indicate that people report higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction when they adopt more sustainable lifestyles and resist consumer-driven habits.

The researchers analyzed data from a representative sample of more than 1,000 New Zealanders. The group included 51 percent men and 49 percent women, with a median age of 45 and a median annual household income of $50,000.

They found that embracing simple living, formally known as ‘voluntary simplicity,’ supports well-being by creating more opportunities for social interaction and meaningful connection. These benefits often arise in settings such as community gardens, shared resource systems, and peer-to-peer lending platforms, which differ from traditional market exchanges.

Surprising truths about America’s tax history

"The Price of Democracy"

By Gerald Scorse

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Taxes, for instance, have been changing and staying the same ever since Reagan and the 1980s: They’ve been heaven for corporations and the rich, purgatory or worse for everybody else.

Now comes a groundbreaking book that looks back not just decades but centuries. It’s Vanessa A. Williamson’s The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History. The surprises never stop coming.

Surprise No. 1, the Boston Tea Party. We’ve been brainwashed into believing that taxes were the cause. Not so; the Sons of Liberty were actually opposing the bailout of the “too big to fail” East India Company. As Samuel Adams warned, the bailout was “introductive to Monopolies.” 

Williamson says the colonists never objected to paying taxes. “To the extent the American Revolution was about taxation,” she writes, “it was about the desire of Americans to tax themselves…"

Come 1787, the new America had to decide what its own tax policies would be. Next surprise, the framers of the Constitution agreed that the wealthy few had to be protected from the masses. Listen to this from Alexander Hamilton: 

“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people.” As Hamilton saw it, the people “seldom judge or determine right.”

Thomas Paine saw things the other way around.  

Everybody knows that Paine helped ignite the American Revolution. Not many know that he wanted a tax revolution as well. Paine worried about the “overgrown influence” of wealth, calling it “one of the principal sources of corruption at elections.” He wanted marginal income tax rates, topping out at 100%.  Echoing Paine, an early New York newspaper proposed that “men should by every fair means be legally prevented from becoming exorbitantly rich”.