Inequality Conversations with Fexingo: Wealth Gap, Income Distribution, and Economic Justice

In this episode of Inequality Conversations, Lucas and Luna explore a surprising driver of wealth inequality: the US patent system. They focus on the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, which allowed universities and small inventors to patent federally funded research, and trace how large corporations have since dominated patent filings. Lucas explains that between 1980 and 2020, the share of patents granted to t...

Episode 6 of Inequality Conversations dives into the CEO-to-worker pay ratio, which hit 312-to-1 in 2024 according to the Economic Policy Institute. Lucas and Luna explore why this gap persists, from stock-based compensation to board dynamics and shareholder activism. They examine specific cases like Chipotle's Brian Niccol and Apple's Tim Cook, and discuss how disclosure rules like the Dodd-Frank...

Episode 5 of Inequality Conversations with Fexingo dives into the mechanics of a wealth tax. Lucas and Luna break down the specific proposal from Senator Elizabeth Warren's 2021 plan as a case study, walking through the threshold, the rate structure, and the exemptions. They discuss the two biggest practical challenges: valuation of illiquid assets like private businesses and art, and avoidance th...

Episode 4 of Inequality Conversations examines how student loan debt has suppressed wealth building for an entire generation. Lucas and Luna break down the specific mechanism: monthly payments crowd out retirement contributions, delay home purchases, and increase leverage ratios. They look at a 2025 Federal Reserve study showing that a typical millennial household with student debt has 40 percent...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna dig into a surprising driver of the wealth gap: inherited money. They break down research showing that inheritances and gifts now account for more than half of net worth differences between rich and poor families in America. Using data from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, they explain why inheritance amplifies inequality far more than wages ever c...

In this episode of Inequality Conversations, Lucas and Luna explore how a person's zip code at birth is one of the strongest predictors of future income and wealth. They drill into a 2025 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland that tracked 20 million Americans over 30 years and found children born in the top quintile of neighborhood income were 4 times more likely to reach the top quinti...

In the first episode of Inequality Conversations, Lucas and Luna anchor on a startling Federal Reserve statistic: the median white family holds roughly $188,000 in wealth, while the median Black family holds just $24,000. They unpack what that 8-to-1 ratio actually means for housing, education, and retirement, using the case of Atlanta's BeltLine development to show how infrastructure investments...