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Unintended Consequences • August 14, 2025 

# Inequality: American Buy, Borrow, and Die vs. Scandinavian Wage Compression 

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.

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This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). 

##### Featuring 

[![Paul Matzko](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-01/Paul%20Matzko.jpg?itok=CSzwMD2U)](/people/paul-matzko) 

##### [Paul Matzko](/people/paul-matzko)

Adjunct Scholar, Cato Institute

[![Peter Van Doren](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-01/Peter%20Van%20Doren.jpg?itok=H1lphT-7)](/people/peter-van-doren) 

##### [Peter Van Doren](/people/peter-van-doren)

Senior Fellow and Editor of *Regulation*

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