If money knows no borders, it shouldn’t be surprising that neither does our message. It’s universal and relevant to countries across the globe. That’s why each fall and spring, it’s important to us that we take our message to some of the world’s brightest economic and financial leaders during the Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
While it’s not every day that we get to take our message about the harms of extreme wealth and the need to do something about it onto the international stage, we know that being in the rooms for these conversations is one of the most direct ways we can advocate for changes to our global tax problem and addressing economic inequality. And if you ask us, when the curtains open and the spotlight is on, we sure do give a showstopping performance that can make even the most curmudgeon anti-tax advocates sing our praises.
Yesterday, Patriotic Millionaire Abigail Disney and our Founder and President Erica Payne each spoke at two separate events in Washington, D.C. as part of the 2025 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and the IMF. Both events focused on the harm extreme wealth concentration poses to our global well-being and considered various national and international policy solutions that could redress it. We were honored to be part of these high-level discussions and are thrilled to see our work and message continue to attract attention from around the world.
“A level of wealth beyond which only madness lies”
Earlier in the day, Abigail spoke on the panel “Extreme Wealth—How much is too much? A new measure for better economies, democracies, and societies,” which was moderated by Kate Donald (Head of Office at Oxfam International). Other participants included Fernanda Balata, Political Economist at the New Economics Foundation, and Nora Lustig, a Professor of Latin American Economics and the founding Director of the Commitment to Equity Institute at Tulane University.
In recent years, there has been discussion about establishing a new metric called the “Extreme Wealth Line,” which would help policymakers and the public understand and address the point at which wealth concentration becomes corrosive. Abigail’s panel discussed how this line would serve as a top-end complement to the World Bank’s extreme poverty line and help to, among other things, monitor trends and mobilize policy action around extreme wealth both within countries and on a global level. In addition to the Patriotic Millionaires, the initiative to bring this metric to life is backed by Oxfam, the New Economics Foundation, the London School of Economics, and the Good Ancestor Movement. To learn more, we encourage you to check out extremewealthline.com.
What makes Abigail’s participation in these events so incredible is how she is able to speak from firsthand experience about what massive levels of wealth does to one’s sense of morality and ethics. It was these personal life experiences that informed her decision to join the Patriotic Millionaires, as well as her belief that there is such a thing as “a level of wealth beyond which only madness lies.” She was emphatic that wealth warps the minds of her wealthy peers, decreases their sense of empathy for others, and increases their sense of entitlement and superiority. Abigail closed by issuing a stark warning about giving the keys to our democracy to mad billionaires like Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, and Peter Thiel.
Click here or the image above to watch a portion of Abigail’s remarks from the event.
“We could build a heaven on Earth”
Later in the day, Erica spoke at a separate event—“Wealth, Power, and Democracy: A Political Agenda to Rein in Extreme Wealth”—hosted by the Open Society Foundations, Oxfam, and the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). If you recall, Erica spoke earlier this year at the World Bank/IMF meetings this past April. While there, she told a packed room in no uncertain terms that our collective well-being is on the line if we do not act urgently to tax the ultra-rich.
Six months later, Erica returned to tell another room of world leaders that we cannot squander this moment to do something economically life-changing. Interlaced with Southern expressions that filled the crowd with laughter, she delivered a speech highlighting the causes and consequences of extreme inequality, with a special focus on the current state of affairs in the US. She also offered three calls to action for international leaders:
- Reach a better understanding of how much wealth is too much (this echoed Abigail’s earlier call to action in establishing an Extreme Wealth Line)
- Establish a global asset registry to know the names and faces behind the world’s riches and the relationships between them
- Reimagine how we structure our economies so they are more equitable and sustainable over the long term
Other speakers at Erica’s event included Mehdi Jomaa, the Former Prime Minister of Tunisia; Tatiana Rosito, the Secretary of International Affairs—Minister of Finance of Brazil; Joseph Stiglitz, an American economist and ICRICT Co-Chair; Carlos Cuerpo, the Minister of Economy, Trade and Business of Spain; and Nicolás Grau, the Minister of Finance of Chile.
Click here or the image above to watch a snippet of Erica’s remarks.
While we tend to focus on the situation in the US when we talk about inequality, we understand that we cannot solve the problem on our own. We understand that money knows no borders and when 13 of the richest 15 billionaires come from the United States, it’s clear we must be a part of the solution when it comes to saving global democracy.
That’s why we started up chapters in the UK and Canada, and why Erica and Abigail took the time yesterday to speak at their respective events. The harms of extreme wealth will ultimately be felt by everyone in every corner of the globe, if they aren’t already. It is essential that international leaders who congregate at bodies like the IMF and World Bank work together. They need to share information on best practices, coordinate policy responses, and, most importantly, commit themselves to work as a collective to create a better, safer, healthier, and more sustainable world for everyone.
And on that note, let us end with Erica’s final remarks from her speech:
“I believe that this could be the greatest era in human history. We have all the technology we need. We have all the knowledge we need. We have all of the connections with one another, the communications. We have all the information we need to create the kind of world that will work for everybody. And then to keep that world going as humankind evolves, we could build a heaven on Earth. I know that sounds weird, but that’s what we could do. We could make this work, and the people in this room can do that.
Here’s the thing, democracy is so irritating, so messy. Nobody gets along. You have to fight. You have to compromise. But no matter how messy democracy is, it’s a heck of a lot better than those billionaires.”
We couldn’t agree more.