Forbes 400 List Reveals Why the Greedy Rich Fully Deserve Your Contempt -- And Jesus’s

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/forbes-400-list-reveals-why-greedy-rich-fully-deserve-your-contempt-and-jesuss



***SNIP

Forbes reports that in the last year alone, the total net worth of the 400 people at the top skyrocketed $200 billion. The average net worth of a 400-lister jumped from $3.8 billion to $4.2 billion, the highest figure ever recorded. Two-thirds of the individuals got richer in past year. Forbes, not exactly a cheerleader for income equality, concluded: “The gap between the very rich and the merely rich is widening.”

And how did the rest of us do while the uber-rich were getting richer? Not so well, according to the Census Bureau. Adjusted for inflation, America suffered a 1.5 percent drop in median household income last year.

The redistribution of wealth toward the top is clearly getting worse. In fact, despite the financial crash, the Occupy movement, and the obvious failure of trickledown economics, the Census Bureau reports that the gulf between the rich and the rest of us is at an all-time high .

Maybe that’s why the rich and their apologists are getting a bit defensive lately. Like a drug addict turning every cushion upside-down in search of lost change, the 1 percenters are scrounging up every timeworn myth, lame justification and absurd rationalization they can think of to convince us that the rich are super-smart, hard-working job creators instead of greedy parasites refusing to pay their share in taxes and play by the same rulebook as everyone else.

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Like a mindless misanthrope amoeba

digesting only what's good and protecting what's bad so it can be consumed by the rest of us, putting them further ahead, and leaving us to need them for survival.

[99Forever]

2. Anyone interested in...

... guillotines yet?

[kooljerk666]

4. that is what I check the news for every morning...........

...........and then I think, "huh I can't believe they are not running for their lives yet." then go about my business.

If i was part of that class, I would a bit concerned.

I can't wait till the day white men are a minority in usa, they will be crying for affirmative action then.

I am Caucasian and man, I will be laffing.

[99Forever]

5. They live in a bubble...

.. thinking they are safely insulated from the repercussions of their actions. It's an illusion that will come to an end, the only question is when. The disparity of wealth is a ticking time bomb that gets more explosive with each passing day.

[Ikonoklast]

13. Oh, come on now! When in all of human history have those that had nothing to lose rise up

against a wealthy robber aristocracy and rudely deprive them of not only their wealth, but their ability to draw another breath?









A. Every time the wealthy overplayed their hand.

[99Forever]

14. Precisely!

[kooljerk666]

18. ABC news surprised a Kochroach at Park Ave.......

Last edited Fri Sep 28, 2012, 09:40 AM - Edit history (1)

the news team came after one of the Koch's as he was gettin into what looked like an armoured escalade, and he was so started he ran to the limo & got in as quickly as he could.

It took quite a few seconds.

He looked scared he had to walk 20 feet from the bldg to the vehicle & someone other than hired help tried to address him.

This really started me thinking, if they are that scared of strangers, scared of the public, how dare they try to basically enslave 99% of us and still sleep at night????

Koch's have spent $20,000,000 in Ohio & are getting their asses kicked, Sherod Brown raised a fraction of that & is polling very well.

If I was running DNC,DSCC or any of that stuff, I would have big pics of 2Kochs, Sheldon (Plankton) Adelson & Karl Rove as a backdrop & make sure everyone in america knows these are the people who plan on enslaving you.

It would be easy to have them all so well recognized, children would spit on them. They are the power & cash behind the GOP, the elected GOPs are just the peons, go after the Masters & make them known & hated by 75% of America. (i would say 100% but 25% is beyond help............)

EDIT BEGIN:

I found the video & he was not runnin as much as I remembered but there is plenty of implications of criminal behaviour

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/koch-industries-report-reveals-secret-sins/story?id=14676652#.UGWn_m1FmiA

End Edit

[tavalon]

21. And they have, in fact, overplayed or overreached

[OffWithTheirHeads]

6. Me!

[99Forever]

8. Who would have guessed?

[Selatius]

3. We need to rebuild the New Deal Coalition or a suitable replacement before another major crash.

If there is another crash, it could be as bad as the Great Recession or possibly worse.

If worse comes to pass, the pain at that level would be excruciating for Americans at large, and there will be food riots and confrontations between workers and management and major protests. It would be like the 1930s all over again.

If the cards are played right, a New Deal Coalition would be reforged in the House and Senate claiming strong majorities in both, and another big-thinking president will win office much in the same vein as Franklin Roosevelt.

If, however, things go wrong, we could see the rise of an extreme right-wing, reactionary government and authoritarian president more interested in militarism, war, and the crushing of domestic dissent as a means of getting people back to work and off the picket lines.

[davidpdx]

7. There are a few decent people on the list

Then there are a couple dozen I'd like to see rot in hell. The rest I remain undecided on.

If only I had a magic wand to take people's money away...

[cleanhippie]

16. Decent? I beg to differ.

While a few may be more altruistic, the mere fact that they have so much wealth and live in such oppulant surroundings while others suffer right outside their doors puts them all in the same category.

[Egalitarian Thug]

19. IOW, there are few people on the list that are concerned with their perception by others.

You don't get to be worth over $3B being a good person, period.

[hfojvt]

20. the last nine on the list

are only worth $1.1 billion.

Not that much different from JK Rowling who is worth $910 million.

Now granted, some of her books were not all that good, but I am not sure that mediocre writing, nor profitting from such, really makes somebody a bad person.

[Egalitarian Thug]

22. JK Rowling didn't make $900M writing the Harry Potter series, she got $900M

for selling it to Warner...

I already know that you are always anxious to excuse the rich for anything, and whether JK Rowling is a good person or not, neither of us personally knows. But I do know that even if she were an exception to the rule, that doesn't change the the fact that it is a rule.

The site is down for maintenance at the moment, so I can't get to the end of the list, but again, you're not going to find any Christs or Mahatmas on it.

[hfojvt]

23. I think she probably got quite a bit from book royalties

But allowing your books to be made into movies does not seem particularly evil either.

I did not find anybody on the list that I know from Adama, so it becomes rather hard to find other exceptions.

Presumably we do not find many Christs or Mahatmas among the working class either, but presumably some of us are still decent people.

[Egalitarian Thug]

24. Yes she did, but we're talking about the super-rich and what she made from the books

wouldn't get her on the list of the top ten thousand richest people.

There's a world of difference between those classes, but then you already know that.

Another

[hfojvt]

25. maybe not in the world

but she would probably be in the top 1500 in the US. According to Forbes, #400 on their list has a net worth of $1.1 billion. According to Google, Rowling has a net worth of $900 million. Not that much different between 1,100 and 900.

What she made from the movies is included in what she made from the books, since the movies were based on the books.

Her fortune came from writing books and selling movie rights and licensing of other products. None of which seems particularly evil to me.

[Egalitarian Thug]

27. You just refuse to get it. Upton Sinclair totally had your number.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."

[hfojvt]

31. it might also be difficult to get a man to understand something

when what you are trying to get him to understand is wrong.

My job happens to be as a janitor for the parks department of a moderate sized city, so I do not see how my job depends on not believing some unproven hateful assertion about the Forbes 400. It's not like my fake Uncle David would take me out of the will. Because I am not in his will, because he is not really my uncle. We just spell our names the same.

Because I do not know any of them, except through media BS, for some of them, it is impossible for me to prove that any of them are decent people, but at the same time, you offer not a shred of proof that they are not decent people. And I doubt if you know much more about most of them than I do.

But I certainly proved for one example, seemingly, JK Rowling, who did nothing more evil than write some popular books, sell a bunch of them, and then sell the movie rights and merchandise licensing. Nothing particularly evil about that, and yet she made almost enough wealth to make the top 400. So if it is possible for her, then it may be possible for others.

[Egalitarian Thug]

32. You only "proved" that you are utterly lacking in understanding. First, you chose a person that

is not even on the list to feign credibility for your absurd position. Well, she's close enough so I let that go.

You also claim that the $200M difference between her assumed worth and the $1.1B it takes to get on the list is insignificant.

Next, you work from an assumption of her character that, while it does seem likely, is not without doubt (did you click the link? I didn't think so) and as everybody that isn't you can tell you, money changes people. So it is far from a given that she remains a "good person", although I prefer to imagine that she is.

Then, you insist on repeatedly ignoring the fact that that $900M (A figure I accept without any evidence at all from you) is almost entirely, in terms of a percentage of her assumed wealth, from the sale of the film and ancillary product rights to one of the world's worst exploitative corporations (Do you want to now argue that the entertainment industry is run by talented artists that only seek to enlighten as they go about making the world a better place?). Ask Stephen King how much of his considerable wealth is from book sales vs. film rights. The Harry Potter series of books made her very rich, it is one of, if not the most popular series of books ever written, but her deal with the Devil gained her the majority of that money.

And even if, in the end, all that you assume and imply is true, she is the rarest of exceptions, not an example of the typical almost billionaire.

Oh and one more thing, she doesn't live in America.

[hfojvt]

33. yes, I chose a person that I know how her wealth came about

And the $200 million is fairly insignificant because 1) $900 million is still a whole bunch of wealth, and 2) in the not so distant past, it would have been enough to make the top 400 list.

Did I click WHAT link? The one in the OP?

And the entertainment industry is really "one of the MOST exploitative corporations". Exploitative how? Who got exploited? Certainly not Rowling. Did Emma Watson get exploited? Are there grips and stunt doubles and such being exploited? I doubt if they work any harder for any less money than I do.

The fact that Rowling is not American is highly irrelevant.

The point is that you do not know, and neither do I know, much about those people on the list. Looking at the last 10.

Denise York, Youngstown, Oh, real estate, 61
Dan Snyder, Potomac, Md, Washington Redskins, 47
Paul Singer, NYC, hedge funds, 67
Arturo Moreno, Phoenix, Az, billboards, 66
William McCauley, Greenwich, Ct, energy investments, 67
Peter Lewis, Coconut Grove, Fl, insurance, 78
George Joseph, Los Angeles, insurance, 91
Mario Gabelli, Greenwich, Ct, money management, 70
Jack Dorsey, San Fransisco, technology startups, 35


Okay, the last nine, and that is about all I know about them, although I may have heard some bad things about Snyder, and they are all said to be worth $1.1 billion.

Again, I doubt if you know enough about any of those people to know that they are not decent people. They may not be, or they may be a mix of good and bad, leaning towards bad, but no worse than many people who are much poorer.

[DonRedwood]

9. kick to the front page

[hfojvt]

10. because they got richer means they deserve contempt?

they also keep saying rich, when they seem to mean "uber-rich", a phrase that they at least used once before switching back to "rich".

Makes me wonder how the Census bureau defines "rich".

[hfojvt]

11. the census seems to define "rich" as the top 5%

but they also show gains for the top 20%

Between 1992 and 1993 they seemed to change the way they measure income shares.

The stats went from

1992 - 3.8; 9.4.; 15.8; 24.2; 46.9; 18.6
to
1993 - 3.6; 9.0; 15.1; 23.5; 48.9; 21.0 (!!)

and there is a footnote number 23 which I cannot track down right now.

The numbers, btw, are the shares of income received by various groups. The groups being, in order - the bottom 20%, the 4th 20%, the middle 20%, the 2nd 20%, the top 20%, and the top 5%.

The IRS stats that I usually use track between top .1%, top 1%, top 5%, top 10%, top 25%, and top 50%. Allows for more data about the top 5%. They also show a much larger share of income to the top 5%. That data though is skewed, in that it includes millions of teenagers who file taxes, and the census bureau is more accurately using "household income".

So to compare 1993 to present (because comparing earlier years to present is problematic because of the way they changed measurements)

1993 - 3.6; 9.0; 15.1; 23.5; 48.9; 21.0 (!!)
2011 - 3.2; 8.4; 14.3; 23.0; 51.1; 22.3

Shows that
the bottom 20% lost .4%
the 4th 20% lost .6%
the middle 20% lost .8%
the 2nd 20% lost .5%
the top 20% gained 2.2%
the top 5% gained 1.3%

but those numbers go up and down too, do not show a steady rise.

For example, here's 2006, before the depression

2006 - 3.4; 8.6; 14.5; 22.9; 50.5; 22.3

then in 2007, the top 5% seemed to be hurt the most by the depression as they dropped to 21.2%, but as the depression continued, ultimately it was the bottom 60% which was hurt the most as the people who lost jobs probably fell into the bottom 20% from higher perches.

But what I would say, again (if anybody is still reading by this point anyway) is that it is not just the Forbes 400, or the FAB 400, or the top 1% or the top 5% who are pulling away from (and squeezing) the rest of us. It is also the top 20% who are pulling away from (and squeezing or dominating) the bottom 60%.

[xchrom]

12. Thanks for the added info. Nt

[hfojvt]

17. I probably should add a link

just in case I want to find the data again myself

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/inequality/

[HiPointDem]

30. The census doesn't even attempt to survey the super-rich. Census data is not a good source for

incomes at the top of the pyramid.

Don't even try to use them.

[Initech]

15. I'm suddenly reminded of that scene from the Avengers where Loki is getting a large crowd to kneel before him.

[Tigress DEM]

26. They might as well face it, they're addicted to case.

[Auntie Bush]

28. TAX the rich at 50%. End of story! nt

[krispos42]

29. And not a single person on the list is a union boss

Not one.