Billionaire$

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see bundlers, inequality, financial, dark $ ....

=see charters (poor schools blk the most profitable target?!)<a href="https://www.alternet.org/money-talked-leaks-show-input-wealthy-privatizers-clinton-education-policy">https://www.alternet.org/money-talked-leaks-show-input-wealthy-privatizers-clinton-education-policy</a>rare peek into the evolution of Hillary Clinton’s education platform is afforded through an overlooked Wikileaks-published <a href="https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/47100" style="text-decoration-line: none;">document</a>. Entitled “Policy Book— FINAL,” the PDF file was attached to a 2014 email sent to John Podesta, Clinton’s future campaign chair. The education portion of the document runs 66 pages, mostly concentrated on K-12 policy, and captures specific input from billionaire donors looking to overhaul and privatize public education.Today, Donald Trump seeks a rapid expansion of charter schools and private school vouchers, while his Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, touts “school choice” and market competition for public school at every stop. But in private, Hillary Clinton’s donors, dubbed “experts," also sought rapid charter expansion and market-based options to replace public schools.One of the most connected “thought leaders” discussed is Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs, and the head of the Emerson Collective, a prominent education reform advocacy group. Powell Jobs who has been close with the Clintons <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/laurene-powell-jobs-linked-to-jeb-and-hillary-2015-3" style="text-decoration-line: none;">since the late '90s</a>, also sat with Betsy DeVos on the board of Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. She set up billionaire “roundtables” with Clinton’s campaign advisors through 2015 while <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/08/politics/donald-trump-laurene-powell-jobs/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">donating millions</a> to Priorities USA, Clinton’s main PAC.Fixing teachersNotes taken by Clinton aide Ann O’Leary were made in interviews with Powell Jobs and Bruce Reed, CEO of The Broad Foundation (and former chief of staff to Joe Biden). According to the notes, the “experts” were calling for new federal controls, more for-profit companies and more technology in public schools — but first on the menu was a bold remake of the teaching “profession”:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Elevating the Teaching Profession and Reforming Teacher Training. Every single person from across the spectrum wrote about and talked about the need to improve our schools of education, entry into the teaching profession and our professionalism once teachers make it in . . . there is consensus that you could offer a bold vision for reforming teacher training and professionalizing the teaching profession for those new to the profession.”</blockquote>In previous <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWafXFPZWJQ" style="text-decoration-line: none;">speeches</a>, Clinton campaign manager John Podesta indicated that recruiting and grooming younger, more compliant teachers was the plan to overcome resistance to corporate education reform over the long term. But in the policy book, Bruce Reed also sets his sights on teaching colleges, claiming “they don’t deliver the goods.”Powell Jobs suggests letting principals “pick their teams," making teachers individually negotiate salary (every teacher—really?), expanding online education offerings like Khan Academy and making teaching universities “truly selective like TFA and Finland.” This comment is perplexing because while Finland has demanding teacher vetting and training, Teach for America places inexperienced teachers in classrooms after a seven-week summer crash course.A perfect stormRepresenting billionaire Eli Broad, Bruce Reed celebrated the paralysis in local governance in post-Katrina New Orleans as key to pulling off the rapid expansion of charter schools, exploiting disaster without oversight by any “central office”:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“New Orleans is an amazing story — when you make it possible to get political dysfunction and sick a bunch of talent on the problem — it’s the one place where grand bargain of charters has been kept the best.”</blockquote>New Orleans' "amazing" story resulted in the firing of 7,500 mostly black school employees, wiping out a substantial part of the city’s black middle class. Meanwhile, the “miracle” claims of boosters like Reed have fallen apart. <a href="https://www.theneworleanstribune.com/main/faking-the-grade/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">A recent editorial</a> in New Orleans’ African American newspaper called out the false promises and lack of results from the charter experiment.The new normalBut they did more than talk. On June 20, 2015, O'Leary sent Podesta an email revealing the campaign adopted two of Powell Jobs' suggestions, including "infusing best ideas from charter schools into our traditional public schools.” When Clinton announced this policy in a speech to teachers, however, it was the <a href="https://vimeo.com/173540580" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;">one line that drew boos</a>.Tying campaign donations to a singular issue like expanding charter schools might in days past been seen as a prohibited quid-pro-quo. But in this cycle, Podesta, O’Leary and Tanden all busily raised campaign money from the same billionaire education reformers with whom they were also talking policy specifics.
“Donors want to hear where she stands” John Petry, a founder of both Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and Success Academy, New York’s largest network of charter schools, told the <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/us/politics/hillary-clinton-caught-between-dueling-forces-on-education-teachers-and-wealthy-donors.html?emc=edit_tnt_20150324&nlid=69776137&tntemail0=y&r=0&referrer=" style="text-decoration-line: none;">New York Times</a>.  Petry was explicit, declaring that he and his billionaire associates would instead put money into congressional, state and local races, behind candidates who favored a “more businesslike approach” to education, and tying teacher tenure to standardized test scores.Clinton’s advisors warned her that wealthy donors like Petry, Whitney Tilson, or Eli Broad could walk if she didn’t support charter schools. Broad would <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mercedes-schneider/hillary-clinton-charter-schools_b_8882774.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">indeed threaten to withhold funding</a> from Clinton when she criticized charter schools for excluding difficult students. John Podesta and Ann O’Leary would publicly correct Clinton, <a href="https://medium.com/@Ann_OLeary/yes-hillary-clinton-supports-charter-schools-she-also-supports-equity-and-inclusion-59fade63fc16#.aa1tek5l0" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reaffirming her commitment</a> to charters.The revolving door was also in full swing, with top Clinton and Obama administration officials <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/03/17/arne-duncan-says-he-will-focus-on-improving-opportunities-for-chicago-youth/?utm_term=.dfd1e7d6acdc" style="text-decoration-line: none;">working for “non-profits” run by Powell Jobs</a> and <a href="https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/nycs-jake-jacobs-hillarys-current-ed-advisor-was-behind-nclb/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Tom Steyer</a>. In the end, the influence of the various well-connected “experts” advising Clinton could be felt in an <a href="https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/k-12-education/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">official education platform</a> that endorsed a test-centric approach that was becoming unpopular with parents, students and educators.Warnings ignoredClinton was also advised to “Stand Up for the Common Core” despite the botched implementation that was then unfolding from coast to coast. By this time, states were already moving to junk the standards, while the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/11/10/how-common-core-could-hurt-jeb-bush-if-he-runs-for-president/?utm_term=.84bb49c8c2a4" style="text-decoration-line: none;">was asking</a> whether Common Core could sink Jeb Bush’s presidential run. Yet her advisors were nudging her to echo the Bush talking point of “kindler, gentler” tests.The feuds over testing resulted in Clinton largely avoiding the controversy. Her advisors describe New York as a messy example, where rushed implementation of President Obama’s Race to the Top’s test-based teacher evaluations “fueled opposition”:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Governor Cuomo had a very heated political battle with the state’s teachers unions in 2013 over the new teacher evaluation system…[t]he use of test scores in teacher evaluation has caused a substantial backlash . . . This backlash caused the Governor (in the midst of his re-election cycle) to agree to a “moratorium” on using the tests for two years. In an effort to win over Common Core opponents, he ran ads saying he supported a delay in the “use [of] Common Core test scores for at least five years…”</blockquote>In their efforts to steer Clinton towards pro-testing policies, her advisors relied on education reform talking points.  Neera Tanden, head of the Clinton-aligned Center for American Progress wrote that “New York has shown positive gains resulting from the implementation of the new higher standards.”  But New York’s repeated changes of proficiency thresholds nullified any statistical validity. Tanden was advising Clinton based on a test-centric philosophy that educators, psychometric experts and court rulings <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/education/principals-protest-increased-use-of-test-scores-to-evaluate-educators.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">have rejected since 2011</a>.Teacher input?Under the heading “[g]ood ideas from the AFT crowd” the 2014 document mentions Randi Weingarten’s call for more “full-service community schools.” Clinton would not promote this much on the campaign stump though, outside of <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/hillary-clinton-advocates-for-community-schools-model-2902db9fff7f#.4kygehdq6" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a speech</a> made right back to the AFT. To this day, the <a href="https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/k-12-education/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">education section of Clinton’s 2016 website</a> says only vaguely that states should “use federal education funding to implement social and emotional support interventions.”

Behind the scenes, however, O’Leary was pushing for holistic student supports, by March of 2016 <a href="https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/35668" style="text-decoration-line: none;">suggesting</a> that Clinton’s K-12 platform:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“…focus on the whole child — and acknowledge that toxic stress created by poverty does impact learning and that teachers cannot do this work alone. We need to support parents through two-generation approaches to learning. We need to provide schools the resources to hire guidance counselors and mental health providers, and make sure that children from low-income communities once again have music and art education and opportunities to participate in gymnastics and ballet. These activities cannot be reserved for only those who can pay for them.”</blockquote>The Clinton campaign did not bring this message forward, falling silent, even when pressed for more specifics on education plans, as detailed in this <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-walks-tightrope-on-education/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">CBS article</a>. Meanwhile, emails showed that Clinton and campaign staff knew their donors were behind a lawsuit seeking to end teacher tenure, so her plan was to stay quiet about it.School’s outNot mentioning education would become important in the general election. This policy book shows a snapshot in time when wealthy donors were pushing Clinton’s and Jeb’s positions together, seeking more of the federal privatization begun under George W. Bush and continued by Obama.Seeing this, Trump would tell ticked-off voters what they wanted to hear, vowing loudly to “terminate Common Core out of Washington.” He knew (or should have known) that it was already a state-based decision to use the standards by late 2015. After the election, Trump would <a href="https://vimeo.com/240779787" style="text-decoration-line: none;">completely drop the idea</a>.This was predicted by John Podesta, who <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWafXFPZWJQ" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bragged</a> just after the 2012 election about nullifying education policy differences between President Obama and Mitt Romney. <a href="https://vimeo.com/159708996" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Sitting next to Jeb Bush</a>, Podesta proclaimed “ed reform” a bipartisan affair, telling donors “the Obama administration has made its key priorities clear. The Republicans are pretty much in the same place…this area is ripe for cooperation between the center-right and center-left”.As the reformer money rolled in, Clinton avoided public stances, with articles by 2015 noting she was getting support from both sides yet still unclear on her vision, critical of testing and charters while still supporting them. <a href="https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education/2015/07/race-based-admissions-in-flux-whats-on-the-line-in-los-angeles-senate-turns-to-tax-extenders-212543" style="text-decoration-line: none;">From Politico</a>:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Clinton will have to walk carefully between both sides of the education reform debate so as not to alienate either side, said a source close to the Walton Family Foundation: "She’ll be able to receive money from both sides of the education reform debate if she plays her cards carefully…”</blockquote>Reading this, John Podesta wrote in a private email: “Complicated. She won’t back off criticism, but won’t object to taking contributions.”Both sides nowThese pre-campaign deliberations show the Clinton team was well aware of the controversies raging in education, courting wealthy reformers who claimed to support poor students’ “civil rights” while pushing <a href="https://medium.com/@NYArteacher/learning-more-podesta-leaks-indicate-hillary-clinton-will-continue-privatization-of-us-schools-55f34f348f4" style="text-decoration-line: none;">top-down privatization</a>, testing, cookie-cut standards and invasive <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/obama-to-propose-new-student-privacy-legislation/2015/01/18/2ad6a8ae-9d92-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html?utm_term=.bafd12b7320b" style="text-decoration-line: none;">data mining</a>.Ann O’Leary <a href="https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/46550" style="text-decoration-line: none;">would later tell</a> Podesta that Powell Jobs and other education reformers were “pleased with our work” but were “wary of a few issues” like test-based accountability, then being negotiated in the U.S. Senate:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The reauthorization of the law – spearheaded by Senators Murray and Alexander in the Senate – provides flexibility to states to set their own accountability systems and their own goals for improvement. The civil rights groups and the ed reformers are very concerned that this lack of accountability will leave poor and minority students with no real systems for improving the poor education that they are receiving.

To date, HRC has stayed out of this debate: generally praising the Senate for moving forward with the reauthorization by keeping standards and testing in place and saying little about the accountability system. I do not believe that she should weigh in on this debate, but rather should continue to monitor it closely.”</blockquote>In reality, wealthy and well-connected education reformers were likely more instrumental in calling for the “accountability” that kept federal testing mandates in place than were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/07/08/what-should-and-should-not-be-written-into-a-new-u-s-education-law/?utm_term=.9e961fece79e" style="text-decoration-line: none;">civil rights groups</a>. A key player in this was Russlynn Ali, former Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights to US Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Ali would <a href="https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/10/laurene-powell-jobss-mission-to-disrupt-high-school.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">become an intimate advisor to Powell Jobs</a>, and the head of the Emerson Collective, the charter school advocacy group that Powell Jobs founded.What did we learn?The same cadre of billionaires that tried to steer Clinton towards unpopular pro-testing policies and controversial school privatization schemes are hard at work today. Powell Jobs, for example, has sought greater influence, funding a <a href="https://xqsuperschool.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">lavish and high-profile</a> effort to “rethink high school” and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/07/emerson-collective-atlantic-coalition/535215/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">acquiring a majority stake in The Atlantic</a>. In July, Powell Jobs was <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-26/trump-administration-tapping-tech-ceos-for-stem-policy-approach" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reportedly contacted by Ivanka Trump</a> on behalf of the administration, seeking "advice on shaping funding approaches" for STEM education in public schools.While Eli Broad may have stepped down from his foundation, his post-disaster playbook of taking advantage of local government paralysis remains alive and well. Efforts to replicate New Orleans’ “amazing story” <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/11/08/puerto-rico-schools-system-with-post-katrina-new-orleans-as-the-model/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">appear to be thriving in Puerto Rico</a>, where schools were devastated by Hurricane Maria.The 2014 policy book reveals some essential lessons about how education policy is crafted: in secret, with the input and influence of billionaire donors seeking more school privatization and testing—regardless of what party is in power. Even as the backlash against testing and the Common Core grew, Clinton’s advisors pushed her to embrace them. Clinton vacillated, then fell silent on K-12 policy, and as a result, education issues were largely left out of the election debate. Today, under Trump, privatization marches on worse than ever.<div wibbitz="embed-main-player" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div class="bio-new body_story" style="width: 630px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; height: auto; border-top: 3px solid rgb(223, 223, 218); clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="author-bio" style="">Jake Jacobs</div></div>Last year it was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/bp-economy-for-99-percent-160117-en.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1497358935874000&usg=AFQjCNGIZjFpzql_CJBXsYZNAFbY2m-ItQ" href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/bp-economy-for-99-percent-160117-en.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">eight men</a>, then down to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/02/20/morbid-inequality-now-just-six-men-have-much-wealth-half-worlds-population&source=gmail&ust=1497358935874000&usg=AFQjCNHabY-N3C9qd0Ydz9Ph7QlGJY5eSA" href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/02/20/morbid-inequality-now-just-six-men-have-much-wealth-half-worlds-population" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">six</a>, and now almost five. While Americans fixate on Trump, the super-rich are absconding with our wealth, and the plague of inequality continues to grow. An <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nationofchange.org/2017/02/21/morbid-inequality-now-just-six-men-much-wealth-half-worlds-population/&source=gmail&ust=1497358935874000&usg=AFQjCNF5BLG0Si2MRLunowOw_UFODMXDQg" href="https://www.nationofchange.org/2017/02/21/morbid-inequality-now-just-six-men-much-wealth-half-worlds-population/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">analysis</a> of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid%3DAD6F2B43-B17B-345E-E20A1A254A3E24A5&source=gmail&ust=1497358935874000&usg=AFQjCNExnDT8p1rvQybeUFnUOkhxuIKNxA" href="http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=AD6F2B43-B17B-345E-E20A1A254A3E24A5" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">2016 data</a> found that the poorest five deciles of the world population own about $410 billion in total wealth. As of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/%23version:realtime&source=gmail&ust=1497358935874000&usg=AFQjCNFt6PJOj2gT5DfYC-zGg8zqyMvNUg" href="http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:realtime" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">June 8, 2017</a>, the world's richest five men owned over $400 billion in wealth. Thus, on average, each man owns nearly as much as 750 million people. Why Do We Let a Few People Shift Great Portions of the World's Wealth to Themselves? Most of the super-super-rich are Americans. We the American people created the internet, developed and funded artificial intelligence, and built a massive transportation infrastructure, yet we let just a few individuals take almost all the credit, along with hundreds of billions of dollars. Defenders of the out-of-control wealth gap insist that all is OK, because after all, America is a meritocracy in which the super-wealthy have earned all they have. They heed the words of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnbc.com/id/26337301?view%3Dstory%26$DEVICE$%3Dnative-android-mobile&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNFPS1ZdrzhkH7Z3WdspqqlwUFSKsw" href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/26337301?view=story&$DEVICE$=native-android-mobile" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Warren Buffett</a>: "The genius of the American economy, our emphasis on a meritocracy and a market system and a rule of law has enabled generation after generation to live better than their parents did." But it's not a meritocracy. Children are <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/04/21/science.aal4617.full%23sec-11&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNE4P4wd7TUBikQpgMvlbyqN3KaVSQ" href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/04/21/science.aal4617.full#sec-11" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">no longer living better</a> than their parents did. In the eight years since the recession the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.gurufocus.com/stock-market-valuations.php&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNGUSLjN0pc6mnWhWXqhRQ7sJkkQsg" href="http://www.gurufocus.com/stock-market-valuations.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wilshire Total Market</a> valuation has more than tripled, rising from a little over $8 trillion to nearly $25 trillion. The <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nber.org/papers/w20733&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNFaQqJa4yg4CnUVC90LCfBnByKHwA" href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w20733" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">great majority</a> of it has gone to the very richest Americans. In 2016 alone, the richest 1% effectively shifted nearly <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/03/06/how-90-american-households-lost-average-17000-wealth-plutocrats-2016&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNEYjgzvGmUeT3W2bkHoHE7YjuFjFw" href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/03/06/how-90-american-households-lost-average-17000-wealth-plutocrats-2016" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$4 trillion</a> in wealth away from the rest of the nation to themselves, with nearly half of the wealth transfer ($1.94 trillion) coming from the nation's poorest 90% -- the middle and lower classes. That's over $17,000 in housing and savings per lower-to-middle-class <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-households-in-the-us/&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNG1JVcFA4rpJqMB_KO-R2_l434gBg" href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-households-in-the-us/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">household</a> lost to the super-rich. A meritocracy? Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos have done little that wouldn't have happened anyway. All modern U.S. technology started with, and to a great extent continues with, our <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/15/5-reasons-top-tax-rate-should-be-80-percent&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNGAoIcNUfXYH2j3CRJ-NzC3lG-KFg" href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/15/5-reasons-top-tax-rate-should-be-80-percent" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">tax dollars</a> and our research institutes and our subsidies to corporations. Why Do We Let Unqualified Rich People Tell Us How To Live?  In 1975, at the age of 20, Bill Gates founded Microsoft with high school buddy Paul Allen. At the time, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2004-10-24/the-man-who-could-have-been-bill-gates&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNEcL5dZYulRjxxrqUtg_km5pKjOZA" href="http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2004-10-24/the-man-who-could-have-been-bill-gates" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Gary Kildall's</a> CP/M operating system was the industry standard. Even Gates' company used it. But Kildall was an innovator, not a businessman, and when IBM came calling for an OS for the new IBM PC, his delays drove the big mainframe company to Gates. Even though the newly established Microsoft company couldn't fill IBM's needs, Gates and Allen saw an opportunity, and so they hurriedly bought the rights to another local company's OS -- which was based on Kildall's CP/M system. Kildall wanted to sue, but intellectual property law for software had not yet been established. Kildall was a maker who got taken. So Bill Gates took from others to become the richest man in the world. And now, because of his great wealth and the meritocracy myth, many people look to him for solutions in vital areas of human need, such as <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/05/02/a-case-study-of-how-the-ultra-wealthy-spend-millions-to-get-what-they-want-in-school-reform/&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNGn7cwumEJL4WX4WxGO0DFxUEp1bA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/05/02/a-case-study-of-how-the-ultra-wealthy-spend-millions-to-get-what-they-want-in-school-reform/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">education</a> and global food production. Gates on Education: He has promoted galvanic <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2012/06/13/gates-foundation-responds-to-gsr-bracelets-controversy/&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNG3jcQs60tNXgb4gpN3uW1AmYJqvg" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2012/06/13/gates-foundation-responds-to-gsr-bracelets-controversy/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">skin response monitors</a> to measure the biological reactions of students, and the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/10-9&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNFubU1u3ELhrbbrnT_NhBuRStfbAw" href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/10-9" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">videotaping of teachers</a> to evaluate their performances. About schools he <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/05/08/what-are-bill-gates-and-warren-buffet-talking-about/&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNEcChffPO-Ij-XkabMWZNdP_4sGrA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/05/08/what-are-bill-gates-and-warren-buffet-talking-about/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">said</a>, "The best results have come in cities where the mayor is in charge of the school system. So you have one executive, and the school board isn’t as powerful." Gates on Africa: With investments in or deals with <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/stop-transnational-corporations-mainmenu-76/917-la-via-campesina-denounces-gates-foundation-purchase-of-monsanto-company-shares&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNHdDk7oezV1CSkE5npn7RUN_cgCsg" href="https://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/stop-transnational-corporations-mainmenu-76/917-la-via-campesina-denounces-gates-foundation-purchase-of-monsanto-company-shares" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Monsanto</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/resources/gjn_gates_report_june_2016_web_final_version_2.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNFwsp3NbOFcKvlQnwko4A7jUaeqcw" href="http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/resources/gjn_gates_report_june_2016_web_final_version_2.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Cargill</a> and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2001/012001/interview-achmat.html&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNF6Ip5JStXqPtf3tPjTS6hXhdkEqA" href="http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2001/012001/interview-achmat.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Merck</a>, Gates has demonstrated his preference for corporate control over poor countries deemed unable to help themselves. But no problem: according to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/Resources-and-Media/Annual-Letters-List/Annual-Letter-2014&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNFyx1Wll6QDR_L7dd8pQH3s1oantQ" href="http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/Resources-and-Media/Annual-Letters-List/Annual-Letter-2014" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Gates</a>, "By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world." Warren Buffett: Demanding To Be Taxed at a Higher Rate (As Long As His Own Company Doesn't Have To Pay) Warren Buffett has advocated for <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html?r%3D0&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNGyiKWbkoyxI3F7ZsaHeVldsRd-YA" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html?r=0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">higher taxes on the rich</a> and a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnbc.com/id/100301732&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNEmGoA5udfdUQVW3aMaLbRUYCKXmQ" href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100301732" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">reasonable estate tax</a>. But his company Berkshire Hathaway has used "hypothetical amounts" to pay its taxes while actually deferring $77 billion in real taxes. Jeff Bezos: $50 Billion in Less Than Two Years, and Fighting Taxes All the Way Since the end of 2015 Jeff Bezos has <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2016/10/04/inside-the-2016-forbes-400-facts-and-figures-about-americas-richest-people/%23642856633973&source=gmail&ust=1497358935875000&usg=AFQjCNFdYSxOCWFKck03oO2XXvNpFH2sBw" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2016/10/04/inside-the-2016-forbes-400-facts-and-figures-about-americas-richest-people/#642856633973" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">accumulated</a> enough wealth to cover the entire $50 billion U.S. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://newrepublic.com/minutes/139141/ben-carson-will-run-hud-50-billion-budget-8000-employees-go-wrong&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNEo37rs10JlNdN5WCZYS50CmIAiQQ" href="https://newrepublic.com/minutes/139141/ben-carson-will-run-hud-50-billion-budget-8000-employees-go-wrong" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">housing budget</a>, which serves <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/4-13-11hous-US.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNFtuVKuSuyfX5bnlFWuHEy6ICgvBA" href="http://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/4-13-11hous-US.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">five million</a> Americans. Bezos, who has profited greatly from the internet and the infrastructure built up over many years by many people with many of our tax dollars, has used <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/24/amazon_wins_tax_case_irs/&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNEd7FAbqRNPIYSaTbNVO7cf-0Un9w" href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/24/amazon_wins_tax_case_irs/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">tax havens</a> and high-priced <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2013/04/amazon_and_sales_taxes_how_the_internet_giant_and_congressional_republicans.html&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNHbaNDABh2d5omdPF7S0nycEb0ecA" href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2013/04/amazon_and_sales_taxes_how_the_internet_giant_and_congressional_republicans.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">lobbyists</a> to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.taxjusticeblog.org/archive/2013/08/washington_post_owner_jeff_bez.php%23.WRttR2jyvIU&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNFThnEigz09eKRx368L0K6uV_PheQ" href="http://www.taxjusticeblog.org/archive/2013/08/washington_post_owner_jeff_bez.php#.WRttR2jyvIU" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">avoid the taxes</a> owed by his company. Mark Zuckerberg (6th Richest in World, 4th Richest in America) While Zuckerberg was developing his version of social networking at Harvard, Columbia University students <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2010/09/the_other_social_network.html&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNGCHFaMBhloD3S_RRQ-bC4ZRg3LAg" href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2010/09/the_other_social_network.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Adam Goldberg</a> and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/12/wayne_ting_nearly_a_billionair.html&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNE01BsMOODpHV_7s4euryFihH0MkQ" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/12/wayne_ting_nearly_a_billionair.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wayne Ting</a> built a system called Campus Network, which was much more sophisticated than the early versions of Facebook. But Zuckerberg had the Harvard name and better <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2010/09/the_other_social_network.html&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNGCHFaMBhloD3S_RRQ-bC4ZRg3LAg" href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2010/09/the_other_social_network.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">financial support</a>. Now with his billions he has created a charitable foundation, which in reality is a tax-exempt limited liability company, leaving him <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-mark-zuckerbergs-altruism-helps-himself.html&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNEI01LiOEpARRVL6doyyJT7WlsXNw" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-mark-zuckerbergs-altruism-helps-himself.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">free</a> to make political donations or <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/12/02/the-surprising-math-in-mark-zuckerbergs-45-billion-facebook-donation/&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNGAw67Lp26RQ5fx7K2hZy8lgZxKXg" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/12/02/the-surprising-math-in-mark-zuckerbergs-45-billion-facebook-donation/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">sell</a> his holdings, all <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.fastcompany.com/3054136/fast-feed/facebook-wants-you-to-know-that-zuckerbergs-99-initiative-is-not-a-charity&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNF_GCzFYTrcHF_ookPDmQMUwaw99Q" href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3054136/fast-feed/facebook-wants-you-to-know-that-zuckerbergs-99-initiative-is-not-a-charity" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">without paying taxes</a>. The False Promise of Philanthropy Many super-rich individuals have <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://givingpledge.org/About.aspx&source=gmail&ust=1497358935876000&usg=AFQjCNH6UeMh2I7rYK6w8OsqH0AfDBKyWw" href="https://givingpledge.org/About.aspx" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">pledged</a> the majority of their fortunes to philanthropic causes. That's very generous, if they keep their promises. But that's not really the point. American billionaires all made their money because of the research and innovation and infrastructure that make up the foundation of our modern technologies. They have taken credit, along with their massive fortunes, for successes that derive from society rather than from a few individuals. It should not be any one person's decision about the proper use of that wealth. Instead a significant portion of annual national wealth gains should be promised to education, housing, health research, and infrastructure. That is what Americans and their parents and grandparents have earned after a half-century of hard work and productivity.<div>
</div><div>http://www.alternet.org
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/03/richest-billionaires-are-top-political-spenders/table widgets<div class="entry-content" style="margin: 5px 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Know what it feels like to be worth more than 10 digits? These <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2017/03/20/forbes-2017-billionaires-list-meet-the-richest-people-on-the-planet/#7bb6de1662ff" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">2,043 people do</a>. Forbes released its 30th annual <a href="https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:static" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">World’s Billionaire</a>s list last week to make us all feel bad about our bank accounts.But what does one do with all that dough? With great wealth comes great potential to help your favorite politicians get elected. Of the world’s 100 richest billionaires, 36 are U.S. citizens and thus eligible to donate to candidates and other political committees here. OpenSecrets Blog found that 30 of those actually did so, contributing a total of $184.4 million — with 58 percent going to Republican efforts.Eight of these billionaire households (we included spouses) also fall on our top <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topindivs.php" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">100 megadonor list</a>, meaning they and their families were in the uppermost layer of donors to candidates, parties and outside groups in the 2016 cycle.These eight gave $175.7 million, with $74 million going to Dems and liberal groups, while $102 million went to Republican and GOP causes.<ul style="margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;">Larry Ellison – Estimated worth: $52.2 billion. Contributions since 1989: $9.5 million</li></ul>The founder of software company <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000422" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Oracle</a> is No. 35 on our 2016 list, giving $5.5 million. Most of that went to pro-Marco Rubio super PACs, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00541292&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Conservative Solutions PAC</a> ($5 million) and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C00620476&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Florida First Project</a> ($350,000), during Rubio’s presidential run.<ul style="margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;">Charles Koch – Estimated worth: $48.3 billion. Contributions (with wife Elizabeth Buzzi) since 1989: $13.1 million</li></ul>The chairman and CEO of the sprawling Koch Industries conglomerate and his wife donated $6.9 million last cycle, the bulk of which went to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C00564765&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Freedom Partners Action Fund</a>, a hub in their vast political money machine. The super PAC spent $28.9 million against Democrats such as Senate candidates Ted Strickland, Catherine Cortez Masto and Katie McGinty. Koch also donated directly to a number of lawmakers, including now-CIA Director <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/summary.php?cid=N00030744&year=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Mike Pompeo</a>, House Speaker <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00004357&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Paul Ryan</a> (R-Wisc.) and Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00030836&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Rand Paul</a> (R-Ky.).Of course, these totals, and those for the everyone else we’ve listed, don’t include any dark money contributions — funds given to organizations that can be engaged in politics but don’t have to disclose their donors. In Koch’s case, that sum may be considerable.<ul style="margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;">Michael Bloomberg – Estimated worth: $47.5 billion. Contributions since 1989: $68.9 million</li></ul>Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has donated tens of millions of dollars in the past three elections, securing him a spot on our list of the 10 biggest donors since 2010. In the 2016 cycle most of his $23.6 million went to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C00532705&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Independence USA</a>, a super PAC completely funded by Bloomberg’s $21.5 million and $500 from his <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C90015025&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund</a>. The super PAC spent $6 million against former Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00030980&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Kelly Ayotte</a> (R-N.H.), $789,000 against <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00023864" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump</a>, $5.9 million for Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?cycle=2016&id=PAS1" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Pat Toomey</a> (R-Penn.) and $539,000 for Rep. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?cycle=2016&id=FL10" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Val Demings</a> (D-Fla.). Bloomberg also gave $1 million to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00489799&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Planned Parenthood</a>‘s super PAC and $1 million to pro-choice <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00473918&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Women Vote!</a>, and contributed to a bipartisan mix of lawmakers, such as Rep. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?cycle=2016&id=NY14" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Joseph Crowley</a> (D-N.Y), former Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?cycle=2016&id=ILS2" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Mark Kirk</a> (R-Illinois) and Rep. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?cycle=2016&id=NY02" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Pete King</a> (R-N.Y.). In 2014, Bloomberg won second place with $28.6 million in contributions, most of which went to Independence USA.<ul style="margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;">Sheldon Adelson – Estimated worth: $30.4 billion. Contributions (with wife Miriam) since 1989: $190.4 million</li></ul>Sheldon and Miriam Adelson spent $82.5 million last cycle, coming in at No. 2 after opening the spigots late in the election season to douse GOP outside groups with cash: the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00504530&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Congressional</a> and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C00571703&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Senate Leadership Funds</a>, pro-Trump super PAC <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00574533&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Future45</a> and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00580381&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Granite State Solutions</a>, which worked against Democrat Maggie Hassan’s bid to win a New Hampshire Senate seat. The casino magnate couple topped our list in 2012, donating $93.2 million to Republicans and super PACs like <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C00490045&cycle=2012" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Restore Our Future</a> ($15 million), which was devoted to helping elect Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.<ul style="margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;">George Soros – Estimated worth: $25.2 billion. Contributions since 1989: $61 million</li></ul>The founder of Soros Fund Management shelled out $21 million last cycle, placing him twelfth on the biggest donor list. About $9.5 million went to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00495861&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Priorities USA Action</a>, which focused on boosting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in her White House bid, as well as other liberal groups like <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00495028&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">House Majority PAC</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00489799&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Planned Parenthood Votes</a> and the anti-Rubio <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00627141&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">United for Progress</a>. Soros spent more in 2016 than he had in any of the three previous election cycles.<ul style="margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;">Laurene Powell Jobs – Estimated worth: $20 billion. Contributions (including those of her deceased husband, Steve) since 1989: $4.2 million</li></ul>Laurene Powell Jobs, founder of social reform organization Emerson Collective and widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs, gave $2.7 million to mostly Democratic causes in the 2016 election, including $1.5 million to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000027357" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Senate Majority PAC</a>, $400,000 to pro-Clinton <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00531624&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Local Voices</a> and gifts to a smattering of state Democratic parties. This is the first year this decade she broke into our top 100 list, spending less than $1 million in each of the last three election cycles.<ul style="margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;">James Simons – Estimated worth: $18 billion. Contributions (with wife Marilyn) since 1989: $46.1 million</li></ul>The founder of Renaissance Technologies and his wife Marilyn gave out $26.8 million of their $18 billion in wealth in the 2016 cycle. About $11 million went to Priorities USA Action and $8 million to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00484642&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Senate Majority PAC</a>. They also gave directly to Dems in tight races, such as Senate candidates <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00038397&newmem=Y" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Maggie Hassan</a> (N.H.) and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00027860&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Tammy Duckworth</a> (Ill.), and Clinton.<ul style="margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;">Steve Cohen – Estimated worth: $13 billion. Contributions (with wife Alexandra) since 1989: $7.3 million</li></ul>The founder Point72 Asset Management and his wife Alexandra distributed $6.7 million in 2016 by giving about half to pro-New Jeresey Gov. Chris Christie (R) super PAC <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C00573055&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">America Leads</a> to help Christie’s presidential effort, and donating to Clinton after she dropped out. As for candidates, once again Cohen didn’t discriminate by party, giving to lawmakers such as Rep. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00036023&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Barbara Comstock</a> (R-Va.), Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00036915&newmem=Y" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Kamala Harris</a> (D-Calif.) and Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001093&cycle=2016" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Charles Schumer</a> (D-N.Y.).  The couple didn’t spend more than $200,000 in any of the previous three election cycles.In case you haven’t caught the pattern, the majority (or 92 percent) of the top billionaires’ cash went to outside groups, as opposed to candidates. That was also true in the previous two cycles for these 36 donors’ households: 90 percent in 2014 and 97 percent in 2012.The GOP’s ownership of the lion’s share of contributions from these titans of wealth was a switch from the past cycle: In the 2014 midterm elections, Democrats and liberals collected 81 percent of the billionaires’ $51.6 million in cash. But in the 2012 cycle, when President Obama faced off against Republican nominee Mitt Romney, 78 percent of the $127.8 million from these same wallets went to the Republicans and conservative groups.Still, those with the greatest wealth don’t necessarily pour the most into politics. For example, Nos. 1, 2 and 5 on Forbes’ list each gave six figures or less last cycle to federal political causes: Bill Gates ($159,000), Jeff Bezos ($56,000) and Mark Zuckerberg ($33,00) have a lot of room for growth.For more details about the rest of the rich, see our table below:Top 30 billionaires’ federal political giving in 2016
Check out our <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RhgNtJlVu1TQ5uKjPCQRob3MiD4VXzgbw7xZ5mpkvpU/edit#gid=0" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">spreadsheet here</a> to see how these billion dollar households played in politics in the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RhgNtJlVu1TQ5uKjPCQRob3MiD4VXzgbw7xZ5mpkvpU/edit#gid=0" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">past four elections</a>.Senior researcher Douglas Weber contributed to this post. </div><footer class="entry-meta" style="line-height: 15px;">
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irony see also pioneer "meritocrisy"

<a href="https://www.facebook.com/The-Dead-Billionaires-Club-256910427705907/">https://www.facebook.com/The-Dead-Billionaires-Club-256910427705907/</a>

The Dead Billionaires Club. A handful of rich 19th century capitalists, John Birchers and Libertarians who were believers in Social Darwinism and the "science" of eugenics (Which lead to the Holocaust) whose foundations and trust-funder children have spent 40 years carrying out their fascist overthrow of the United States government.

<a href="https://truth-2-power.com/2011/12/13/the-dead-billionaires-club-the-dead-cant-vote-but-should-they-give/">https://truth-2-power.com/2011/12/13/the-dead-billionaires-club-the-dead-cant-vote-but-should-they-give/</a>

==

2015 forbes released its <a href="http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(255, 41, 28);">annual Billionaires List</a> this week, with 536 of the world’s 1,826 billionaires residing in the United States. Among those American billionaires, 49 are from Texas.

The list ranked a record number of billionaires this year—a 181-person increase from 2014’s list of 1,645. Aggregate net worth on the list totaled $7.05 trillion this year, with average net worth of individuals on the list coming in at $3.86 billion. Only California and New York had more billionaires than Texas, and of the 49 Texas billionaires, 22 hail from Dallas-Fort Worth.

Among the top 500 of the world’s billionaires are these 16 Texans, listed in order of real-time net worth as of March 4, 2015:

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Alice Walton, Fort Worth- #11, $38.1 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Michael Dell, Austin – #47, $18.8 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Charles Butt, San Antonio – #94, $12 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Richard Kinder, Houston – #100, $11.8 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Andrew Beal, Dallas – #105, $11.7 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Dannine Avara, Houston – #230, $6.2 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Scott Duncan, Houston – #230, $6.2 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Milane Frantz, Houston – #230, $6.2 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Kelcy Warren, Dallas – #230, $6.5 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Randa Williams, Houston – #240, $5.8 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Ray Lee Hunt, Dallas – #265, $5.5 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Robert Rowling, Dallas – #277, $5.6 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Jeffery Hildebrand, Houston – #318, $4.6 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Trevor Rees-Jones, Dallas – #381, $4.3 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Jerry Jones, Dallas – #393, $4.2 billion</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">H. Ross Perot Sr., Dallas – #462, $3.7 billion</li>

</ul>

Other Texans on the list are, in order of net worth:

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Dan Friedkin, Houston</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Ray Davis, Dallas</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Mark Cuban, Dallas</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">John Paul DeJoria, Austin</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Richard Rainwater, Fort Worth</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Robert Bass, Fort Worth</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">George Bishop, The Woodlands</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">John Arnold, Houston</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">David Bonderman, Fort Worth</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Tilman Fertitta, Houston</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Timothy Headington, Dallas</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Robert McNair, Houston</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Drayton McClane Jr., Temple</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Fayez Sarofim, Houston</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Gerald Ford, Dallas</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Rodney Lewis, San Antonio</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Edward Bass, Fort Worth</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Lee Bass, Fort Worth</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Billy Joe “Red” McCombs, San Antonio</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Ross Perot Jr., Dallas</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Sid Bass, Fort Worth</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Herbert Hunt, Dallas</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Joe Jamail, Houston</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Leslie Alexander, Houston</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">David Booth, Austin</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Darwin Deason, Dallas</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Paul Foster, El Paso</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Christopher Goldsbury, San Antonio</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Todd Wagner, Dallas</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Kenny Troutt, Dallas</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Dan Wilks, Cisco</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Farris Wilks, Cisco</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box;">James Leininger, San Antonio</li>

</ul>

===

===

see beef subsidies:

Some of America's biggest welfare ranchers:

David and Charles Koch (Koch Industries)

The brothers hold a half-dozen grazing permits on public land in Montana to go with its 300,000-acre Matador Ranch there. The brothers are tied for fourth place on Forbes 2014 400 Richest People in America list (net worth: $ 42 billion each). The Koch family ($ 89 billion) is #2 on Forbes Richest Families list; Koch Industries is #2 on Forbes America's Largest Private Companies list, ($ 115 billion in sales).

J.R. Simplot Corp.

The largest U.S. public lands ranching entity (with an estimated 2 to 3 million acres of allotments in CA, ID, NV, OR and UT) is #63 on Forbes 2014 list of America's Largest Private Companies ($ 5.8 billion in sales). In 2014, the family was #29 on Forbes list of America’s Richest Families (net worth: $ 8 billion).

Bruce McCaw (McCaw Cellular)

McCaw was #382 on Forbes 400 list of America’s Richest People in 2005 (net worth: $ 925 million). Through his 9 sprawling ranches, he controls a significant number of public grazing leases in ID and possibly NV. One of them (Camas Creek ranch) includes 272,000 acres of Federal grazing allotments in Idaho's Camas Prairie. Grazing permitted to his other ranches could easily double or triple that to a million acres or more.

Barrick Gold

The Canadian mining company is one of the two largest public lands ranchers in NV, ranking 771st on Forbes Global 2000 list of the World’s Biggest Public Companies in 2014, (sales: $ 12.56 billion). Like many other large public lands ranchers, Barrick buys ranches to secure water rights.

Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA)

The supplier of drinking water to Las Vegas is a large NV public lands rancher with an estimated 1 million acres of public grazing allotments. Like Barrick Gold, it, buys up private ranches to gain their water rights.

W. Barron Hilton (Hilton Hotels)

The hotel heir dropped off Forbes Billionaires list (ranked #459 in 2011) as well as its list of the 400 Richest Americans (#144 in 2010), with a net worth of $ 2.5 billion. He died in 2013.

Though records are hard to pin down, Hilton's heirs inherited a ranching operation in the CA-NV border area, which has been known to have vast public lands grazing allotments permitted to it.

Mary Hewlett-Jaffe (Hewlett-Packard)

Jaffe holds the largest BLM public lands grazing permit in central ID and is among the top 15 public lands ranchers in the state (estimated at under 200,000 acres that are said to be in extremely degraded condition, according to sources).

James Barta (Sav-Rx.com)

Barta is not on any Forbes rich lists, but owns one of the largest cattle ranching operations in the U.S., according to his attorneys. Barta holds grazing permits to nearly 900,000 acres of public grazing allotments in connection with two properties: White Horse Ranch (in OR) and Soldier Meadows (in NV). Barta may have additional NV grazing leases through two other ranches in NV, according to Jon Marvel, founder of Western Watersheds Project.

T. Wright Dickinson

Though not on any Forbes list, the Dickinson family is a large public lands rancher, with  grazing permits estimated at more than a half million acres of CO, UT and WY public lands under its LLC, Vermillion Ranches. Dickinson is a former County commissioner and proponent of county efforts to gain control of federal lands, according to the Denver Post.

Stan Kroenke (Kroenke Group) & Ann Walton Kroenke (Walmart)

With just two of his ranches (in MT and WY) totaling 664,000 acres (not including public grazing allotments), Kroenke is one of the ten top land owners in the U.S. In 2014, he ranked #89 on Forbes list of the 400 Richest Americans, #247 on its Billionaires list, and #5 on its list of Richest American Sports Team Owners (net worth: $ 5.8 billion). His wife, Ann Walton Kroenke (net worth: $ 5.6 billion), was #261 on Forbes Billionaires list and #11 on its list of America’s Richest Women.

Family of Robert Earl Holding (Sinclair Oil and hotels)

Forbes ranks the family #87 on its 2014 list of America’s Richest Families (net worth: $ 2.7 billion). With 400,000 acres of land, the family is the 19th largest private land owner in the US, according to the 2014 Land Report 100. This includes land that Forbes reported “may be the largest ranching operation in the Rocky Mountains.” Public grazing leases are associated with some of the family’s WY and possibly MT holdings, according to Jon Marvel, founder of Western Watersheds.

Ted Turner

He's the second largest U.S. land owner (2 million acres in 6 states), is estimated to hold grazing leases in MT and NM (estimated at as much as 300,000 acres), and owns the world's largest bison herd. Forbes ranked him #296 on its 2014 list of the 400 Richest Americans and #818 on its global Billionaires list (net worth: $ 2.2 billion).

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http://www.alternet.org/print/economy/meet-billionaires-using-their-immense-wealth-make-life-miserable-ordinary-americans

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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/science/billionaires-with-big-ideas-are-privatizing-american-science.html?r=0">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/science/billionaires-with-big-ideas-are-privatizing-american-science.html?r=0</a>

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...

Chronic racial and gender imbalances amongst the super-rich only add to their detachment from the world around them. Despite the glitter and visibility of black and Latino celebrities, black and Latino wealth is the lowest on record. The annual list of <a href="http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/" style="text-decoration: none;">America’s richest four-hundred people</a>, generated by Forbes, highlights alarming realities.

Even though they make up half of the U.S. population, only 48 women are on the list. Only one Latino, Jorge Perez, and one African-American, Oprah Winfrey, are on it as well. The list indicates an even starker truth. Even in rapidly diversifying present-day America, close to 100 percent of America’s wealthiest households are white; <a href="http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/11/on_race_and_taxes_both_parties_insist_upon_seeing_no_evil.html%20" style="text-decoration: none;">96 percent</a> to be exact. These whopping wealth inequities underscore that the super wealthy occupy a world apart from the rest of us, one that is growing more distant.

Reinforced by political access, national economic policy, and their own echo chamber of social networks and media outlets, their world has an outsized influence on and negative consequences for the reality lived by everyone else.

Wealth and its discontents

The latest glimpse into the Oz-like mind of the superrich erupted when Perkins fired off a screed to The Wall Street Journal on January 25. His letter to the editor was sparked by anger at San Francisco’s anti-gentrification protests centered on Google’s private bus network used to ferry employees to the company’s campus 35 miles away. In his note Perkins railed against “progressive radicalism,” and declared that there were “parallels” between Hitler’s Germany and “the progressive war on the American 1 percent, namely the ‘rich.’” Even though Perkins gave a partial apology for some of his words days later, the damage was done. In response to his screed, Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman penned an op-ed titled, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/opinion/krugman-paranoia-of-the-plutocrats.html?ref=paulkrugman&_r=0" style="text-decoration: none;">“Paranoia of the Plutocrats.”</a>

The problem with Perkins’ paranoia is that he is not alone in it. Despite the fact that the top 1 percent has captured nine out of 10 dollars of all the wealth added to the economy since 2000, there is a pervasive sense that they are the ones facing persecution and denigration. As wealth therapist Jamie Trager-Muney <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/wealthy-top-one-percent-economy-finance-102833_Page2.html" style="text-decoration: none;">told</a> Politico, “I think that with Occupy Wall Street there was a sense of the heat getting turned up and a feeling of vilification and potential danger.” But as Krugman points out the real danger in America is poverty and inequality. There is “strong evidence that high inequality leads to worse health and higher mortality,” he writes. Being poor, rather than being rich, is what kills.

Regardless of the facts, the issue is that what the rich actually believe about themselves and about everyone else has an excessive impact on American society. As was laid out in a <a href="http://www.demos.org/stacked-deck-how-dominance-politics-affluent-business-undermines-economic-mobility-america#upwardmobility" style="text-decoration: none;">report</a>last year by the think tank Demos, wealthy individuals are far more likely vote and contribute to political campaigns. Those making over $150,000 showed up at the polls nearly twice the rate as those making less than $20,000. In 2012, just 41,000 Americans — out of a total population of 310 million — gave $2,600 or more to presidential campaigns that year. But these contributions made up nearly one out of four dollars raised that year meaning that these individuals’ impact on presidential fundraising was <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/donordemographics.php" style="text-decoration: none;">2,500 times greater</a> than their actual percentage of the population.

....<a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/great-isolation-1">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/great-isolation-1</a>

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oligarchs trash the planet for profit <a href="http://ifg.org/pdf/IFG_plutonomy_Part2.pdf">http://ifg.org/pdf/IFG_plutonomy_Part2.pdf</a>

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<a href="http://bigthink.com/econ201/mobility-hasnt-changed-but-it-means-less-than-it-used-to" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">http://bigthink.com/econ201/mobility-hasnt-changed-but-it-means-less-than-it-used-to</a>

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The combined wealth of the world's richest 85 people is now equivalent to that owned by half of the world's population – or 3.5 billion of the poorest people – according to a new report from Oxfam.

In a report titled "Working for the Few" released Monday, the global aid and development organization detailed the extent of global economic inequality created by the rapidly increasing wealth of the richest, warning of the major risks it poses to "human progress."

According to the report, 210 people have become billionaires in the past year, joining a select group of 1,426 individuals with a combined net worth of $5.4 trillion.

It added that the wealth of the richest one percent of people in the world now amounts to $110 trillion, or 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world's population.

"This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents a significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems," the report said....

<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/business/worlds-85-richest-have-same-wealth-3-5-billion-poorest-2D11958883" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://www.nbcnews.com/business/worlds-85-richest-have-same-wealth-3-5-billion-poorest-2D11958883</a>

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<a href="http://www.alternet.org/print/economy/philanthropy-trouble">http://www.alternet.org/print/economy/philanthropy-trouble</a>

<div class="byline economy"><a href="http://alternet.org/">AlterNet</a> [1] / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/prashanth-kamalakanthan">Prashanth Kamalakanthan</a> [2]</div>

<div class="story_comments">How Billionaire 'Philanthropy' Is Fueling Inequality and Helping To Destroy the Country</div>

<div class="story-date">August 14, 2013  |  </div>

Peter Buffett, the second son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, worries that the state of philanthropy in America “just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place.” At meetings of charitable foundations, he says “you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left.”

Describing the stunning growth of what he calls a “charitable-industrial complex,” his recent New York Times op-ed reads in<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/opinion/the-charitable-industrial-complex.html?_r=0">confessional style</a> [3]: “People (including me) who had very little knowledge of a particular place would think that they could solve a local problem.”

An insider’s critique from someone like Peter Buffett is certainly welcome. Charitable giving, after all, has seen a meteoric rise in recent years, virtually unchanged amid a historic global recession. In what the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy calls a <a href="http://www.ncrp.org/files/rp-articles/ResponsivePhilanthropy_Winter2011-12_Laskowski.pdf">“New Gilded Age of Philanthropy,”</a> [4] the ballooning fortunes of the 1% seem to mirror levels of giving by foundations:

[img]

(Source: <a href="http://www.ncrp.org/files/rp-articles/ResponsivePhilanthropy_Winter2011-12_Laskowski.pdf">National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy</a> [4])

As Buffett suggests, this growth in elite largesse, totaling <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100831257">$316 billion</a> [5] in 2012, has done little to combat economic inequality. But the problem isn’t just one of ineffectiveness. A <a href="http://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jecinq/v9y2011i1p1-21.html">recent paper</a> [6] published in the Journal of Economic Inequality shows philanthropy hasn’t simply failed to meet its goals; it’s made the situation worse.

"Using measures of both absolute and relative inequality,” the study’s authors conclude, “we have shown that philanthropy may actually exacerbate inequality, instead of reducing it.”

It’s hard to believe that all the industrial titans and Wall Street tycoons shelling out billions on charitable projects don’t understand this. They spend their lives swimming in numbers. What, then, might their real goals be? A closer look at how the world’s wealthiest are choosing to give away their money provides clues. While pretending to fix inequality, contemporary philanthropy’s actual role has been to strengthen the arrangements that make gross inequality possible in the first place. It has become a weapon in the class warfare of the 1%, the carrot to win people over to their ideology complementing the stick of political spending to coerce them into the same.

The Koch brothers

David and Charles Koch, together worth <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all">$35 billion</a> [7], have perfected this philanthropic misanthropy perhaps better than anyone else. Their Kansas-based Koch Industries is the second largest private company in the country after Cargill, with annual revenues estimated to surpass <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all">$100 billion</a> [7]. Together <a href="http://www.kochind.com/FactsSheets/KochFacts.aspx">they control</a> [8] thousands of miles of oil pipelines from Alaska to Texas; fertilizers, minerals and biofuels; Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups and Lycra.

A research team at <a href="http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/the_koch_club/story/Koch_millions_spread_influence_through_nonprofits/">American University</a> [9] found that from 2007 to 2011, Koch foundations gave $41.2 million to 89 nonprofits and sponsored an annual libertarian conference. The report details how Koch Industries’ $53.9 million federal and state lobbying budget routinely goes hand-in-glove with Koch-affiliated nonprofits’ “public advocacy” for reasons having little to do with the public and everything to do with the brothers’ sprawling business interests. Koch lobbyists advocate for bills like the Energy Tax Prevention Act — which sought to roll back the Supreme Court ruling allowing EPA regulation of greenhouse gases — that are then supported in congressional testimony by “experts” from Koch-funded nonprofits.

Though private foundations cannot legally “be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests,” the study’s authors note that IRS enforcement is largely “sporadic and somewhat mysterious,” and even in the case of an investigation communications between the foundation and the government are generally kept from the public. The Koch nonprofit machine has exploited this loophole for all it’s worth, testifying before congressional committees at least 49 times since 2007.

For decades, Koch philanthropy has also waged ideological warfare within U.S. universities, contributing over $30 million to 221 universities since just 2011. Here, the payoff couldn’t be plainer. A 2012 report in Academe documented the <a href="http://www.aaup.org/article/fine-print-restrictive-grants-and-academic-freedom#.Uf__hVNQ1EN">Koch-funded coup</a> [10] in Florida State University’s economics department, showing how “in exchange for his ‘gift,’ the donor got to assign specific readings, select speakers brought to campus and instruct them with regard to the focus of their lectures, shape the curriculum with new courses and specify the number of students in the courses, name the program’s director, and initiate a student club.”

The Charles G. Koch Foundation gave FSU $1.5 million to sponsor two assistant professors, fund fellowships and shape curricula promoting free-enterprise doctrine. It then created an advisory board to distribute money to faculty and ensure their work aligned with the foundation’s ideology.

The Kochs have tapped many useful allies, academic and non, in their collegiate ploys. A year before the FSU story, <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/06/28/koch_foundation_gifts_to_colleges_and_universities_draw_scrutiny">Inside Higher Ed</a>[11] exposed how administrators at Clemson University cultivated the Koch Foundation to build its “Institute for the Study of Capitalism,” receiving $1 million for the effort. BB&T, the financial institution whose former chairman and CEO John Allison heads the Koch-backed Cato Institute, regularly pays universities to chair favorable professors, typically in economics. Cooperative institutions are rewarded with Koch dollars as a bonus. American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop found 10 such universities, where BB&T-chaired professors coincided with Koch cashflow.

Art Pope

James “Art” Pope, a founding board member of the Kochs’ conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, took the brothers’ brand of charitable devastation and concentrated it at the state level. He is, as the New Yorker’s Jane Meyer <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_mayer">put it</a> [12], the “conservative multimillionaire [who] has taken control in North Carolina,” a discount retail baron that has used his unrivaled influence as the state’s<a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/01/investigative-series-how-pope-reigns.html">single largest political donor</a> [13] to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/art-pope-koch-brothers_n_2342932.html">literally buy his way into office</a> [14]. While his network of conservative foundations continues steering the debate rightward, Pope puts policies in motion as the state’s deputy budget director.

The <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/01/investigative-series-how-pope-reigns.html">Institute for Southern Studies</a> [13] has extensively documented how Pope uses his family nonprofit — the John William Pope Foundation, worth nearly <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all">$150 million</a> [15] — to pour tax-exempt donations into thinly veiled conservative advocacy groups like the John W. Pope Civitas Institute, the John Locke Foundation and the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. Over the years, these groups have worked closely with <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/10/art-pope-still-dancing-at-the-tea-party.html">Tea Party organizers</a> [16], attacked <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/10/a-pope-of-climate-denial.html">climate science</a> [17] (and <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/11/special-investigation-whos-behind-the-information-attacks-on-climate-scientists.html">scientists</a> [18]) and generally championed free market principles.

Pope’s is an impressive empire of shell charities: his foundation spends more than two-thirds of its money providing some <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/10/blessed-to-have-a-pope.html">90%</a> [19] of the funding for North Carolina’s leading conservative organizations, at most of which he enjoys a leadership role. In 2010, three of these groups — Civitas Action, Real Jobs NC and Americans for Prosperity — banded together with Pope and his family to <a href="http://www.artpopeexposed.com/explainer_how_much_did_art_pope_really_spend">flood</a> [20] North Carolina’s legislative races and stage the first Republican takeover of the state <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/175328/north-carolinas-moral-mondays">since 1896</a> [21].

Since then, Pope’s puppeteering has pushed North Carolina into free-fall, galvanizing the grassroots, <a href="https://twitter.com/MoralMondays">Moral Monday</a> [22] opposition that’s<a href="http://www.carolinamercury.com/2013/08/thousands-attend-mountain-moral-monday-protests-spread-to-chicago-and-oakland/">spreading across the country</a> [23]. Policies long advocated by Pope foundations are now proposed and enacted on a daily basis, seeking to <a href="http://www.nccivitas.org/2012/new-report-touts-benefits-from-replacing-the-north-carolina-income-tax-with-consumption-based-tax/">eliminate corporate and income taxes</a> [24], <a href="http://www.johnlocke.org/newsletters/research/2013-07-25-om9498jb60qcklc3e6g74ijo37-health-update.html">shrink healthcare coverage</a> [25], <a href="http://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2012/4b-renewableenergy.html">gut environmental regulations</a> [26], <a href="http://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2012/2k-earlychildhoodeducation.html">remove early education opportunities</a> [27], <a href="http://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2012/6b-urbanrailtransit.html">oppose public transit</a> [28] and <a href="http://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2012/2f-publicschoolfinance.html">defund public schools</a> [29] and <a href="http://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2012/2m-highereducationpolicy.html">higher education</a> [30].

It’s this last foray that student groups like the <a href="http://www.indyweek.com/citizen/archives/2012/09/28/art-pope-and-the-future-of-education-in-north-carolina">North Carolina Student Power Union</a> [31] are fiercely resisting, mounting a statewide campaign against Art Pope’s involvement in the University of North Carolina system. In exchange for his foundation’s more than two dozen grants over the past 15 years, last year Pope <a href="http://www.northcarolina.edu/news/index.php?code=homepage&actn=view&article_id=208271">was rewarded</a> [32] with a seat on UNC’s “blue ribbon” panel to craft a five-year strategic plan for the 16-campus system. Students claim the move defies UNC’s mandate for public accountability, reeking of blatant corruption.

Pope is hardly an educator, and <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/09/art-pope-translates-dollars-into-influence-at-unc.html">his gifts</a> [33] demonstrate a Koch-like determination to indoctrinate college students at any cost, bidding to bring them into the fold while they’re young. His past contributions include $900,000 for <a href="http://www.artpope.com/philantropy/">pro-free market political science program</a> [34]at North Carolina State University; an attempted <a href="http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2012/MJ/Feat/mele.htm">$10 million</a> [35] for a UNC program in “Western civilization,” later diverted to football coaches’ salaries after widespread outcry; and a similarly ill-fated $600,000 attempt to launch a <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/10/01/1530376/nccu-law-idea-pulled.html">constitutional law center</a> [36] led by the director of a Pope-funded nonprofit at North Carolina Central University.

Bill and Melinda Gates

But it’s not just rightwing demagogues <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/175328/north-carolinas-moral-mondays">who have</a> [21] “drank all the Tea Party they could drink and sniffed all the Koch they could sniff” using charity to further their political agenda. Bill and Melinda Gates’ own liberal-leaning, <a href="http://www.gatesfoundation.org/who-we-are/general-information/foundation-factsheet">$36.4 billion</a> [37] charitable foundation, by far the world’s largest, has long been scrutinized for attempting to fix with one hand the problems it creates with another. In 2007, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,2533850.story">the Los Angeles Times</a> [38] uncovered “hundreds of Gates Foundation investments — totaling at least $8.7 billion, or 41% of its assets… in companies that countered the foundation’s charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy.”

These included endowment holdings in top polluters like ConocoPhillips and Dow Chemical Co., oil refineries and paper mills that sicken the children whose parents the foundation treats for AIDS, and “pharmaceutical companies that price drugs beyond the reach of AIDS patients the foundation is trying to treat.”

The Gates Foundation’s dealings with lifesaving drugs in particular showcase the contradictions of today’s <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/30/the_big_thinkers_of_giving">philanthrocapitalism.</a> [39]

Although leading <a href="http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/">global health campaigners</a> [40] want an end to Big Pharma’s monopoly drug patents to increase affordability in poorer countries, the Gates Foundation opposes any changes to existing intellectual property law. Advocates for loosening IP regulations point out that doing so would both lower prices by encouraging generic competition and enable innovation outside of patent-hoarding companies. This proposal, however, threatens multinational pharmaceutical corporations, <a href="http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/">well-represented</a> [40] among foundation leadership, as well as monopolistic firms like Microsoft, which as late as 2007 was lobbying the G8 to tighten global intellectual property protection — a move Oxfam has <a href="http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/category/freetags/intellectual-property">consistently warned</a> [41] spells disaster for the health crisis in the Global South.

The Timesreport traces the effects of this position on the ground, quoting <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,2533850.story">an intellectual property expert</a> [38] who claims the foundation’s stance makes “medicines available only to a narrow spectrum of a rich elite in a developing country” in a form of “pharmaceutical apartheid.” As millions of impoverished AIDS and HIV patients are priced out of the market, lucrative patents allow the world’s top 10 drug companies to collect some $80 billion in profit annually. And Gates sure won’t stop them.

Boards of broken trust

The overtures by Art Pope and the Kochs show how the American university itself has lately emerged as a hub of misanthrope philanthropy, offering both opportunities for long-term indoctrination as well as short-term plunder. A 2010 <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Divided-Loyalties-Conflicts/64629/">Chronicle of Higher Education study</a> [42] found that boards of trustees, many composed of top university donors tasked with making decisions that “profoundly affect everyone on the campus,” frequently conduct business with trustee-affiliated companies. According to the Chronicle, one in four boards at private colleges have such financial ties, signing contracts involving “banks, law firms, construction companies, and insurance conglomerates” linked to trustees. And the trend is accelerating, with 58% of colleges (64% among private institutions) now allowing business relationships with trustees, as opposed to 46% just two years ago.

These sorts of boardroom entanglements have led universities into profoundly embarrassing situations, like <a href="http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2779">the fallout at Dartmouth</a> [43]after the 2008 financial crisis. As Todd Zywicki, a former Dartmouth trustee, later wrote, “The large contributions that were their ticket on to the board were functionally a mere downpayment for the fees that <a href="http://www.dartblog.com/data/2012/05/010228.php">they would later receive for managing</a> [44] half a billion dollars of Dartmouth’s endowment,” 14% of which was at one point invested in trustee-affiliated hedge funds and private equity. By 2009, Dartmouth’s Wall Street-heavy board had packed 67.5% of its endowment into risky instruments, ending in a catastrophic crash that<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Dartmouth-College-Its-Bond/47641">deepened the university’s debt and forced its credit downgrading</a> [45].

Kenneth Langone, the <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/06/kenneth_g_lango.php">$1.1 billion investor</a> [46] who founded Home Depot, recently made headlines for similarly capitalizing on his neatly purchased trustee appointment. His $200 million donation to NYU’s medical center, the largest in the institution’s history, earned him the renaming of the facility (it’s now the <a href="http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2008/04/16/nyu_medical_center_changes.html">Langone Medical Center</a> [47]) along with what is now the Stern School of Business’s Langone Part-Time MBA. Also part of the deal was his appointment as vice co-chair of NYU and its medical center’s <a href="http://www.nyu.edu/about/leadership-university-administration/board-of-trustees.html">board of trustees</a> [48], a position he <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/have_seat_the_nyu_big_will_dun_you_wWzyF666utNUDoYPlaqULL">abused in July</a> [49] to email staff about donating to the reelection campaigns of his favorite (very corporate-friendly) members of Congress. Coming as the “medical school clamps down increasingly on salaries and tenure,” employees reported feeling threatened and pressured to follow through.

More broadly, the Langone board at NYU has produced a string of <a href="http://nplusonemag.com/no-confidence">harshly condemned decisions</a> [50] that in many ways encapsulate the world his brand of giving is working to create. It’s a closed circle of wealth, where money flows between toward massive <a href="http://now.msn.com/nyu-expansion-causes-student-debt-controversy">expansion projects</a> [51] and <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/06/kenneth_g_lango.php">million-dollar payouts</a> [46] for star staff’s condominiums while <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/opinion/expand-minds-not-the-nyu-campus.html?_r=0">NYU students</a> [52], among the nation’s most indebted, are left in the dust.

The change we need

For all its failures, today’s philanthropy continues to succeed as a form of self-therapy for the world’s rich. The philanthropic elite have won out in a not-so-pretty world of entrenched and widening inequality, and their charitable giving helps hide the ugly truth of the situation — from us as well as themselves. Ruinously for us, though, the ways in which our misanthrope philanthropists contribute are significantly deepening the crisis at hand.

Of course, there are occasional flickers of light that emerge from the nonprofit world. Foundations like Marian Wright Edelman’s<a href="http://www.childrensdefense.org/">Children’s Defense Fund</a> [53], growing out of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign to advocate for working-class families, and the new <a href="http://www.iopsociety.org/about">International Organization for a Participatory Society</a> [54], seeking to build a bottom-up, classless global society, work for the poor and powerless in important ways. Still, trapped in the logic of competing cashflows, these groups are overshadowed by their misanthropic counterparts.

To echo Peter Buffett’s call, what we need is “systemic change… built from the ground up.” No more scraps from the rich kids’ table. The idiosyncratic, undemocratic “giving back” of the world’s wealthiest in the end gives to nobody but themselves, <a href="http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/meet-private-equity-tycoon-forefront-americas-new-phony">some</a> [55] more brazenly than others. As philanthropy analyst Michael Edwards asks: “Would philanthrocapitalism have helped fund the civil rights movement in the US? I hope so, but it wasn’t ‘data driven,’ it didn’t operate through competition, it couldn’t generate much revenue, and it didn’t measure its impact in terms of the numbers of people who were served each day. Yet it changed the world forever.”

We’re all still waiting for the change we really need, not the kind dropped from swollen pockets.

</div>

<div class="tags">See more stories tagged with:

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/philanthropy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">philanthropy</a> [56]</div>

</div>

<div class="print-source_url" style=" text-align: left;">Source URL: <a href="http://www.alternet.org/economy/philanthropy-trouble">http://www.alternet.org/economy/philanthropy-trouble</a></div>

Links:

</div>

[1] http://alternet.org

</div>

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/prashanth-kamalakanthan

</div>

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/opinion/the-charitable-industrial-complex.html?_r=0

</div>

[4] http://www.ncrp.org/files/rp-articles/ResponsivePhilanthropy_Winter2011-12_Laskowski.pdf

</div>

[5] http://www.cnbc.com/id/100831257

</div>

[6] http://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jecinq/v9y2011i1p1-21.html

</div>

[7] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

</div>

[8] http://www.kochind.com/FactsSheets/KochFacts.aspx

</div>

[9] http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/the_koch_club/story/Koch_millions_spread_influence_through_nonprofits/

</div>

[10] http://www.aaup.org/article/fine-print-restrictive-grants-and-academic-freedom#.Uf__hVNQ1EN

</div>

[11] http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/06/28/koch_foundation_gifts_to_colleges_and_universities_draw_scrutiny

</div>

[12] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_mayer

</div>

[13] http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/01/investigative-series-how-pope-reigns.html

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[14] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/art-pope-koch-brothers_n_2342932.html

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[15] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

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[16] http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/10/art-pope-still-dancing-at-the-tea-party.html

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[17] http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/10/a-pope-of-climate-denial.html

</div>

[18] http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/11/special-investigation-whos-behind-the-information-attacks-on-climate-scientists.html

</div>

[19] http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/10/blessed-to-have-a-pope.html

</div>

[20] http://www.artpopeexposed.com/explainer_how_much_did_art_pope_really_spend

</div>

[21] http://www.thenation.com/article/175328/north-carolinas-moral-mondays

</div>

[22] https://twitter.com/MoralMondays

</div>

[23] http://www.carolinamercury.com/2013/08/thousands-attend-mountain-moral-monday-protests-spread-to-chicago-and-oakland/

</div>

[24] http://www.nccivitas.org/2012/new-report-touts-benefits-from-replacing-the-north-carolina-income-tax-with-consumption-based-tax/

</div>

[25] http://www.johnlocke.org/newsletters/research/2013-07-25-om9498jb60qcklc3e6g74ijo37-health-update.html

</div>

[26] http://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2012/4b-renewableenergy.html

</div>

[27] http://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2012/2k-earlychildhoodeducation.html

</div>

[28] http://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2012/6b-urbanrailtransit.html

</div>

[29] http://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2012/2f-publicschoolfinance.html

</div>

[30] http://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2012/2m-highereducationpolicy.html

</div>

[31] http://www.indyweek.com/citizen/archives/2012/09/28/art-pope-and-the-future-of-education-in-north-carolina

</div>

[32] http://www.northcarolina.edu/news/index.php?code=homepage&actn=view&article_id=208271

</div>

[33] http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/09/art-pope-translates-dollars-into-influence-at-unc.html

</div>

[34] http://www.artpope.com/philantropy/

</div>

[35] http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2012/MJ/Feat/mele.htm

</div>

[36] http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/10/01/1530376/nccu-law-idea-pulled.html

</div>

[37] http://www.gatesfoundation.org/who-we-are/general-information/foundation-factsheet

</div>

[38] http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,2533850.story

</div>

[39] http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/30/the_big_thinkers_of_giving

</div>

[40] http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/

</div>

[41] http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/category/freetags/intellectual-property

</div>

[42] http://chronicle.com/article/Divided-Loyalties-Conflicts/64629/

</div>

[43] http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2779

</div>

[44] http://www.dartblog.com/data/2012/05/010228.php

</div>

[45] http://chronicle.com/article/Dartmouth-College-Its-Bond/47641

</div>

[46] http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/06/kenneth_g_lango.php

</div>

[47] http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2008/04/16/nyu_medical_center_changes.html

</div>

[48] http://www.nyu.edu/about/leadership-university-administration/board-of-trustees.html

</div>

[49] http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/have_seat_the_nyu_big_will_dun_you_wWzyF666utNUDoYPlaqULL

</div>

[50] http://nplusonemag.com/no-confidence

</div>

[51] http://now.msn.com/nyu-expansion-causes-student-debt-controversy

</div>

[52] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/opinion/expand-minds-not-the-nyu-campus.html?_r=0

</div>

[53] http://www.childrensdefense.org/

</div>

[54] http://www.iopsociety.org/about

</div>

[55] http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/meet-private-equity-tycoon-forefront-americas-new-phony

</div>

[56] http://www.alternet.org/tags/philanthropy

</div>

[57] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

</div>

===

===

<table class="super_donor" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="auto"><tbody><tr><td class="rank">1</td><td class="name">Sheldon Adelson & family (<a href="http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/03/20/8465/donor-profile-sheldon-adelson">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$93.3 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">2</td><td class="name">Harold Simmons & wife, companies (<a href="http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/03/20/8460/donor-profile-harold-simmons">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$30.9 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">3</td><td class="name">Bob Perry (<a href="http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/03/20/8466/donor-profile-bob-perry">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$23.5 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">4</td><td class="name">Fred Eychaner (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/07/30/10460/donor-profile-fred-eychaner">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$14.1 million</td><td class="ideo">Democratic</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">5</td><td class="name">Joe Ricketts (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/23/11606/donor-profile-john-joe-ricketts">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$13.1 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">6</td><td class="name">William S. Rose (Specialty Group) (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/node/11959/">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$12.1 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">7</td><td class="name">United Auto Workers (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/23/11605/donor-profile-united-auto-workers">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$11.8 million</td><td class="ideo">Democratic</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">8</td><td class="name">National Education Association (<a href="http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/04/24/8732/donor-profile-national-education-association">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$10.8 million</td><td class="ideo">Democratic</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">9</td><td class="name">Michael Bloomberg (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/12/20/11973/donor-profile-michael-bloomberg">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$10 million</td><td class="ideo">Independent</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">10</td><td class="name">Republican Governors Association (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/28/11645/donor-profile-republican-governors-association">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$9.8 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">11</td><td class="name">James H. Simons (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/09/28/10999/donor-profile-james-h-simons">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$9.6 million</td><td class="ideo">Democratic</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">12</td><td class="name">AFSCME (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/12/20/11969/donor-profile-afscme">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$8.2 million</td><td class="ideo">Democratic</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">13</td><td class="name">AFL-CIO (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/04/24/8734/donor-profile-afl-cio">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$7.4 million</td><td class="ideo">Democratic</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">14</td><td class="name">Robert B. Rowling (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/08/22/10741/donor-profile-robert-rowling">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$6.1 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">15</td><td class="name">American Federation of Teachers (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/12/20/11972/donor-profile-american-federation-teachers">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$5.8 million</td><td class="ideo">Democratic</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">16</td><td class="name">Robert Mercer (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/08/23/10748/donor-profile-robert-mercer">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$5.5 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">17</td><td class="name">Steve and Amber Mostyn (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/09/28/11000/donor-profile-steve-and-amber-mostyn">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$5.2 million</td><td class="ideo">Democratic</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">18</td><td class="name">George Soros* & family (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/12/20/11975/donor-profile-george-soros">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$5.1 million</td><td class="ideo">Democratic</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">19</td><td class="name">William Koch (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/07/30/10458/donor-profile-william-bill-kochoxbow-carbon-llc">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$4.8 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">20</td><td class="name">Peter Thiel (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/04/23/8726/donor-profile-peter-thiel">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$4.7 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">21</td><td class="name">SEIU (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/07/30/10461/donor-profile-service-employees-international-union">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$4.4 million</td><td class="ideo">Democratic</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">21</td><td class="name">Joe Craft (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/12/20/11958/donor-profile-joe-craft">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$4.4 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">23</td><td class="name">John Childs (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/07/30/10367/donor-profile-john-childs">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$4.2 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">23</td><td class="name">Plumbers and Pipefitters Union (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/12/20/11974/donor-profile-united-association">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$4.2 million</td><td class="ideo">Democratic</td></tr><tr><td class="rank">25</td><td class="name">Jerry Perenchio (<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/04/26/8733/donor-profile-jerry-perenchio">see profile</a>)</td><td class="donation">$4.1 million</td><td class="ideo">Republican</td></tr></tbody></table>

<div class="byline economy" style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.alternet.org">AlterNet</a> [1] / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/lynn-stuart-parramore">Lynn Stuart Parramore</a> [2]</div>

<h1 class="node-title" style=" text-align: left;">10 Worst People on Forbes 2013 Billionaires List</h1>

</div>

<div class="story-date" style=" text-align: left;">March 12, 2013  |  </div>

It will hardly come as a surprise that the rich got richer in 2013. Didn’t happen to you, did it? The combined wealth of the world's billionaires hit an all-time high of 5.4 trillion, up from 4.6 trillion in 2012.

The Forbes list of billionaires is brimming over with oligarchs, monopolists, thugs, miscreants, and hustlers. Not to mention right-wingers, narcissists, and parasitic predators. The only thing missing is the king of Mexian drug lords, Joaquin"El Chapo" Guzman, whose assets were evidently too hard to calculate this year.

Putting together a list of the worst individuals in this group is a daunting task: How to choose, for example, between telecom monopolists? The richest person in the world, Mexican mogul Carlos Slim Helu, is certainly no friend of humanity, but Silvio Berlusconi, with his special brand of Technicolor depravity, managed to edge him out. There are hundreds of garden-variety jerks to choose from, along with several dozen egregious SOBs like GoDaddy’s Bob Parsons who deserve dishonorable mention. And there should be a whole separate list of Russian oligarchs. Alas, one runs out of space and time.

While not comprehensive, here, in no particular order, are some of the biggest creeps on the 2013 roster.

1. The Koch brothers: Charles Koch ($34 bn), David Koch ($34 bn), William Koch ($4 bn)

Where to begin? David and Charles, the brothers still with Koch industries, are among the world’s biggest polluters, for starters. Bill Koch, who split off from the family company, is a world-class weirdo who devotes himself to things like building a <a href="http://www.nationofchange.org/fossil-fuel-magnate-bill-koch-seeks-public-lands-shelter-his-private-old-west-marvel-1345641351">faux Western town</a> [3] solely for his amusement and buying a <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-08-24/news/william-bill-koch-the-other-koch-brother-tea-party/">$2 million photo of Billy the Kid</a> [4]. Though not as active in bankrolling GOP pols as his brothers, Bill was a big supporter of fellow 1 percent jerk Mitt Romney and has found time to fight against America’s first offshore wind farm in Massachusetts. As for David and Charles, they have won a permanent spot in the Public Menace Hall of Fame, kicking their fellow human beings in the face with everything from funding climate change denial to strangling democracy. They have striven mightily to reshape America into a Tea Party nightmare, and have plenty of money to continue their mission.

2. Rupert Murdoch ($11.2 bn)

Murdoch, the Australian media tycoon, has dedicated himself to coarsening the public sphere through the misinformation, intolerance, and contempt of ordinary people promoted through his News Corp. Politicians woo him for his cash and the vast influence of his newspapers, magazines and TV networks, creating a foul nexus of influence that is corrosive to democracy. Be it union busting, race-baiting, or monopolistic business practices, Murdoch has been there, done that. Lately, he has found himself embroiled in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal">hacking scandal</a> [5] in which employees of his newspapers were caught doing just about anything, including bribing police and hacking into the phone of a murdered schoolgirl, to get a story. Murdoch recently <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/rupert-murdoch-wonders-if-400-pound-woman-got-fat-because-of-welfare-and-food-stamps/">tweeted</a> [6] what he considered a joke about an obese woman who fell through a New York sidewalk, asking if she got fat from food stamps and welfare.

3. Gina Rinehart ($17 bn)

If there is a hell for those who hate working people, Australian mining mogul Gina Rinehart occupies the innermost circle, right there in Satan’s maw. The richest woman in the Asia/Pacific region likes to <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/05/business/la-fi-mo-richest-woman-pay-20120905">share her obscene philosophy of wealth</a> [7], and recently made a case for $2 dollar-a-day pay. She also instructed poor people to stop being jealous of the rich and to focus on working harder, and drinking and smoking less. She has <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/30/777271/worlds-richest-woman-poor-drunks/">blamed Australia’s economic problems</a> [8] on a socialist anti-business agenda, but of course Rinehart, who inherited a $30 billion fortune, has never had a real job. She does have her own Facebook fanpage, “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ginaisatheif">F*ck Gina Rinehart</a> [9],” which boasts nearly 38,000 likes.

4. The Walton family: Christy Walton and family ($28.2 bn), Jim Walton ($26.7 bn), Alice Walton ($26.3 bn), S. Robson (Rob) Walton ($26.1 bn), Anne Walton Kroenke, ($4.5 bn), Nancy Walton Laurie ($3.9 bn)

The Walton family is the richest in the U.S. and heirs to the retail juggernaut Walmart. They collectively claim <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/12/13/the-inequality-crisis-walton-family-has-err-0-14-of-all-us-wealth/">0.14 percent of the country’s entire wealth</a> [10], or to put it another way, they are worth as much as the <a href="http://www.newser.com/story/150381/6-walmart-heirs-worth-same-as-bottom-41-of-us.html">bottom 41 percent of all Americans</a> [11] combined. Their legacy is a grotesque business model that depends on pushing down wages and sinking living standards for millions of Americans. Rob is chairman of the board of directors of a company that pays its full-time hourly employees an average of $12.50 and has a <a href="http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/11/19/leaked-document-reveals-walmarts-meager-compensation-structure/">policy</a> [12] of keeping them part-time so they don’t even earn that. The Waltons are big-time funders of conservative causes, with special emphasis on <a href="http://walmart1percent.org/education/">undermining public education</a> [13]. Jim Walton, who serves as the chairman for the Walton-owned Arvest bank, is particularly active in injecting his family’s ill-gotten gains into politics.

5. Sheldon Adelson ($36.5 bn)

The casino mogul Sheldon Adelson is known as a backer of hawkish pro-Israel groups and a supporter of right-wingers both in America and Israel. In 2012, he spent more than any American in history funneling money –<a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/how-much-did-sheldon-adelson-really-spend-on-campaign-2012">at least $100 million</a> [14] – mostly to various conservative candidates. Next to the Koch brothers, he’s been just about the biggest bankroller of the right. He’s also a poster child for corruption. Recently, Adelson <a href="http://theweek.com/article/index/240867/how-badly-will-casino-mogul-sheldon-adelsons-bribery-admission-hurt-republicans">admitted that his Las Vegas Sands Corporation likely broke the law by bribing Chinese officials</a> [15] in order to expand business opportunities and to <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/17/1110773/-Sheldon-Adelson-Bribery-Law-Possibly-Much-More">raise money for his various projects</a> [16].

6. Silvio Berlusconi ($6.2 bn)

Berlusconi, one of Italy's longest serving post-war prime ministers, is a telecom monopolist whose nauseating personality and image have dominated the country and brought corruption and sex scandals to new heights. With his notorious “bunga-bunga” parties, he has normalized a special brand of cheesy misogyny and crepuscular excess that has made him the model for goatish gazillionaires across the world. When confronted with accusations that he'd paid for sex with an underage Moroccan prostitute, <a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_19070_the-5-craziest-exploits-worlds-shadiest-politician.html">he replied</a> [17], "At least I'm not gay." Belusconi’s criminal record is long and impressive, including tax fraud, bribery and the illegal financing of political parties. But he has deployed a creative means of avoiding being locked up: <a href="http://www.dw.de/as-verdicts-pile-up-berlusconi-avoids-jail/a-16664776">make up new laws</a> [18]. Last week, he was convicted of wiretapping in a bank deal and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/world/europe/berlusconi-gets-one-year-sentence-over-wiretapping-case.html">sentenced to a year in jail.</a> [19] But this will not prevent him from participating in the next government and evidently has not changed public opinion in Italy. Why should it? He’s been committing crimes and getting away with it for decades.

7. Carl Icahn ($20 bn)

Icahn’s face should be placed beside the term “corporate raider” in any dictionary of financial chicanery. C.E. Meyer, the chairman of Trans World Airlines, which was taken over by Icahn, famously <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=LUN9VFyCpQsC&pg=PA275&lpg=PA275&dq=icahn+%22one+of+the+greediest+men+on+earth.%22&source=bl&ots=7odKUKFXMJ&sig=bNvr637rHpF_OiZwvogVrqMlknQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Mok_UcnyEcfq0AHr6oEw&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=icahn%20%22one%20of%20the%20greediest%20men%20on%20earth.%22&f=false">called him</a> [20] “one of the greediest men on earth.” Also referred to as “Icahn the Barbarian,” his specialty has been taking over a company, selling its assets to pay the debt used for the purchase, and sending jobs down the toilet while enriching himself. The elderly vulture capitalist has lately been thinking about his legacy and is attempting to rebrand himself as a “shareholder activist.” That’s rather a tall order for the man who, along with Ivan Boesky, served as the inspiration for Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street.

8. Donald Trump ($3.2 bn)

Famed for the assholic mantra “You’re fired!” from his reality show venture, Trump is as shallow and thuggish a 1 percenter as you’re likely to find anywhere. He is a congenital liar, having delivered whoppers on his <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-on-lying-about-net-worth-im-no-different-than-a-politician/">net worth</a> [21], his <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/28/971218/-Time-to-expose-Trump-as-the-liar-he-has-always-been">business deals</a> [22], and, well, just about anything else he talks about for more than five minutes. He used the 2012 election cycle as a forum for personal ego boosting and the spreading of lies, including the idiotic notion that Obama is not a natural-born citizen. Fun fact: Trump used deferrments to <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/deferments-helped-trump-dodge-vietnam">avoid service</a> [23] in the Vietnam War, but lied and said it was because he had a high draft number.

9. Peter Peterson ($1.3 bn)

Private equity mogul Pete Peterson, who founded the Blackstone Group with Stephen Schwarzman (also on our list) has a very straightforward agenda. He wants to kill Social Security and Medicare, the programs that keep millions of American out of poverty. His strategy is to channel gargantuan amounts of money into stoking nonsensical deficit hysteria. His focus on austerity policies, which have proved disastrous around the world, particularly in places like the U.K., makes him an economic quack, but one who has found willing ears among fools and knaves. Peterson has pushed his messaging into popular culture, he has held high-profile summits, and he has enlisted hordes of wealthy politicians, like Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, to carry his water in Washington. He is a driving force behind the “Fix the Debt” campaign, a consortium of corporate honchos and rich individuals who have attempted to bring deficit scare-mongering to D.C. in order to achieve cuts to vital programs and further strip hardworking Americans of their dignity.

10. Stephen Schwarzman ($6.5 bn)

The Blackstone Group's co-founder Stephen Schwarzman, described as “<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/11/080211fa_fact_stewart">private equity’s designated villain</a> [24]” in the New Yorker, is fond of throwing lavish parties for himself, including an infamous $3 millon birthday fete in June 2007 at New York City's Park Avenue Armory. The party, which went down in history as a show-stopping hymn to bad taste, featured a marching band and a 50-foot silkscreen recreation of Schwarzman's own $40 million apartment. Revellers included Bill Clinton and Cardinal Edward Egan, now considered a dark horse for pope. A couple of months later, the economy tanked, thanks in part to the mismanagement and excess debt of the unregulated private equity firms that have served to weaken the real economy. Most recently, Schwarzman captured headlines by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-schwarzman-taxes-hitler-invaded-poland-2010-8">comparing raising taxes</a> [25] on private equity fatcats like himself to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Seriously! He is reportedly outraged that persons like himself <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/schwarzmans-unfortunate-war-analogy/">have been the subject of contempt</a> [26] since the financial crisis. The heart bleeds.

</div>

=

</div>

hmmn: <a href="http://www.newsmeat.com/billionaire_political_donations/">http://www.newsmeat.com/billionaire_political_donations/</a>

===

<div class="post_title" style=" text-align: left;">Meet the billionaires funding the 2012 Republican primary season</div>

<ul>

<li style=" text-align: left;">five donors find themselves in the spotlight: Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, casino moguls Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Paypal co-founder (and Facebook investor) Peter Thiel, and Houston home-builder Bob Perry</li>

<li style=" text-align: left;">$30.4 million donated by the five people, the largest donations going to the Super PACs Winning Our Future and Endorse Liberty; however, American Crossroads leads the pack with $15 million collected <a title="25% of super PAC money coming from just 5 rich donors - USATODAY.com" href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-02-21/super-pac-donors/53196658/1?csp=ip" target="_blank">source</a></li>

</ul>

» A massive financial mind share: That’s almost $1 out of every $4 collected by all super PACs this election cycle, and certainly seems to explain exactly how we ended up with the remaining crop of Republican candidates that we have. Bob Perry is a former Tim Pawlenty supporter who switched to Team Romney with a $1 million dollar donation, while the Adelsons — who are ready to boost their support for Winning The Future from $10 million to $20 million — have provided the lifeblood of the Gingrich campaign. Of the remaining four candidates, only Rick Santorum finds himself without support, via Super PAC donations, from one of these five wealthy conservatives.

===

...

<a href="http://maplight.org/">http://maplight.org/</a>

===

Waitt isn't the only billionaire who has recently returned to political giving. Leo Linbeck III, a Texas real estate magnate with a thin record of donations, gave nearly a million dollars to launch the <a target="self" href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/project-primary-mayhem-leo-linbeck">Campaign for Primary Accountability</a>, dedicated to make life miserable for longtime incumbents. Louisiana oil billionaire William Doré, content to sit on the political sidelines for years, <a target="self" href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/william-dore-rick-santorum-mystery-donor">gave $1.5 million</a> to a super-PAC supporting former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's presidential campaign. TD Ameritrade's Joe Ricketts, who six years ago didn't even donate to his son's US Senate campaign, has signaled his intention to <a target="_self" href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/05/joe-ricketts-man-behind-new-super-pac-loves-corporate-welfare">spend $10 million</a> trying to take down Obama this summer and fall. Super-PACs are the hot new accessory for the über-rich....http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/ted-waitt-icpurple-super-pac

===

...There are now economic studies that confirm what Americans have been sensing in their own lives, though the mainstream U.S. news media tends to attribute these trends to cultural changes, rather than political choices.

For instance, the Washington Post published a lengthy front-page article on June 19, describing the findings of researchers who gained access to economic data from the Internal Revenue Service which revealed which categories of taxpayers were making the high incomes.

To the surprise of some observers, the big bucks were not flowing primarily to athletes or actors or even stock market speculators. America’s new super-rich were mostly corporate chieftains.

As the Post’s Peter Whoriskey framed the story, U.S. business underwent a cultural transformation from the 1970s when chief executives believed more in sharing the wealth than they do today.

The article cites a U.S. dairy company CEO from the 1970s, Kenneth J. Douglas, who earned the equivalent of about $1 million a year. He lived comfortably but not ostentatiously. Douglas had an office on the second floor of a milk distribution center, and he turned down raises because he felt it would hurt morale at the plant, Whoriskey reported.

However, just a few decades later, Gregg L. Engles, the current CEO of the same company, Dean Foods, averages about 10 times what Douglas made. Engles works in a glittering high-rise office building in Dallas; owns a vacation estate in Vail, Colorado; belongs to four golf clubs; and travels in a $10 million corporate jet. He apparently has little concern about what his workers think.

“The evolution of executive grandeur – from very comfortable to jet-setting – reflects one of the primary reasons that the gap between those with the highest incomes and everyone else is widening,” Whoriskey reported.

“For years, statistics have depicted growing income disparity in the United States, and it has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. In 2008, the last year for which data are available, for example, the top 0.1 percent of earners took in more than 10 percent of the personal income in the United States, including capital gains, and the top 1 percent took in more than 20 percent.

“But economists had little idea who these people were. How many were Wall Street financiers? Sports stars? Entrepreneurs? Economists could only speculate, and debates over what is fair stalled. Now a mounting body of economic research indicates that the rise in pay for company executives is a critical feature in the widening income gap.”

Jet-Setting Execs

The Post article continued: “The largest single chunk of the highest-income earners, it turns out, are executives and other managers in firms, according to a landmark analysis of tax returns by economists Jon Bakija, Adam Cole and Bradley T. Heim. These are not just executives from Wall Street, either, but from companies in even relatively mundane fields such as the milk business.

“The top 0.1 percent of earners make about $1.7 million or more, including capital gains. Of those, 41 percent were executives, managers and supervisors at non-financial companies, according to the analysis, with nearly half of them deriving most of their income from their ownership in privately-held firms.

“An additional 18 percent were managers at financial firms or financial professionals at any sort of firm. In all, nearly 60 percent fell into one of those two categories. Other recent research, moreover, indicates that executive compensation at the nation’s largest firms has roughly quadrupled in real terms since the 1970s, even as pay for 90 percent of America has stalled.”

While these new statistics are striking – suggesting a broader problem with high-level greed than might have been believed – the Post ducked any political analysis that would have laid blame on Ronald Reagan and various right-wing economic theories.

In a follow-up <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-government-can-do-about-the-income-gap/2011/06/22/AGJB51kH_story.html" rel="nofollow">editorial</a> on June 26, the Post lamented the nation’s growing income inequality but shied away from proposing higher marginal tax rates on the rich or faulting the past several decades of low tax rates. Instead, the Post suggested perhaps going after deductions on employer-provided health insurance and mortgage interest, tax breaks that also help middle-class families.

...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/28-12

hightower:

<table><tbody><tr class="logolowdownsubheading"><td width="70%">Corporation & products</td><td width="15%">Total contribution</td><td width="15%">Percentage contributed</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>Bob Perry

Billionaire Houston developer. NOTE: An additional $1,284,600 was donated by Mrs. Bob Perry.</td><td>$10,517,050</td><td>92% to GOP</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>Jerry Perenchio

Multi-billionaire Hollywood media mogul.</td><td>$4,150,313</td><td>52% to GOP

0% to Dem

48% to other</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>Rob Rowling

Billionaire, owner of Gold's Gym, Omni Hotels, etc</td><td>$2,818,964</td><td>100% to GOP</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>Parker Collier

Florida developer who has given most of her money to Republicans outside of her state.</td><td>$1,239,014</td><td>100% to GOP</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>Paul Singer

Founder of a $7 billion hedge fund (Elliott Associates) and long time right wing funder, including helping finance the infamous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth front group used by the GOP to attack John Kerry in 2004. (*Libertarians)</td><td>$1,069,658</td><td>81% to GOP

19% to Libs*</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>Charles Schwab

Billionaire founder of his eponymous investment firm and longtime GOP partisan.</td><td>$933,550</td><td>100% to GOP</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>Jackson Stephens

Funded the ultra-conservative Club for Growth.</td><td>$765,406</td><td>95% to GOP</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>John Childs

Billionaire founder of JW Childs, a Boston private equity firm specializing in takeovers of consumer product corporations and health care companies.</td><td>$712,300</td><td>99% to GOP</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>Harlan Crow

Billionaire owner of Trammel Crow Company and Crow Holdings, huge developers and investors in everything from hotels to hedge funds.</td><td>$616,863</td><td>96% to GOP</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>Harold Simmons

Billionaire toxic waste disposal operator and funder of right-wing groups and candidates [NOTE: sued by his own daughters for illegally forging campaign contributions in their names without their knowledge or permission. Settled with them for $50 million.]</td><td>$614,800</td><td>88% to GOP</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>John Chambers

CEO of Cisco Systems, a Silicon Valley giant.</td><td>$582,100</td><td>72% to GOP</td></tr><tr class="logolowdowndata"><td>John Nau

Owner of the Houston distributor of Budweiser products and other beverages.</td><td>$504,974</td></tr></tbody></table>

=

[UPDATED]Virtually all of the $4.7 million raised by Karl Rove's new conservative outfit was contributed by just four billionaires, three of whom are based in Dallas, Texas, and two of whom made their fortune in the oil and gas industry.

The IRS filing of <a target="blank" href="http://americancrossroads.org/">American Crossroads</a>, an outside 527 group that was <a target="blank" href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36841.html">conceived</a> by Rove and ex-RNC chair Ed Gillespie, gives a good taste of who is funding the GOP effort to make big gains in the House and Senate come the fall. The group has already burned through <a target="_blank" href="http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=F270355A-18FE-70B2-A8218F1828357F70">$600,000</a> on ads attacking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is facing a reelection contest against Republican Sharron Angle (see one of the spots below). Chaired by another ex-RNC chair, Mike Duncan, American Crossroads has pledged to raise $50 million to beat Democrats in the midterms and has been seen by some as a competitor to the Republican National Committee itself.

And despite the group's <a target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/07/AR2010040704707.html">description</a> of itself as "grassroots," Salon's review of its IRS filings show that four billionaires have contributed 97 percent of the $4.7 million it has raised to date. There are no limits on how much corporations, unions, and individuals can donate to 527 groups. Here's a guide to American Crossroads' four donors:

<ul>

<li style=" text-align: left;">Trevor Rees-Jones, president of Dallas-based Chief Oil and Gas, gave a $1 million donation to American Crossroads just as the group was starting in April. That's small money for Rees-Jones, who, Forbes <a target="blank" href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/54/rich-list-09_Trevor-Rees-Jones_L3FD.html">estimated</a> in 2009, amassed a $1.5 billion fortune investing in gas prospects around America. He has also been a big donor to John McCain and the Texas Republican Party, Politico <a target="blank" href="http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=B7219C57-18FE-70B2-A822D36FCB994A6B">reported</a>.</li>

</li>

</li>

<li style=" text-align: left;"> Bradley Wayne Hughes, chairman of Public Storage Inc, is American Crossroads' biggest donor, contributing $1.55 million to date. Hughes founded Public Storage in 1972 and the company has grown into a self-storage behemouth with over 2,000 locations. Worth <a target="blank" href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_Bradley-Hughes_AZEA.html">$3.9 billion</a>, he lives in Lexington, KY, where he actively raises thoroughbred horses at <a target="blank" href="http://www.spendthriftfarm.com/">Spendthrift Farm</a>. (Hughes' son, B. Wayne Hughes Jr., is on the <a target="_blank" href="http://americanactionnetwork.org/content/about">board</a> of former Senator Norm Coleman's new conservative group, the American Action Network.)</li>

</li>

<li style=" text-align: left;"> A company called Southwest Louisiana Land LLC donated $1 million to American Crossroads in June. It turns out Southwest, which doesn't have much of a public footprint, is <a target="blank" href="http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewsecfiling/articleid/4330866">owned</a> by Dallas billionaire investor Harold Simmons -- no stranger to conservative causes. Since the 1980s, he has ponied up for everthing from Oliver North's defense <a target="blank" href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/18/business/daughters-do-battle-with-a-corporate-king-lear.html?pagewanted=all">fund</a>, to Newt Gingrich's PAC, to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004, to the American Issues Project, a group that <a target="blank" href="http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/group_plunks_down_nearly_3_mil.php">ran</a> ads attempting to tie Obama to Bill Ayers in 2008 (Simmons was the <a target="blank" href="http://www.tpj.org/2008/08/dallas-morning-news-dallas-billionaire.html">sole</a> funder of the Ayers effort, giving nearly $3 million.) Simmons is worth <a target="_blank" href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_Harold-Simmons_HT3L.html">$4.5 billion</a>.</li>

<li style=" text-align: left;"> TRT Holdings, owned by Dallas' Robert Rowling, gave American Crossroads $1 million. Rowling, whose firm owns Omni Hotels and Gold's Gym, got started at his father's successful company, Tana Oil & Gas. He's now worth <a target="blank" href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_Robert-Rowling_Q4SB.html">$4.4 billion</a>. In 2004 Rowling <a target="blank" href="http://democracy21.net/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC=%7B359B432A-0915-495A-BFBC-36A20DDE62D4%7D&DE=%7BFE9E962D-CA47-48AB-A81E-BEB0AE24E14F%7D">gave</a> $1 million to Progress for America, an outside group backing President Bush's reelection.</li>

</ul>

It's also important to note that American Crossroads has set up a partner organization called  American Crossroads GPS that, because it has a different tax status, does not have to reveal any donor information and is also more limited in spending its money on campaigns (Politico has <a target="_blank" href="http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=F270355A-18FE-70B2-A8218F1828357F70">more</a> on this). American Crossroads GPS took in over $5 million in June, and we'll likely nver know who is putting up the money.

<h2 class="title" style=" text-align: left;"><a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/07/29/newt-aswf-billionaires/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to 'The Billionaires Behind Newt’s ‘American Solutions For Winning The Future’'">The Billionaires Behind Newt’s ‘American Solutions For Winning The Future’</a></h2>

The same old men that propelled George W. Bush into office in 2000 and 2004 are behind Newt Gingrich’s multimillion-dollar front group, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF). ASWF has capitalized on the energy crisis caused by the Bush presidency to promote a “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” campaign. Although the campaign’s priorities are just a rebranding of an oil-company agenda, ASWF’s well-funded drill-drill-drill message has achieved significant success, with <a href="http://www.americansolutions.com/Blog/Read.aspx?guid=7d925d3d-2bf1-4521-9b1b-20e72f8011d2">1.3 million people</a> signing their petition:

We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to lower gasoline prices (and diesel and other fuel prices) by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries.

</blockquote>

The Wonk Room has covered in depth how the “solutions” promoted by “environmentalist” Newt Gingrich: <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/tag/offshore-drilling/">increased offshore drilling</a>, <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/tag/oil-shale/">oil shale mining</a>, <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/04/28/velshi-coal-solution/">coal-to-liquids</a>, and <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/07/08/velshi-oil-sands/">tar sands</a> — would be ecological disasters without economic benefit, except for Big Oil executives and their even wealthier investors. That group has likewise prospered richly under Bush, while the rest of the nation falls into disrepair.

So who is behind ASWF? The key funder is right-wing casino kingpin Sheldon Adelson, who has pumped over $3 million into the organization since its beginning in 2006. Adelson is flanked by 56 other such donors who have given at least $10,000. Donors can give unlimited amounts to this 527 corporation, making it an ideal mechanism for the superrich to influence the presidential season. In the first of a Wonk Room series, we discuss the seven right-wing billionaires bankrolling this “non-partisan” organization:

</div>

<h2 style=" text-align: left;">The ASWF Billionaires</h2>

</center>

</div>

<h2 style=" text-align: left;">SHELDON ADELSON</h2>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Net Worth: $26.0 billion</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Donations to ASWF: $3,066,340</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Bush Pioneer</div>

</div>

The Casino Kingpin

BACKGROUND: The <a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/54/biz_06rich400_Sheldon-Adelson_ER9O.html">third richest man in America</a>, Adelson made his first millions with the dot-com trade show Comdex, then purchased the Las Vegas Sands Hotel and Casino, tearing it down to construct the Venetian in 1999. Since he took the Sands Corporation public in 2004 and began establishing casinos for the Asian market in Macao, his wealth has ballooned at a rate of “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/business/17adelson.html">almost $1 million an hour</a>” to $26 billion, mostly in China. A major GOP donor, Adelson sits on the board of the “conservative <a href="http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/7485.html">Republican Jewish Coalition</a>.” Armed with, in his language, a “<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_bruck?currentPage=all">big pair of brass monkeys</a>,” Adelson “is fiercely opposed to a two-state solution” in Israel. In addition to supplying over $3 million to ASWF, Adelson co-founded Freedom’s Watch, a “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/us/politics/30watch.html?pagewanted=2">big neoconservative slush fund</a>” with ties to the American Enterprise Institute.

QUOTES:

“You know, I am the richest Jew in the world.” [New Yorker, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_bruck?currentPage=all">6/30/08</a>]

“We’re the largest investor of any kind in the history of China.” [New Yorker, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_bruck?currentPage=all">6/30/08</a>]

On AIPAC’s support for aid to Palestinians: “If someone is going to jump off a bridge, it is incumbent upon their friends to dissuade them.” [Jewish Telegraphic Agency, <a href="http://jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/105347.html">11/15/07</a>]

“Why is it fair that I should be paying a higher percentage of taxes than anyone else?” [New Yorker, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_bruck?currentPage=all">6/30/08</a>]

</blockquote>

</div>

</div>

</div>

<h2 style=" text-align: left;">CARL LINDNER</h2>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Net Worth: $2.3 billion</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Donations to ASWF: $650,000</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Bush Pioneer</div>

</div>

The Banana Republican

BACKGROUND: Carl Lindner, Jr., “a Cincinnati businessman with international interests ranging from banking to bananas, is <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/president/players/lindner.html">one of the nation’s wealthiest men</a>” and “gives heavily to political campaigns.” He built a dairy empire into the holding company American Financial Group, making <a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/54/biz_06rich400_Carl-Henry-Lindner-Jr-family_S22J.html">giant profits</a> off the <a href="http://law.jrank.org/pages/3505/Charles-Keating-Trials-1991-99.html">savings and loan industry</a>, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/coinop_congress/96mojo_400/lindner.html">junk bonds</a>, and Chiquita Brands International Inc., where he “oversaw the payment of roughly <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/02/mccain-fundraiser-oversaw_n_110354.html">$1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group</a>.” Using political connections in the 1990s, “Lindner opened European markets for Chiquita bananas,” but “it <a href="http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=196963">came at a high cost</a>: more expensive goods for American citizens; the threat of fewer jobs in industries that buy American-manufactured steel; and certain economic instability for Caribbean and African nations and its citizens.”

</div>

<h2 style=" text-align: left;">GEORGE ARGYROS</h2>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Net Worth: $1.7 billion</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Donations to ASWF: $25,000</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Bush Pioneer</div>

</div>

Mr. Ambassador

BACKGROUND: Making a fortune in <a href="http://www.eltoroairport.org/news/latimes51098-argyros.html">Orange County real estate</a>, Argyros diversified into interests such as the Seattle Mariners, the Apria home health-care giant, and the investment firm Westar Capital. Argyros’s real estate company, Arnel Management Co., <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2001/11/spain.html">gouged thousands of tenants out of millions of dollars</a> in security deposits and illegal fees. After raising $30 million for George W. Bush’s election, Argyros was appointed ambassador to Spain in 2001, despite <a href="http://www.ocweekly.com/features/features/lost-in-translation/20160/">not even speaking</a> the language.

QUOTES: On the unpopularity of the Bush administration in Spain: “It’s not always easy when people aren’t in agreement with all the questions, but they’ll never be in agreement with everything — not even my wife.” [El País, <a href="http://www.ocweekly.com/features/features/lost-in-translation/20160/">2/6/04</a>]

“It’s an especially opportune time for exporters, since the U.S. is essentially on sale because of the low dollar.” [Orange County Business Journal, 3/04]

“The bombings, which were tragic in Spain, on that Thursday of March 11, certainly had an effect on the elections in Spain. And that was the intended purpose of the bombings. The timing could not have been better as far as the Al Qaeda is concerned.” [Fox News, 6/23/05]

</div>

</div>

</div>

<h2 style=" text-align: left;">STANLEY STUB HUBBARD</h2>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Net Worth: $1.6 billion</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Donations to ASWF: $100,000</div>

</div>

The TV Guy

BACKGROUND: The Hubbard Broadcasting Company, founded by Stanley E. Hubbard in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, has become a television giant under the stewardship of his son, <a href="http://global.forbes.com/lists/2007/54/richlist07_Stanley-Stub-Hubbard_YQ5W.html">Stanley S.</a>, who spent the 1980s working to make digital satellite television a reality. He dominates Twin Cities <a href="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/11/03/hatchreact/">politics and media</a>, calling up news anchors if he disagrees with their coverage, and his corporation, which owns the Reelz channel, is a consistent <a href="http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/09/union-members-tell-hubbard-broadcasting-stop-crushing-the-american-dream/">enemy of unionization</a>.

QUOTES:

“You know, blacks obviously are just as good as whites and they need to hear that . . . I think Jesse Jackson is the single worst enemy of the black people. If he didn’t have people thinking they weren’t good enough, he wouldn’t have any followers.” [Corporate Report Minnesota, 1/91]

“If I couldn’t work here, I would do anything. I would work at anything. My wife and I talk about it, if we couldn’t be here, we would be hired help. . . . I would be a butler and she would be a maid. We don’t have a problem, but so many do when it comes to finding good help. I think we would know how to treat people.” [Corporate Report Minnesota, 1/91]

“Well, I think the thing [my father] taught me and taught all of us, more than anything else, was integrity, that the number of the byword in this world is integrity. You tell the truth, you don’t lie, you don’t cheat.” [CNN, 6/24/96]

</blockquote>

</div>

<h2 style=" text-align: left;">PETER THIEL</h2>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Net Worth: $1.2 billion</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Donations to ASWF: $100,000</div>

</div>

The Techno-Libertarian

BACKGROUND: A self-described “staunch libertarian” who made his first millions as a co-founder of Pay Pal, 40-year-old Stanford-educated Peter Thiel has become a hedge fund billionaire by <a href="http://www.1440wallstreet.com/index.php/site/comments/2007_man_of_the_year_peter_thiel/">betting on rising oil prices</a> and investing in dot-coms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. In the words of Wired journalist Alexis Madrigal, Thiel supports a “<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90664406">deep, crazy future</a>, where you would be able to do whatever you want — radical freedom — the Internet as tool to absolutely transform both your body and the government.”

QUOTES:

“In the culture, everything’s forced toward a shorter time horizon. As a libertarian, I tend to blame the government for a lot of this, because socialized welfare, socialized health care, and socialized retirement programs all encourage people not to think about the future.” [Reason Magazine, <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_1_40/ai_n25354620/print?tag=artBody;col1">5/1/08</a>]

</blockquote>

</div>

<h2 style=" text-align: left;">RICHARD T. ‘DICK’ FARMER</h2>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Net Worth: $1.0 billion</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Donations to ASWF: $100,000</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Bush Pioneer</div>

</div>

The Right-Wing Rag Man

BACKGROUND: Cincinnati’s other billionaire, Dick Farmer owns Cintas Corporation, the “<a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_Richard-Farmer_BUQ3.html">nation’s largest uniform rental company</a>.” With deep ties to Washington conservatives, Cintas has successfully fought <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31714-2004May16.html">environmental</a> and <a href="http://www.cintasexposed.org/">labor regulations</a> for its industrial laundries. However, its continued <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/11/business/11cintas.html">union-busting</a>, <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/13/BA8F118ET1.DTL">labor abuses</a> and even postal fraud are costing the corporation <a href="http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/1211/120_print.html">millions in fees</a>. In the 2000 election cycle, “Farmer gave <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/mojo_400/15_farmer.html">$721,000 to the Republicans</a>, making him the second-largest individual donor to the GOP.”

QUOTES:

“I don’t expect any special treatment when I give my money. All I want is decent government.” [Cincinnati Enquirer, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/mojo_400/15_farmer.html">1997</a>]

“If you think I’m giving money to get access to [President Bush], you’re crazy. I’m just trying to get the right guy elected. That’s all I care about.” [Washington Post, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31714-2004May16.html">3/17/04</a>]

</blockquote>

</div>

</div>

</div>

<h2 style=" text-align: left;">ROGER MILLIKEN</h2>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Net Worth: $1.0 billion</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">Donations to ASWF: $10,000</div>

</div>

<div class="imgright" style=" display: inline !important;">GOPAC</div>

</div>

The Globalist Protectionist

BACKGROUND: Milliken is a “<a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/billionaires08_Roger-Milliken_YHKA.html=RM">billionaire</a> <a href="http://www.knowitall.org/legacy/laureates/Roger%20Milliken%20.html">textile magnate</a> from South Carolina, founding member of the conservative movement, and patron of right-wing causes for almost 50 years” — from William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater to Richard Nixon and Newt Gingrich. Fiercely anti-union and proud of his company’s “<a href="http://www.milliken.com/hr/wwwmlkn.nsf/WebAllDocs/72007C26ED1717C685256BE9005984F4?OpenDocument">culture of secrecy</a>,” Milliken also is famously protectionist. In 1994, Milliken funneled over <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/19991122/paulsen">$2 million to Pat Buchanan</a> to fight the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and aid his 1996 run. However, as Ryan Lizza wrote in the New Republic, “Although Milliken is the chairman of the Crafted With Pride in the USA Council, the union and business coalition that has spent millions on ads suggesting that imports are hurting the economy, for decades now he has <a href="http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3982">bought only foreign-made machinery</a> to produce his American textiles.”

-----

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_billionaires">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_billionaires</a>

The following 200 pages are in this category, out of 344 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Categories#Why_might_a_category_list_not_be_up_to_date.3F" title="Wikipedia:FAQ/Categories">learn more</a>).

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Abele" title="John Abele">John Abele</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._Daniel_Abraham" title="S. Daniel Abraham">S. Daniel Abraham</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Adelson" title="Sheldon Adelson">Sheldon Adelson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guma_Aguiar" title="Guma Aguiar">Guma Aguiar</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen" title="Paul Allen">Paul Allen</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Anderson" title="John Edward Anderson">John Edward Anderson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonore_Annenberg" title="Leonore Annenberg">Leonore Annenberg</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_Annenberg" title="Wallis Annenberg">Wallis Annenberg</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Annenberg" title="Walter Annenberg">Walter Annenberg</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Anschutz" title="Philip Anschutz">Philip Anschutz</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Anselmo" title="Mary Anselmo">Mary Anselmo</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Cox_Anthony" title="Barbara Cox Anthony">Barbara Cox Anthony</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Argyros" title="George Argyros">George Argyros</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micky_Arison" title="Micky Arison">Micky Arison</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shari_Arison" title="Shari Arison">Shari Arison</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Arison" title="Ted Arison">Ted Arison</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Arnall" title="Roland Arnall">Roland Arnall</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Arnold" title="John D. Arnold">John D. Arnold</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arrillaga" title="John Arrillaga">John Arrillaga</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Bacon" title="Louis Bacon">Louis Bacon</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_H._Bailey" title="Thomas H. Bailey">Thomas H. Bailey</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer" title="Steve Ballmer">Steve Ballmer</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Barrack" title="Tom Barrack">Tom Barrack</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Marshall_Bass" title="Lee Marshall Bass">Lee Marshall Bass</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bass" title="Robert Bass">Robert Bass</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Batten" title="Frank Batten">Frank Batten</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Beal" title="Andrew Beal">Andrew Beal</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riley_P._Bechtel" title="Riley P. Bechtel">Riley P. Bechtel</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Bechtel,_Jr." title="Stephen Bechtel, Jr.">Stephen Bechtel, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Bennett" title="Clayton Bennett">Clayton Bennett</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos" title="Jeff Bezos">Jeff Bezos</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Black" title="Leon Black">Leon Black</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Blank" title="Arthur Blank">Arthur Blank</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Blavatnik" title="Leonard Blavatnik">Leonard Blavatnik</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomberg" title="Michael Bloomberg">Michael Bloomberg</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Boch,_Jr." title="Ernie Boch, Jr.">Ernie Boch, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bonderman" title="David Bonderman">David Bonderman</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Otis_Booth,_Jr." title="Franklin Otis Booth, Jr.">Franklin Otis Booth, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Bren" title="Donald Bren">Donald Bren</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin" title="Sergey Brin">Sergey Brin</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Broad" title="Eli Broad">Eli Broad</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Bronfman,_Jr." title="Edgar Bronfman, Jr.">Edgar Bronfman, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett" title="Warren Buffett">Warren Buffett</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Burkle" title="Ronald Burkle">Ronald Burkle</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Burrell" title="Gary Burrell">Gary Burrell</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Butt" title="Charles Butt">Charles Butt</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calamos" title="John Calamos">John Calamos</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Calder" title="Clive Calder">Clive Calder</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Cargill" title="James R. Cargill">James R. Cargill</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Anne_Cargill" title="Margaret Anne Cargill">Margaret Anne Cargill</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Casden" title="Alan Casden">Alan Casden</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._Truett_Cathy" title="S. Truett Cathy">S. Truett Cathy</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Cox_Chambers" title="Anne Cox Chambers">Anne Cox Chambers</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dolan" title="Charles Dolan">Charles Dolan</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_A._Cohen" title="Steven A. Cohen">Steven A. Cohen</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cook_%28entrepreneur%29" title="William Cook (entrepreneur)">William Cook (entrepreneur)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_C._Copley" title="David C. Copley">David C. Copley</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Coulter_%28financier%29" title="James Coulter (financier)">James Coulter (financier)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Crown" title="Lester Crown">Lester Crown</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cuban" title="Mark Cuban">Mark Cuban</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dalio" title="Ray Dalio">Ray Dalio</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_A._D%27Aniello" title="Daniel A. D'Aniello">Daniel A. D'Aniello</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Davidson" title="William Davidson">William Davidson</a></li>

</ul>

</td><td>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Davis" title="Barbara Davis">Barbara Davis</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Davis" title="Marvin Davis">Marvin Davis</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_DeJoria" title="John Paul DeJoria">John Paul DeJoria</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dell" title="Michael Dell">Michael Dell</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_DeVos" title="Richard DeVos">Richard DeVos</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Diller" title="Barry Diller">Barry Diller</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Doerr" title="John Doerr">John Doerr</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dolby" title="Ray Dolby">Ray Dolby</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Druckenmiller" title="Stanley Druckenmiller">Stanley Druckenmiller</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Duke" title="Doris Duke">Doris Duke</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Duncan" title="Dan Duncan">Dan Duncan</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Egan_%28businessman%29" title="Richard Egan (businessman)">Richard Egan (businessman)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison" title="Larry Ellison">Larry Ellison</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Aldis_Emmerson" title="Archie Aldis Emmerson">Archie Aldis Emmerson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein" title="Jeffrey Epstein">Jeffrey Epstein</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Ergen" title="Charlie Ergen">Charlie Ergen</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt" title="Eric Schmidt">Eric Schmidt</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney" title="Chuck Feeney">Chuck Feeney</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Filo" title="David Filo">David Filo</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Fisher" title="Donald Fisher">Donald Fisher</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Fisher" title="Kenneth Fisher">Kenneth Fisher</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Flatley" title="Thomas Flatley">Thomas Flatley</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Christopher_Flowers" title="J. Christopher Flowers">J. Christopher Flowers</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_France" title="Jim France">Jim France</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Frank" title="Sidney Frank">Sidney Frank</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_H._Friedkin" title="Thomas H. Friedkin">Thomas H. Friedkin</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster_Friess" title="Foster Friess">Foster Friess</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates" title="Bill Gates">Bill Gates</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gaylord" title="Edward Gaylord">Edward Gaylord</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Geffen" title="David Geffen">David Geffen</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Getty" title="Gordon Getty">Gordon Getty</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Paul_Getty" title="J. Paul Getty">J. Paul Getty</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_N.Gillett,Jr." title="George N. Gillett, Jr.">George N. Gillett, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Glazer" title="Malcolm Glazer">Malcolm Glazer</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Golisano" title="Tom Golisano">Tom Golisano</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Goodnight" title="James Goodnight">James Goodnight</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Gores" title="Alec Gores">Alec Gores</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Gores" title="Tom Gores">Tom Gores</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gottesman" title="David Gottesman">David Gottesman</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chryss_Goulandris" title="Chryss Goulandris">Chryss Goulandris</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pincus_Green" title="Pincus Green">Pincus Green</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_C._Griffin" title="Kenneth C. Griffin">Kenneth C. Griffin</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Gross" title="William H. Gross">William H. Gross</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Hambrecht" title="Bill Hambrecht">Bill Hambrecht</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_Harbert" title="Marguerite Harbert">Marguerite Harbert</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Harman" title="Sidney Harman">Sidney Harman</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Haslam" title="Bill Haslam">Bill Haslam</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Randolph_Hearst_III" title="George Randolph Hearst III">George Randolph Hearst III</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Randolph_Hearst,_Jr." title="George Randolph Hearst, Jr.">George Randolph Hearst, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leona_Helmsley" title="Leona Helmsley">Leona Helmsley</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Hendricks" title="Ken Hendricks">Ken Hendricks</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hicks" title="Tom Hicks">Tom Hicks</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hicks" title="Steven Hicks">Steven Hicks</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Hillblom" title="Larry Hillblom">Larry Hillblom</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barron_Hilton" title="Barron Hilton">Barron Hilton</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Holding" title="Robert Holding">Robert Holding</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Hostetter,_Jr." title="Amos Hostetter, Jr.">Amos Hostetter, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Hsieh" title="Ming Hsieh">Ming Hsieh</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._Wayne_Hughes" title="B. Wayne Hughes">B. Wayne Hughes</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Hughes" title="Howard Hughes">Howard Hughes</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Huntsman,_Sr." title="Jon Huntsman, Sr.">Jon Huntsman, Sr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Hutton" title="Barbara Hutton">Barbara Hutton</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Icahn" title="Carl Icahn">Carl Icahn</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erskine_Bronson_Ingram" title="Erskine Bronson Ingram">Erskine Bronson Ingram</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Rivers_Ingram" title="Martha Rivers Ingram">Martha Rivers Ingram</a></li>

</ul>

</td><td>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jess_Stonestreet_Jackson,_Jr." title="Jess Stonestreet Jackson, Jr.">Jess Stonestreet Jackson, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Jamail" title="Joe Jamail">Joe Jamail</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jannard" title="James Jannard">James Jannard</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs" title="Steve Jobs">Steve Jobs</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_Johnson" title="Abigail Johnson">Abigail Johnson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Piasecka_Johnson" title="Barbara Piasecka Johnson">Barbara Piasecka Johnson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bartlett_Johnson" title="Charles Bartlett Johnson">Charles Bartlett Johnson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Johnson,_III" title="Edward Johnson, III">Edward Johnson, III</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Johnson" title="Robert L. Johnson">Robert L. Johnson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Johnson,_Jr." title="Rupert Johnson, Jr.">Rupert Johnson, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Curtis_Johnson,_Jr." title="Samuel Curtis Johnson, Jr.">Samuel Curtis Johnson, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Jones" title="Jerry Jones">Jerry Jones</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tudor_Jones" title="Paul Tudor Jones">Paul Tudor Jones</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Kaiser" title="George Kaiser">George Kaiser</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kellogg" title="Peter Kellogg">Peter Kellogg</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Kennedy" title="James C. Kennedy">James C. Kennedy</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_Kerkorian" title="Kirk Kerkorian">Kirk Kerkorian</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinod_Khosla" title="Vinod Khosla">Vinod Khosla</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kinder" title="Richard Kinder">Richard Kinder</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randal_J._Kirk" title="Randal J. Kirk">Randal J. Kirk</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kluge" title="John Kluge">John Kluge</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Knight" title="Phil Knight">Phil Knight</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Koch_%28businessman%29" title="Bill Koch (businessman)">Bill Koch (businessman)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_G._Koch" title="Charles G. Koch">Charles G. Koch</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Koch" title="David H. Koch">David H. Koch</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Kohlberg,_Jr." title="Jerome Kohlberg, Jr.">Jerome Kohlberg, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Kohler,_Jr." title="Herbert Kohler, Jr.">Herbert Kohler, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Kovner" title="Bruce Kovner">Bruce Kovner</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kravis" title="Henry Kravis">Henry Kravis</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Krehbiel,_Jr." title="John Krehbiel, Jr.">John Krehbiel, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Walton_Kroenke" title="Ann Walton Kroenke">Ann Walton Kroenke</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Kroenke" title="Stan Kroenke">Stan Kroenke</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lampert" title="Edward Lampert">Edward Lampert</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Lauder" title="Leonard Lauder">Leonard Lauder</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Lauder" title="Ronald Lauder">Ronald Lauder</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Lauren" title="Ralph Lauren">Ralph Lauren</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_H._Lee" title="Thomas H. Lee">Thomas H. Lee</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_A._Lennon" title="Fred A. Lennon">Fred A. Lennon</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Lerner" title="Al Lerner">Al Lerner</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lewis_%28businessman%29" title="Peter Lewis (businessman)">Peter Lewis (businessman)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Linde" title="Edward Linde">Edward Linde</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Lindner,_Jr." title="Carl Lindner, Jr.">Carl Lindner, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Litwin" title="Leonard Litwin">Leonard Litwin</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lucas" title="George Lucas">George Lucas</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_K._Ludwig" title="Daniel K. Ludwig">Daniel K. Ludwig</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_McCaw" title="Craig McCaw">Craig McCaw</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_McClendon" title="Aubrey McClendon">Aubrey McClendon</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Joseph_McGovern" title="Patrick Joseph McGovern">Patrick Joseph McGovern</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_McNair" title="Bob McNair">Bob McNair</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Edward_McVaney" title="C. Edward McVaney">C. Edward McVaney</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maloof_family" title="Maloof family">Maloof family</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_J.Maloof,Jr." title="George J. Maloof, Jr.">George J. Maloof, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Mann" title="Alfred E. Mann">Alfred E. Mann</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Mansueto" title="Joe Mansueto">Joe Mansueto</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Marcus" title="Bernard Marcus">Bernard Marcus</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Marino" title="Roger Marino">Roger Marino</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Marron" title="Donald Marron">Donald Marron</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Mars,_Jr." title="Forrest Mars, Jr.">Forrest Mars, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Mars" title="Jacqueline Mars">Jacqueline Mars</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Franklyn_Mars" title="John Franklyn Mars">John Franklyn Mars</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manny_Mashouf" title="Manny Mashouf">Manny Mashouf</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Pritzker" title="Matthew Pritzker">Matthew Pritzker</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Meijer_%28businessman%29" title="Fred Meijer (businessman)">Fred Meijer (businessman)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Menard,_Jr." title="John Menard, Jr.">John Menard, Jr.</a></li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

--

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Milken" title="Michael Milken">Michael Milken</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Warren_Miller" title="Robert Warren Miller">Robert Warren Miller</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Milstein" title="Howard Milstein">Howard Milstein</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Milstein" title="Paul Milstein">Paul Milstein</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P._Mitchell" title="George P. Mitchell">George P. Mitchell</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Moncrief" title="William Moncrief">William Moncrief</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Moore" title="Gordon Moore">Gordon Moore</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Moran_%28automotive%29" title="Jim Moran (automotive)">Jim Moran (automotive)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morean" title="William Morean">William Morean</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arte_Moreno" title="Arte Moreno">Arte Moreno</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Moroun" title="Manuel Moroun">Manuel Moroun</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Munger" title="Charlie Munger">Charlie Munger</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch" title="Rupert Murdoch">Rupert Murdoch</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Murdock" title="David H. Murdock">David H. Murdock</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Naify" title="Marshall Naify">Marshall Naify</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Naify" title="Robert Naify">Robert Naify</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Newhouse" title="Donald Newhouse">Donald Newhouse</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Irving_Newhouse,_Jr." title="Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr.">Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Irving_Newhouse,_Sr." title="Samuel Irving Newhouse, Sr.">Samuel Irving Newhouse, Sr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Nicholas" title="Henry Nicholas">Henry Nicholas</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Nichols" title="Larry Nichols">Larry Nichols</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Omidyar" title="Pierre Omidyar">Pierre Omidyar</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Osher" title="Bernard Osher">Bernard Osher</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Packard" title="David Packard">David Packard</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Page" title="Larry Page">Larry Page</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Palevsky" title="Max Palevsky">Max Palevsky</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paulson" title="John Paulson">John Paulson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Peltz" title="Nelson Peltz">Nelson Peltz</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Perelman" title="Ronald Perelman">Ronald Perelman</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot" title="Ross Perot">Ross Perot</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_George_Peterson" title="Peter George Peterson">Peter George Peterson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens" title="T. Boone Pickens">T. Boone Pickens</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffry_Picower" title="Jeffry Picower">Jeffry Picower</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Pohlad" title="Carl Pohlad">Carl Pohlad</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_F._Price" title="Michael F. Price">Michael F. Price</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pritzker_family" title="Pritzker family">Pritzker family</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Pritzker" title="Anthony Pritzker">Anthony Pritzker</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pritzker" title="Daniel Pritzker">Daniel Pritzker</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.B._Pritzker" title="J.B. Pritzker">J.B. Pritzker</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Pritzker" title="Jay Pritzker">Jay Pritzker</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Pritzker" title="Linda Pritzker">Linda Pritzker</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_J._Pritzker" title="Nicholas J. Pritzker">Nicholas J. Pritzker</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Pritzker" title="Penny Pritzker">Penny Pritzker</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pritzker" title="Robert Pritzker">Robert Pritzker</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pritzker" title="Thomas Pritzker">Thomas Pritzker</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rainwater" title="Richard Rainwater">Richard Rainwater</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Rajaratnam" title="Raj Rajaratnam">Raj Rajaratnam</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Rales" title="Mitchell Rales">Mitchell Rales</a></li>

</ul>

</td><td>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_M._Rales" title="Steven M. Rales">Steven M. Rales</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumner_Redstone" title="Sumner Redstone">Sumner Redstone</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Rees-Jones" title="Trevor Rees-Jones">Trevor Rees-Jones</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Rennert" title="Ira Rennert">Ira Rennert</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_W._Richardson" title="Sid W. Richardson">Sid W. Richardson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Roberts" title="George R. Roberts">George R. Roberts</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rock" title="Arthur Rock">Arthur Rock</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Rockefeller" title="David Rockefeller">David Rockefeller</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_P._Roski" title="Edward P. Roski">Edward P. Roski</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_M._Ross" title="Stephen M. Ross">Stephen M. Ross</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Ross" title="Wilbur Ross">Wilbur Ross</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rowling" title="Robert Rowling">Robert Rowling</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Rubenstein" title="David Rubenstein">David Rubenstein</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haim_Saban" title="Haim Saban">Haim Saban</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Samueli" title="Henry Samueli">Henry Samueli</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Sandler" title="Herbert Sandler">Herbert Sandler</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Sandler" title="Marion Sandler">Marion Sandler</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_I_Saperstein" title="David I Saperstein">David I Saperstein</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamir_Sapir" title="Tamir Sapir">Tamir Sapir</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Sargeant_III" title="Harry Sargeant III">Harry Sargeant III</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayez_Sarofim" title="Fayez Sarofim">Fayez Sarofim</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Mellon_Scaife" title="Richard Mellon Scaife">Richard Mellon Scaife</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_Schar" title="Dwight Schar">Dwight Schar</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz" title="Howard Schultz">Howard Schultz</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_M._Schulze" title="Richard M. Schulze">Richard M. Schulze</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Schwab" title="Charles R. Schwab">Charles R. Schwab</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman" title="Stephen A. Schwarzman">Stephen A. Schwarzman</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Solow" title="Sheldon Solow">Sheldon Solow</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Shorenstein" title="Walter Shorenstein">Walter Shorenstein</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Siebel" title="Thomas Siebel">Thomas Siebel</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Silverstein" title="Larry Silverstein">Larry Silverstein</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Simmons" title="Harold Simmons">Harold Simmons</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Simon_%28real_estate%29" title="Herbert Simon (real estate)">Herbert Simon (real estate)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Simon" title="Norton Simon">Norton Simon</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harris_Simons" title="James Harris Simons">James Harris Simons</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.R.Simplot" title="J. R. Simplot">J. R. Simplot</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Skoll" title="Jeffrey Skoll">Jeffrey Skoll</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Sobrato" title="John A. Sobrato">John A. Sobrato</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Soon-Shiong" title="Patrick Soon-Shiong">Patrick Soon-Shiong</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_LeVoy_Sorenson" title="James LeVoy Sorenson">James LeVoy Sorenson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros" title="George Soros">George Soros</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Spanos" title="Alex Spanos">Alex Spanos</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sperling" title="John Sperling">John Sperling</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sperling" title="Peter Sperling">Peter Sperling</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Spielberg" title="Steven Spielberg">Steven Spielberg</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Stanford" title="Allen Stanford">Allen Stanford</a></li>

</ul>

</td><td>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Stanton" title="John W. Stanton">John W. Stanton</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Steinbrenner" title="George Steinbrenner">George Steinbrenner</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_T._Stephens" title="Jackson T. Stephens">Jackson T. Stephens</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_N._Stern" title="Leonard N. Stern">Leonard N. Stern</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Stern_%28businessman%29" title="Max Stern (businessman)">Max Stern (businessman)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Stryker" title="Jon Stryker">Jon Stryker</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Stryker" title="Pat Stryker">Pat Stryker</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Taylor" title="Glen Taylor">Glen Taylor</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_C._Taylor" title="Jack C. Taylor">Jack C. Taylor</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Tepper" title="David Tepper">David Tepper</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel" title="Peter Thiel">Peter Thiel</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._Tisch" title="James S. Tisch">James S. Tisch</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Tisch" title="Joan Tisch">Joan Tisch</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Tisch" title="Jonathan Tisch">Jonathan Tisch</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Tisch" title="Laurence Tisch">Laurence Tisch</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Troutt" title="Kenny Troutt">Kenny Troutt</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump" title="Donald Trump">Donald Trump</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_F._Udvar-H%C3%A1zy" title="Steven F. Udvar-Házy">Steven F. Udvar-Házy</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Van_Andel" title="Jay Van Andel">Jay Van Andel</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Hill_Van_Beuren" title="Hope Hill Van Beuren">Hope Hill Van Beuren</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Vilar" title="Alberto Vilar">Alberto Vilar</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romesh_Wadhwani" title="Romesh Wadhwani">Romesh Wadhwani</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Waitt" title="Ted Waitt">Ted Waitt</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family" title="Walton family">Walton family</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Walton" title="Alice Walton">Alice Walton</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christy_Walton" title="Christy Walton">Christy Walton</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Walton" title="Jim Walton">Jim Walton</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._Robson_Walton" title="S. Robson Walton">S. Robson Walton</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton" title="Sam Walton">Sam Walton</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Wang" title="Roger Wang">Roger Wang</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Warner" title="Ty Warner">Ty Warner</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Washington" title="Dennis Washington">Dennis Washington</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Wasserstein" title="Bruce Wasserstein">Bruce Wasserstein</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Wexner" title="Les Wexner">Les Wexner</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_White" title="Dean White">Dean White</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg_Whitman" title="Meg Whitman">Meg Whitman</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_L.Williams,Jr." title="Arthur L. Williams, Jr.">Arthur L. Williams, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey" title="Oprah Winfrey">Oprah Winfrey</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chin-Cheng_Wu" title="Chin-Cheng Wu">Chin-Cheng Wu</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wynn_%28entrepreneur%29" title="Steve Wynn (entrepreneur)">Steve Wynn (entrepreneur)</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Yang_%28entrepreneur%29" title="Jerry Yang (entrepreneur)">Jerry Yang (entrepreneur)</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bernard_Ziff,_Jr." title="William Bernard Ziff, Jr.">William Bernard Ziff, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Zucker" title="Anita Zucker">Anita Zucker</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Zucker_%28businessman%29" title="Jerry Zucker (businessman)">Jerry Zucker (businessman)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg" title="Mark Zuckerberg">Mark Zuckerberg</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortimer_Zuckerman" title="Mortimer Zuckerman">Mortimer Zuckerman</a></li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

CA

The Chron describes Crane as a Democrat, who was an adviser to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and now lectures on public policy at Stanford University and serves on the UC Board of Regents and the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

But Haaland points out that Crane is also the multi-millionaire former investment banker who donated $37, 500 to Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s failed Measure B, last fall.

“And the Capitol Weekly reported that after Schwarzenegger’s 2005 State of the State Address, Crane said he would support any effort by the Governor to eliminate pensions for government workers, which he described as ‘burdensome special privileges,’” Haaland continued in a recent Facebook post.

Actually, Crane went a whole lot further than that, according to a <a href="http://caobserver.blogspot.com/2006/01/david-crane-arnolds-other-democratic.html" target="_self">2006 blog post</a> that describes Crane’s free-market economic philosophy as sounding “distinctly libertarian.”

“He advocates against government intervention in private business and touts his admiration for conservative economist Milton Friedman,” wrote UC Berkeley graduate and former Capitol Weekly reporter Shane Goldmacher on the California Observer blog.

Goldmacher also noted  that Crane called defined benefit pensions  "non-market deals,” saw minimum wage as a "market distorting mechanism,” and endorsed Schwarzenegger’s defined contribution pension proposal in 2005.

"All the governor proposed would be a limitation to some of these special privileges held by government employees, “ Crane reportedly said.

But Crane isn’t the only billionaire behind Measure B’s curtain. As Haaland points out in a recent SEIU flyer that says, “Beware the Billionaires, Stop the Attacks on Public Workers,” one of Prop. B’s biggest donors was Howard Leach, a billionaire financier and investor who served as George W. Bush’s ambassador to France.

“”Leach was a Republican ‘pioneer,’ raising more than $100,000 for Bush’s campaign,” the SEIU flyer notes. “He also contributes to the Republican Governors’ Association, whose main objective was the election of the new crop of conservative governors pushing anti-worker measures in Florida, Ohio, New Jersey, Wisconsin and other states.”

The SEIU flyer also identifies billionaire venture capitalist, Michael Moritz, as “a major financial backer of Ohio Governor John Kasich and contributed to the Ohio Republican Party Central Committee.”

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2011/03/01/beware-billionaires-behind-pension-reform

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