Straczynski: "The New Aristocracy"

boing
58

…most of em seem to be self-made

I took the time to look up those top thirty:

Bill Gates - Started out as a one-percenter, “Self-made” himself into the top 1% of the one-percenters.
Warren Buffett - Started out life as the only son of a US congressman.  One-percenter.
Larry Elison - Yup, self-made.
Charles Koch and David Koch - both sons of Fred C. Koch.  Fred C. who?  He founded an oil refinery…which later became Koch Industries.  Father, self-made.  His two sons on this list? No so much.
Christy Walton and family, Jim Walton, Alice Walton, S. Robson Walton - all inheritors of the Walton fortune.
Michael Bloomberg - self-made.  But…in 1981, at the age of 39, he got a $10 million severance payout, which he used to to good effect.
Sheldon Adelson - self-made.
Jeff Bezos - self-made.
Larry Page - both parent were university professors.  Not quite poor folk.
Sergey Brin - father, university math professor; mother, researcher at NASA.
Forrest Mars, Jr. - eldest son of Forrest Mars, Sr. <-Look him up, please… Now try to tell me that his kids are ‘self-made’.
Jacqueline Mars - Forrest Mars, Jr.'s sister.
John Mars - brother of these two above.
Carl Icahn - self-made.
George Soros - self-made.  And had a very rough, even heroic start in life . This probably is what made him one of the few really good guys on this list: On November 11, 2003, Soros said that removing President George W. Bush from office was the “central focus of my life” and “a matter of life and death”. He said he would sacrifice his entire fortune to defeat Bush “if someone guaranteed it”. Yup…good guy.
Mark Zuckerberg - parents: dentist and psychiatrist.  Was able to afford going to Harvard.  Seems like an interesting guy. But, started out as a one-percenter.
Steve Ballmer - Look him up, he didn’t exactly grow up poor.  Another person able to afford Harvard.
Glen Blavatnik - son of Ukrainian emigres.  Self-made.
Abigail Johnson - Who?  Her father and grandfather founded Fidelity Investments.
Phil Knight - Phil Knight is the son of lawyer turned newspaper publisher, William W. Knight.  'Nuff said.
Michael Dell - Son of a stockbroker and an orthodontist.
Paul Allen - Son of Kenneth Samuel Allen, an associate director of the University of Washington libraries.  Attended private school, there became friends with Bill Gates.
Donal Bren - didn’t grow up poor or even average.  Look him up.
Ronald Perelman - Son of Raymond, who, with his father and his brother, controlled the American Paper Products Corporation.
Ann Cox Chambers - While the Wiki entry is a little thin on her early life, this sentence stands out: "In 1974, upon the death of their brother, James M. Cox (known as “Jim Jr.”), Chambers and Anthony gained a controlling interest in the family company."

And last but not least: Rupert Murdoch and family - Murdoch was born Keith Rupert Murdoch on 11 March 1931 in Melbourne, Australia to Sir Keith Murdoch.  After his father’s death, he took over the family business, News Limited, at the age of 21.

So, out of the thirty top Forbes’ Richest, SIX are self-made. All of the rest started out rich. I suspect that this proportion holds for the rest - especially for the Americans on that list.

The USA is a country which is one of the least social mobile in the world. If you start out poor, you stay poor, if you start out rich, you stay rich. Even the Brookings Institute says so. Read page six - Upward social mobility is limited in the United States.

Note: for people who casually dismiss the cost of attending Harvard…it’s a little less than $70K/year.  Not exactly chump change.

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59

Does this show the problem?

Hardly any difference between Romney and Obama. If you look at the state senators in 2008 the two parties dont want to leave the authoritarian capitalist box. Even the “Libertarian” candidates dont go too far away from it.

In Europe we have a similar problem, although there are functional left of centre parties on the continent. Here in the UK, the only left wing MP who isn’t from one of the regional parties is Caroline Lucas.

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60

Why is it that the “haves” (and in this case I don’t mean wealthy, since
I’m talking from my personal experience: my “haves” are people who own a home and own some land and have lots of kids) are hated by the “have
nots” simply for being happy with what they have and wanting to keep
what they have, while the “have nots” want to get what they don’t have
at the expense of others, seemingly by whatever means necessary?

Where are you even getting this from? It sounds very much like the conservative sale on the dialogue. Some of us may have homes. But we don’t have the money the pay for influence to enact policy that specifically benefits us, which means our votes are becoming meaningless and often against ourselves. Some of us pay taxes to subsidize developments, for which there is no need. You started your own business, how big was it? Did the government give you tax breaks for years to start, so you could compete with the likes of Walmart or whatever your large competitor was? What about crimes? Do you think it’s right that people who caused the collapse, for the most part, just paid measly fines (relative to wealth) instead of anyone going to jail? Do you think you’d go to jail if you stole something from Walmart? Do you think it’s right that the wealthiest attempt to dictate religion and avert science through legislation, so we’ll all be little captives of whatever blind faith they see fit for us to follow? It’s not about “I don’t like you because of what you have”. It’s about stopping the system from tilting away toward the few who dictate everything at the highest level. And that includes polluting the same air and water that I breath and drink for their profits.

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61

How about an end to lobbying, patronage (in either direction), and *campaign financing?

  • From groups and citizens.
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62
  1. It is working quite well here in Canada, at a significantly lower total cost than in the US. And our taxes are lower in almost all jurisdictions. There are a great many other countries where the same thing applies - you have little reason to be skeptical.
  2. Monstrous
  3. Also agree. Canada’s current government is also dishing out wasted billions trying to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ and make sure we can have a few token fighter jets available to drop bombs on the enemy country du jour. Insanity. Our two countries have a massive advantage militarily - we are surrounded by big oceans. With relatively little cost we can be completely un-invadeable.
  4. There are intelligent ways to address encironmental issues without fleecing anyone. And 0.036% sounds small - what matters is the effect it is having, not the number. If that is the amount that will kill our planet, then we have already blown it. If it is another number it is very much in our political, economic and species interest not to reach that number.
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63

And they say that we libertarians are living in a fantasy world.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

64

The interesting thing about this list is that there are more supporters of Democrats and progressive groups than there are of Republicans and conservatives.

Why is this? My guess would be that the Democrats’ tax policy is focused on leaving the accumulated wealth of the top .1% alone while aggressively targeting the salaries and investments of the top 10-15%. “Pull up the ladder - I’m aboard.”

65

I didn’t say it would happen because the system is corrupt, but that is the main reason why the system is corrupt. And your response, in its condescending tone, is why libertarians get the rap they have.

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66

Watch “Inequality for All,” Robert Reich’s documentary. Some wage/income disparity is essential. The amount we have is toxic. He says (in a recent talk I attended, maybe not in the film) there are two solutions: 1) Campaign finance reform, and 2) Campaign finance reform.

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67

[quote=“silkox1, post:66, topic:30181”]…there are two solutions: 1) Campaign finance reform, and 2) Campaign finance reform.
[/quote]Which can’t happen until we change the current supreme court makeup. Which can’t happen without a decade or two of Democratic control of the executive and legislative branches. Which can’t happen as long as people embrace the sort of bullshit, cynical, “they’re all the same” crap pushed by the libertarians and “anti-authoritarians” so prevalent on this site.

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68

The Forbes 400 list is demonstrably inaccurate and slanted.

Fjohürs Lykkewe isn’t anywhere on it.

69

You want hard evidence? Just look at the statistics about wealth inequality and class mobility. Just because a lucky few win the lottery doesn’t mean what he’s saying isn’t true for the vast majority of people. And those who do make it are quick to pull up the ladder behind them.

Wake up.

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70

No human is “self made”.

We are not amoeba.

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71

It took time to get here, and it’ll take time to get out. Reich suggests electing people who pledge to support meaningful campaign finance reform, which means making CFR and inequality campaign issues. “Change is not impossible,” he said. “In fact, if enough people are interested, change is likely.”

72

Yes, there ARE more of us than there are of them, and people are starting to realize that.

At the same time, there’s a full-court press on to disarm the public.

Convenient, don’t you think ???

73

Usage determines meaning. Language is descriptive, not prescriptive.

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74

I would love to hear how you think you can have a democracy in a world where politicians can’t campaign, and the public can’t tell elected representatives what policies they want. It is not a recipe for a more representative government. Instead you get a government of celebrities, because people will vote for someone they have heard of over a list of people they have never heard of.

There are around 200 million people of voting age in the US. There is no way to reach even a substantial minority of them using stump speeches.

75

Small amount through a public tax. No one said anything about no campaigns. It’s about taking the excessive money away from the system in dirty campaign financing.

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76

So a couple of points:

  1. This system penalizes “regular-joe” politicians to the benefit of people with a per-existing reputation and incumbents. I don’t think you want more car dealers as elected officials, but what you propose will greatly benefit reputable businessmen, and it will make it much easier for them to be re-elected because incumbents will have a massive advantage
  2. The other people this system benefits are extreme candidates with a hard core of supporters that are already aware of and support the candidate. See this article in the economist about how the system has functioned in Arizona. What’s the matter with Arizona?

EDIT: I linked to the wrong article above, Right now trying to find the correct one

EDIT 2: Here is what I was thinking of: Saner than it looks

77

What about the people who arrive in the US with nothing but the shirts on their backs and within a generation of hard work and risk-taking achieve the American dream? The existence of such people proves more than any words any of us can say. The hatred that such people receive from people born here is sickening. Anti-Jewish, anti-Korean, anti-Indian (from India), anti-Chinese, anti-Mexican, you could go on and on. People would rather believe conspiracy theories about how those people thrive than face the truth that opportunity is here if we grab it. You can’t give up when you fail, though. You have to keep at it. Most successes have failed time and again until they succeeded.
Famous Failures