"How Billionaires destroy Democracy"

[hfojvt]

from Salon

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/01/how_billionaires_destroy_democracy/

"Wealthy Wall Streeters have rigged the economy and the government against the people. Here's how they did it"

"Powell laid out a comprehensive plan that bears an uncanny resemblance to what actually happened. He argued that business largely owned, funded, or had influence over the key media, religious, and academic institutions in society, and should use its leverage to counter what he perceived as the liberal, anti-business bias of these institutions. He advocated explicit business intervention in the political sphere, where he said the American businessman had become “truly the forgotten man.” This had to be countered with concrete steps — expanding the “role of lobbyist for the business point of view” — in order to regain political clout with governments. It was time, wrote Powell, for business to learn that “political power is necessary; it must be used aggressively and with determination — without embarrassment and without reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business.”"


Without embarrassment essentially means without conscience.

Again, though, I would not just blame the billionaires. They have been aided by much of the upper middle class and other rich people as well. The top 19% (meaning the top 20% without the top 1%) still have collectively much more income than the top .1% does. They have helped to tilt the playing field. For example, the Bush tax cuts.

There was a battle between Obama's plan and the Republican plan. However, both of those choices heavily favored the top 20% and also the top 19%. Obama's plan gave 13% of its benefits to the top 1% and 40.9% of its benefits to the top 19%. The Republican plan gave 26.1% of its benefits to the top 1% and 39.3% to the top 19%. Both plans were far more generous to the top 19% than they were to the bottom 60%, which only got 26% under Obama's plan and 17% under the Republican plan. The making work pay credit, which gave 49% of its benefits to the bottom 60% and only 23% to the top 19% was scrapped in favor of the payroll tax cut which was much more generous to the top 19%, which gets 43% of the benefits compared to 27% for the bottom 60%.

The bottom 60% is a clear majority, but they are out-voted (and out-donated) by the top 19%. And many of the tax policies that hugely benefit the top 1%, like the favorable treatment of capital gains and dividends, and itemized deductions, also provide decent benefits to the top 19%. Which is one of the major reasons they are still around.

[hfojvt]

1. Billionaires are a very elite group

In 2005, only 13,776 tax filers had income over $10,000,000. They are only .01% of taxpayers, but they get 5.1% of all income.

However, as a group those with income between $75,000 and $200,000 are 15.8% of taxpayers who have 31.4% of all income. Those with incomes between $200,000 and $500,000 are not billionaires and are only 2% of taxpayers and they have 10.6% of the income. Those with incomes between $500,000 and $10,000,000 got 13.6% of the income. Collectively 55.6% of the income gives a lot of power to those non-billionaires. But it is still a small minority.