The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age

[rodeodance]

Source: nyt



July 15, 2007
Age of Riches
The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age
By LOUIS UCHITELLE


.........
His achievement required political clout, and that, too, is on display. Soon after he formed Citigroup, Congress repealed a Depression-era law that prohibited goliaths like the one Mr. Weill had just put together anyway, combining commercial and investment banking, insurance and stock brokerage operations. A trophy from the victory — a pen that President Bill Clinton used to sign the repeal — hangs, framed, near the magazine covers.

.........

“People can look at the last 25 years and say this is an incredibly unique period of time,” Mr. Weill said. “We didn’t rely on somebody else to build what we built, and we shouldn’t rely on somebody else to provide all the services our society needs.”

Those earlier barons disappeared by the 1920s and, constrained by the Depression and by the greater government oversight and high income tax rates that followed, no one really took their place. Then, starting in the late 1970s, as the constraints receded, new tycoons gradually emerged, and now their concentrated wealth has made the early years of the 21st century truly another Gilded Age.

Only twice before over the last century has 5 percent of the national income gone to families in the upper one-one-hundredth of a percent of the income distribution — currently, the almost 15,000 families with incomes of $9.5 million or more a year, according to an analysis of tax returns by the economists Emmanuel Saez at the University of California, Berkeley and Thomas Piketty at the Paris School of Economics.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/business/15gilded.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

[acmavm]

1. "...a pen that President Bill Clinton used to sign the repeal ..."

[leftchick]

2. yes

a corporatist is a corporatist regardless of party.

[ikojo]

3. Omayn v omayn, leftchick

but there are MANY defenders of the corporatist candidates here on DU....well...bbbeccccaaause they have a D after their name and THAT makes it all better, right? They may be a free trade, working class despising corporatist but they are OUR corporatists! :sarcasm:


Once a corporatist becomes the nominee for the other corporate party (that would be the one beginning with D), then ALL dissent or questioning of said corporately approved candidate MUST CEASE. You WILL vote for the corporatist because a D corporatist is better than an R corporatist.

[leftchick]

8. you nailed it

:(

[Jackpine Radical]

14. Welfre "reform," NAFTA, end of the fairness doctrine...

It makes me puke to hear people referring to Clinton as a liberal. What liberal legacy did he leave behind? Where is his New Deal, where is that universal health care they talked about?

Bill Clinton's domestic policies were to the right of Richard Nixon.

[leftchick]

19. It makes me puke to hear it all over again

the empty rhetoric that flows from the DLC mouthpieces, our candidates....

her especially


:puke:

[CANDO]

27. I can't believe she's "leading" most of the polls.

Thom Hartmann did a call in poll the other day and she got the support of just ONE caller! Edwards and Kucinich tied for the lead with Obama second. Many callers said Gore if he runs and then said their preference of current candidates. She is being rammed down our throats by the corporate media and we need to worry about the voting machines being manipulated for her also. Al Gore must run. I read his book and he has a grasp of what's ailing us that I simply don't see any of our candidates expressing at this time.

[leftchick]

28. of course she is who the corporations want

if they can't have a repuke they want her.....

[acmavm]

29. THESE POLLS mean NOTHING!!!! It is too damn early yet to see how

its going to shake out. For BOTH parties.

[Sapphire Blue]

32. Hartmann stated on his show that he is a contributor to the Edwards' campaign...

... and only the Edwards' campaign.

[CANDO]

35. I don't recall him making that point during his polling.

You may be right about that, but Thom Hartmann is not an aggressive partisan only interested in pushing his choice. All he wanted was location and who you prefer. Must have been about forty callers. It went Edwards/Kucinich at 14 each, Obama around eight, Gore had many first choice but for Edwards now. Richardson had a couple and Hillary had one vote from a California caller.

[Sapphire Blue]

36. It wasn't during that show... it was about a month ago.

It was on the show featuring Edwards & his health care plan that Hartmann disclosed the info.

[AX10]

22. Clinton passed to horrific policies:

The Telecommunications Deregulation Act of 1996 and the repeal of the Glass-Stegal Act of 1933.
We are feeling the full effects of these mistakes today.

[lakeguy]

31. they weren't mistakes, at least for clinton anyway. nt

[WhiteTara]

26. Logging without Laws

almost decimated the Northwest's forests under his administration.

[bbgrunt]

38. As Malloy says, Clinton was the best republican president we've ever had.

[GreenPartyVoter]

43. Indeed *sigh*

[UpInArms]

7. yes, dear, Clinton was the best republican that the Democrats

could offer.

[acmavm]

9. His wife is trying to carry on the family tradition of DINO politics.

[UpInArms]

12. I know and it makes me puke

:puke:

Keep spreading the truth acmavm!

:hi:

edited for tpyo

[mitchum]

20. Yes, there's a reason that Clinton was recruited while attending Georgetown...

his intelligence, political gifts, and "it" factor would pay off quite well for the corporatists

[Aviation Pro]

4. Skills? Talent?

The Question of Talent

Other very wealthy men in the new Gilded Age talk of themselves as having a flair for business not unlike Derek Jeter’s “unique talent” for baseball, as Leo J. Hindery Jr. put it. “I think there are people, including myself at certain times in my career,” Mr. Hindery said, “who because of their uniqueness warrant whatever the market will bear.”

He counts himself as a talented entrepreneur, having assembled from scratch a cable television sports network, the YES Network, that he sold in 1999 for $200 million. “Jeter makes an unbelievable amount of money,” said Mr. Hindery, who now manages a private equity fund, “but you look at him and you say, ‘Wow, I cannot find another ballplayer with that same set of skills.’ ”

The only "skill" Mr. Jeter has is to play catch and hit a ball with a stick at least 30% of the time. One hundred years from now he will be forgotten dust. The same can be said for Mr. Hindrey, who will hang as a ghost in a portrait somewhere after he shucks this mortal coil.

Meanwhile, Einstein, Newton, Da Vinci, and Socrates will continue to be remembered and God will have yet another belly laugh at the expense of his little joke.

[AX10]

21. Very true!

[MrPrax]

5. "constrained by the Depression"!!

*snort*

Surely the Times meant to say that the robber barons help cause the Depression and they didn't disappear -- in fact it was during this time that the powerful interests that owned the Times expanded their influence and empire.

Who would have thunk libertarianism is the new 'black' for journalists.

[Double T]

6. Let's make certain 'WE' install another corporatist, so the rich can become richer.........

and 'WE' can finish off the middle class in america. 'WE' have met the idiots and the idiots are 'US'.

[KoKo]

10. I wonder what Clinton will do if he wins the "Re-Election?" Will he rethink some of Rob Rubin's

policies? Has he seen the error of some of his policies? Is he concerned about the inequities in his Globilization policies? Outsourcing and economic disparity. :shrug:

[Double T]

11. Clinton hasn't seen the errors of their ways. H1B visas and their close relationship.......

with corporate america says it ALL! A politician's most important issues are him and her self, followed by their financial backers. Wonder what America will look like as a third world nation. Looks like we're going to find out. Long live the king...and queen.

[bbgrunt]

39. and don't forget the bff bill and george hw.

[UpInArms]

13. you make me laugh, KoKo!

Clinton is still a "globalist" and "corporatist" - he just has lots of charm and charisma to help him be a snakeoil salesman.

[aquart]

17. You're calling the Clintons fascists?

Gosh. That's useful. Can't wait to see how you vote in 2008. Bloomberg? Nader? Giuliani?

[Double T]

23. The Clintons are super corporatists and they support a corporatocracy,...........

the evidence is abundant. I never said the Clintons were fascists. bushco meets ALL the requirements of fascism. Here are the steps to a fascist America:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

[aquart]

15. Anyone care to remember what ended that Gilded Age?

Or what we got out of it?

Love pendulums. They swing.

[DemoTex]

18. "It isn't the pendulum, as it swings to and fro ..

But the essence that drives it that makes us go."


Brother Dave Gardner

[IChing]

25. The creation of the federal reserve after major players created fake

rumors to create a run on private banks.

After the Bank panic of 1907, Congress created the National Monetary Commission
to draft a plan for reform of the banking system. Senate Republican leader and financial
expert Nelson Aldrich was the head of the Commission. Aldrich set up two commissions--
one would study the American monetary system in-depth and the other, headed by Senator Aldrich himself, would study the European central banking systems and report on them.

Aldrich went to Europe opposed to centralized banking, but after viewing Germany's
banking system, he came away with the idea that a centralized bank was better
than a government-issued bond system that he had previously supported.
Centralized banking was met with much opposition from politicians, who
were suspicious of a central bank,

and who charged that Aldrich was biased due to his close ties to wealthy bankers
such as JP Morgan and his daughter's marriage to John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
In 1910, Aldrich and executives representing the banks of J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller,
and Kuhn, Loeb, & Co., secluded themselves for 10 days at Jekyll Island, Georgia.

The executives included Frank Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank
of New York, associated with the Rockefellers, Henry Davison, senior partner of J. P Morgan
Company, Charles D. Norton, president of the First National Bank of New York and
Col. Edward House, who would later become President Woodrow Wilson's closest
adviser and founder of the Council on Foreign Relations.

There, German banker Paul Warburg of Kuhn, Loeb, & Co. directed the proceedings
and wrote the primary features of the Federal Reserve Act. Aldrich fought for a private bank
which was to have little government influence, but conceded that the government should be
represented on the Board of Directors.

Aldrich then presented his plan for a private Central Bank as the "Aldrich Bill",
which called for the establishment of a bank called the "National Reserve Association
." Most Republicans and Wall Street bankers favored the Aldrich Plan
but it lacked enough support in the bipartisan Congress to pass.

>>>>snip....... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System

[smoogatz]

16. Weird thing was, this was on the front page of today's (Sunday) Times--

meanwhile, the story about Maliki saying that Iraq could handle its own security and the U.S. could withdraw its troops at any time was buried on page 4. But that's your liberal news media.

[formercia]

24. We need to think of them as a Cash Crop

Now that they have matured and ripened, it's time for the harvest, just like the Nazis did with the Jews.

What goes around, comes around.:evilgrin:

[deutsey]

30. I've said for some time that the goal of the wealthy elites has been

to erase most of the 20th century and resume "the good ol' days" of the late 1800s-early 1900s.

They have most of us cowed with all the distractions on TV or the threat of laying us off for us to organize effective resistance like the early labor movement provided.

At least that seems to be the case at the moment...let's hope it changes or we're in for not just another Gilded Age, but another feudal Dark Age as well.

"Keep you doped with religion, and sex, and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
but you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see."
--John Lennon

[Octafish]

34. The Propertied Class have foisted a new feudalism on America.

And their henchmen work to repeal the "Death Tax."



And to think the Texans once bitched to JFK about their precious oil depletion allowance.

[bleedingheart]

33. I have repeatedly refereed to this era we are living in as the Neo-Gilded Age

and it is...

but it will be overthrown like the prior one...with blood in the streets, protests and I think a socialist swing like no other...

[Manifestor_of_Light]

37. Unemployed people have lots of time on their hands.

Where's Norman Thomas when you need him?

Or Joe Hill?

Or Eugene Debs?

[bbgrunt]

40. armageddon, anyone?

[deutsey]

41. If this is indeed another Gilded Age, then we will need a new socialist movement

to fight it.

[KoKo]

44. Yes....and it's begun with push back for WTO and small efforts all around

the Globe...Global Climate Change...declining water resources. We don't see it all coming together yet...but people are waking up and doing small efforts that one day might join to topple the "Gilded" from their Towers. I don't have much hope for the current Congress making necessary reforms or even whatever new politicians come in with 2008...but eventually things will change. I wish it would be sooner, though, since we are so far down that gilded road that it will take sweeping legislation to turn us around.

[Joanne98]

42. Three decades of greed!!!!! grrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!