The 20 Richest Americans: Takers, Not Makers

[ErikJ]

The 20 Richest Americans: Takers, Not Makers

By Paul Buchheit... Monday 27 January 2014

The top individuals on the 2013 Forbes 400 list are generally believed to be makers of great companies or concepts. They are the role models of Paul Ryan, who laments, "We're going to a majority of takers versus makers in America." They are defended by Cato Institute CEO John A. Allison IV, who once protested: "Instead of an attack on the 1 percent, let's call it an attack on the very productive."

But many of the richest Americans are takers. The top twenty, with a total net worth of almost two-thirds of a trillion dollars, have all taken from the public or from employees, or through taxes or untaxed inheritances.

Bill Gates

Bill Gates may be a knowledgeable and hard-working man, but he was also lucky and opportunistic. He was a taker. In 1975, at the age of 20, he founded Microsoft with high school buddy Paul Allen. This was the era of the first desktop computers, and numerous small companies were trying to program them, most notably Digital Research, headed by brilliant software designer Gary Kildall. His CP/M operating system (OS) 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.

David Lefer, a collaborator for the book They Made America, summarized: "Gates didn't invent the PC operating system, and any history that says he did is wrong."

Warren Buffett..............
Larry Ellison............
Koch Brothers..............
Walmart Family.....................
Jeff Bezos.................
Larry Page and Sergey Brin........and more

http://www.nationofchange.org/20-richest-americans-takers-not-makers-1390833796

[Jenoch]

1. I certainly do not approve of Walmart's

business practices, but it is amazing to consider that Sam Walton started out with a single Ben Franklin store.

[Thinkingabout]

2. Story is Donald Trump "borrowed" his brothers blocks to play with , glued them together

And declared the blocks was his. Handy, huh.

[CFLDem]

3. Nothing wrong with getting rich

by building a better mousetrap.

[ErikJ]

4. True. The point is that they are also TAKERS.

Walmart especially who makes a profit of $16 billion a year while making the tax payers pay $3 billion a year to pay for their underpaid employees groceries and health care.

[JaneyVee]

5. Yup. Privatize the profits, socialize the losses.