Koch Brothers’ Wealth Grew By $33 Billion in 3 Years As America’s Schools Report 1 Million Homeless

[midnight]

KIDS...We used to be a country with a rich heart. Now we’re the land of the heartless rich.

In one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression, the billionaire Koch brothers who habitually rail against government’s unfair burden on the wealthy, have almost doubled their net worth to a combined $64 billion. On March 10, 2010, Forbes listed the net worth of Charles and David Koch at $17.5 billion each. This year, Forbes says the Koch brothers are individually worth $34 billion.

During that same time period, some of the bleakest economic news has been reported for the rest of America. Just yesterday, the Pew Research Center released a study showing that between 2009 to 2011 the richest 7 percent of Americans increased their wealth by 28 percent while the remaining 93 percent of households lost 4 percent of their net worth. The study analyzed Census Bureau data for the period.

Last June, the U.S. Department of Education reported that there were 1,065,794 homeless children enrolled in America’s preschools, kindergarten and grades 1 to 12 in the 2010-2011 school year — the highest number on record, and a 13 percent increase over the 2009 to 2010 school year. The figure does not capture the total number of homeless children since school data excludes infants and toddlers and homeless children not attending public schools.

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States. The Kochs have enough money to do that with $44 billion left over to funnel to their plethora of right wing front groups who serially bellyache about how unfair things are for the affluent in America.

http://wallstreetonparade.com/2013/04/koch-brothers-wealth-grew-by-33-billion-in-3-years-as-americas-schools-report-1-million-homeless-kids/

[BethanyQuartz]

1. The American dream

It's not about helping homeless kids. It's about getting rich and strutting around in fancy clothes. Oh, and suing your family members in court over daddy's money apparently.

Funny how these guys are so determined to hold on to every penny of hard earned money that they didn't even manage to earn themselves.

[midnight]

3. Our poor are not considered valuable enough to meet their Human capital worth.....

[BethanyQuartz]

6. Been reading and watching a lot of Chomsky lectures lately

He quotes this a few times: Gain wealth, forgetting all but self. He said it originates from workers in the 1800s who despised it as the spirit of industrial capitalism.

I should stop with the Chomsky though. After a few hours of his lectures I stop seeing humanity as a seething crazy mass of self-destruction and start seeing a logical, compassionate, and sane species.

Then I read the day's headlines and feel depressed all over again.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. .

.

[DrewDogan]

4. Why is there not a thread for Money in Politics?

Thank you for this post. I recently joined and I have been going up and down the Topics looking for a thread on Money in Politics. Money corrupts all and I have seen it first hand. We can spend days pointing the finger but at the end of the day, business controls politics. There's nothing you can't buy if you are rich enough. When are politics/elections going to be about all Americans and not just those who can buy politicians.

This is the world I live in (this is my therapy):
[link:http://www.iinventeddicktodick.com]

[midnight]

8. Thanks Drew and welcome.. I'm not sure I can answer that question... But I hope someone with more

money sense can... I could think of a good title for the thread: Repeal Citizen's United....

[Dustlawyer]

10. Right on! I have been here awhile and have been trying to raise awareness for the need for

COMPLETE CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM! Almost all of the problems complained of here could be corrected, or at least increased our Representative Government from zero to a lot! I have watched BP game the whole system for the oil spill. The media laps up whatever BP tells them and no more. The President, loved by so many here rolled over and gave them cover and the Coast Guard. I could go on but not tonight. Welcome to DU!

[DrewDogan]

18. Welcome to go on

I unfortunately live in the world of high finance and it's almost as if they are laughing at all of us (Americans). They don't have to play by the rules/laws and they don't have to pick a party, because they can just change them anytime they want. We may vote for a candidate but that is only after they tell us who we get to pick from. I don't see a whole lot of candidates that represent me or the middle class and when you get right down to it, if these people want to keep their jobs, they better be willing to sell us all out. At the end of the day, they are going to chose their children's welfare over the best interest of all of us. It takes millions of dollars to get elected to almost any office nowadays.

As long as we keep pointing the finger at each other, they are happy. Politicians are puppets. They are only following the money.

It's good to see others are aware of this as well. Thanks for the Reply.

[Dustlawyer]

20. There don't seem to be many here at DU who recognize it.

Our politics seem to have become like a team sport where we are fans of one team or another. You cannot criticize your team and must support everything they do. I am afraid that it will take a lot before enough people will get off of their couch and do something. Probably when they cannot afford cable.

[DrewDogan]

21. Thanks and good to know

It's crazy to think that 90% of Americans (both parties) want something (whether it be stricter gun laws or money out of politics) and never get it. I guess it's easier to blame the other team then realize members of your own team don't want it either because they are more concerned with keeping their job.

[Addison]

24. I'm sure they ARE laughing at us

I'd be laughing at me if I was them.

[Brigid]

15. Great idea.

We could call it "The Real Enemy."

[DrewDogan]

16. Go Cubs!

Agreed! Follow the money. UNPAC.ORG is also a great website on this.

[Brigid]

17. Great site!

And as for the Cubbies, I only regret that I have but one to give for my team.

[mikeysnot]

26. It is gettig really tough these days

especially after last nights loss.

[mokawanis]

5. Heartless bastards

Can't think of one positive thing to say about those assholes.

[cyberswede]

7. Appalling.

[rhett o rick]

9. I think that the new kid in town, the new crime family is the Koch Krime Family. So long to the Bush

Crime Family. Wonder if Rove will go to work for the Koch Bros.??

[midnight]

12. The two are teamed up to take over the GOP voter data bases for the entire country.... I'm not sure

if that signals who is working for whom but they are working towards that particular goal....

[Pterodactyl]

11. "According to HUD, it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States."

The annual HUD budget is 48.5 billion. They should have fixed homelessness by now.

[midnight]

13. This is another reason to repeal those tax breaks for the wealthy.

[Pterodactyl]

22. Of course, but it is within our power to STOP HOMELESSNESS THIS YEAR with existing funds.

[midnight]

23. I like this idea.. It would be so wonderful to get this taken care of....

[Lucky Luciano]

14. ...and they despise Obama. What did they expect to happen

...if a thug became president? Increase by $60B? Stock market would still be in the shitter if that were the case and their net worth is estimated by comparing the stock valuation increases of comparable companies since their own company is private.

[midnight]

19. I think your right.... He helped them hold onto more in this financial storm than the poor and

middle class.... But they still complain....

[mikeysnot]

27. they are sociopaths

Greg Palast talks about them a lot and how they are cheating the Native Americans by skimming off the top t increase their share of oil.

According to the transcript of the secretly recorded tape, Charles Koch was chuckling like a six-year old. Koch was having a hell of a laugh over pilfering a few hundred dollars' worth of oil from a couple of dirt-poor Indians on the Osage Reservation.

Why did Koch, worth about $3 billion at the time (now $20 billion) need to boost a few bucks from some Indian in a trailer home? Koch answered:

"I want my fair share – and that's all of it."

Now "all of it" includes a pipeline, the Keystone XL, which would run the world's filthiest oil, crude made from tar sands, down from Canada to his family's refinery on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

http://www.gregpalast.com/i-want-my-fair-share-and-thats-all-of-it-the-kochs-the-xl-pipeline/

[Myrina]

25. To be honest, we've always been a country of the heartless rich.

Look back to the turn of the 20th century.

For awhile, though, the churches and gov't implied "moral standards" of caring for the most at-risk as part of the responsibility of society. Notsomuch lately.