Meet the Global Financial Elites Controlling $46 Trillion In Wealth

[Octafish]

This is what happens when the media no longer comfort the afflicted nor afflict the comfortable...



Meet the Global Financial Elites Controlling $46 Trillion In Wealth

The economic elite have at least $46 trillion in wealth – but who are they? We look at the people and the industries picking the pockets of the working class.

By David DeGraw
Amped Status via Alternet.org, Aug. 11, 2011

EXCERPT...

How Much Wealth Do The Economic Elite Have?

While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90 percent of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level. According to an extensive study by auditing and financial advisory firm Deloitte, US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth. On top of the $38.6 trillion this study reveals, they have an estimated $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts.

In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth, the majority of this wealth is held within the upper one-tenth of one percent of the population.

If all this isn’t obscene enough, to further demonstrate how the global economy has now been completely rigged, Deloitte’s analysis predicated, based on current trends, that US millionaire households will see a 225 percent increase in wealth to $87.1 trillion by 2020. Accounting for wealth hidden in offshore accounts, they are projected to have over $100 trillion in total within the next decade.

Most people cannot even comprehend how much $1 trillion is, let alone $46 trillion. One trillion is equal to 1000 billion, or $1,000,000,000,000. To put it in perspective, last year the entire cost of feeding all 40 million Americans on food stamps was $65 billion.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/151999/

And where is Uncle Sam in all this? Wasn't it his job to "level the playing field"?

Oh, that's right! Sam's well on his way to that well-paying job in the private sector, after he retires from government, working for the comfortable.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. The part I love is where they have us fighting each other over pensions and tax rates.

While they are sitting on the edge of that nearly vertical L curve laughing at the brawling peasants.

[proverbialwisdom]

4. Astounding, I agree.

[Octafish]

5. Hedge Fund Gamblers Earn the Same In One Hour as a Middle-Class Household Makes In Over 47 Years

How do they make so much money? Where does it come from? How can hedge fund firms with fewer than 100 employees make as much profit as firms with thousands of employees?

Source: http://www.alternet.org/story/150570/hedge_fund_gamblers_earn_the_same_in_one_hour_as_a_middle-class_household_makes_in_over_47_years/

Their laughter makes me sad to contemplate the lack of compensatjion for those toiling in the truth industries.

[Juche]

37. Read an article called 'the quiet coup', it was written by the chief economist for the IMF

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/7364/

It outlines really well what happened in the US. He claims it is no different than what happenes in developing nations.

A group of powerful, wealthy oligarchs (in our case the financial industry) end up capturing the gov. to pass legislation favorable to them, and overextend themselves and collapse the economy (has happened before. Indonesia, Rusia, South Korea, etc). The gov, since it is captured, makes bailing the oligarchs out its highest priority (happened. TARP, extending the bush tax cuts, no tax hikes on the wealthy. federal reserve help. etc). The gov decides that it needs austerity so it cuts the fat out of the working class (happening. Wisconsin, anti-teacher sentiments, anti-unemployed mentalities, etc).

He claims the only solution is to break up the oligarchs, pass laws to defang them, nationalize the financial industry, clean them up, break them into smaller units and resell them on the private market. But that won't happen. So he claims we'll just limp along until we either collapse again and are forced to act serious, or maybe we will get better.


This part is really telling, and keep in mind this was written in 2009.

Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large.




That is exactly what happened. The gov. took responsibility for the debts of the oligarchs with TARP, federal reserve programs, taking on bad debt, etc.

So they squeeze working people. And the riots are growing large. Look what happened in Madison. Now they want a 'bipartisan debt commission' to determine how to cut medicare, medicaid and social security so we can avoid raising taxes on the wealthy.

[russspeakeasy]

48. Brilliant...

[Zorra]

53. I would kick this thread and recommend this thread and this article a trillion times if I could.

Unless we unite and can elect a whopping majority of true democratic progressive candidates to all legislative branches and the WH (not likely because of the degree to which the majority of the American public has been brainwashed), or unite in determined resolve and focus behind a peaceful resistance movement (strikes, boycotts, general non-cooperation with "authority", etc) and remove the plutarchs from control by force of sheer immovable numbers of people, things will just continue to get worse and worse.

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."

-Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Message from the President of the United States Transmitting Recommendations Relative to the Strengthening and Enforcement of Anti-trust Laws"

Subcomandante Marcos:

The global power of the financial centers is so great, that they can afford not to worry about the political tendency of those who hold power in a nation, if the economic program (in other words, the role that nation has in the global economic megaprogram) remains unaltered. The financial disciplines impose themselves upon the different colors of the world political spectrum in regards to the government of any nation. The great world power can tolerate a leftist government in any part of the world, as long as the government does not take measures that go against the needs of the world financial centers. But in no way will it tolerate that an alternative economic, political and social organization consolidate. For the megapolitics, the national politics are dwarfed and submit to the dictates of the financial centers. It will be this way until the dwarfs rebel . .

http://struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

I wrote the song below 30 years ago, while sitting in a bar just before a gig, after experiencing the democratic and social progress of the 60's and then witnessing the birth of the national program instituted by oligarchs and their puppet, Ronald Reagan, to establish an ironfisted dictatorship of the plutarchs, and to make sure that anything like the democratic uprisings of the 60's would ever happen again in the US. Looks like they totally succeeded.

Here it is September, and I'm sittin' in the same old bar,
I see your picture in the paper, and I'm wonderin' just who you are,
Some old politician man, sellin' bombs across the sea,
Are you the Pentagon, an oil man, or AT&T?

Well, I'd rather have a good dog, than a brand new car,
rather have a forest than a new street in my back yard,
Hey Mr. Workin' Man, you been workin' too long, too hard,
Won't you just sit down for awhile, make the bossman show his cards.

They take our money, and they fly to the moon,,
I hear they're raisin' the cost of livin', too,
Television propaganda, keeps us dancin' to the same old tune,
now they're gonna lower taxes for the rich folks here real soon.

Now here it is December, still sittin' in that same old bar,
Seems like nothin' ever changes, I can't change the way things are,
Same old middle class blindness, same old upper class lies,
People when you gonna listen,
I think you've been hypnotized

They take our money, and they fly to the moon
I hear they're raisin' the cost of livin', too,
Television propaganda, keeps us dancin' to the same old tune,
while they're gonna lower taxes for the rich again real soon.

Now here it is December, still sittin' in that same old bar
Seems like nothin' ever changes, I can't change the way things are
Same old middle class blindness, same old upper class lies
People when you gonna listen
I think you've been hypnotized
People when you gonna listen,
People when you gonna rise.

:shrug:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. recommend.

and bkmrkd

[Octafish]

6. Congress Sure Has A Boatload O' Millionaires!

EXCERPT...

The Hill has released its “50 Wealthiest List,” which ranks the top fifty wealthiest members of Congress. I took some time to review the data, and you know what I realized? Twenty-​three of the top fifty are Republicans (that’s 46%) and twenty-​seven are Democrats (that’s 54%.) But here’s the interesting thing: Congress is structured with 100 Senators and 435 Representatives. That’s 535 Congressmen and Congresswomen. Of those 535 people, we’re have three “openings,” so there’s a total of 532 sitting Congressmen and Congresswomen.

On a percentage basis, 59% are Democrats, 41% are Republicans, yet on a percentage basis of the “50 Wealthiest List,” as I said, 54% are Democrats and 46% are Republicans — a five point spread.

SOURCE: http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/congress-sure-has-a-boatload-o-millionaires/politics/2010/09/01/12531

Gee. I can still remember when government of the people, by the people, and for the people didn't include lobbyists, corporations and trust funds.

[Major Hogwash]

39. I'd like to be on that boat!!

If only somehow I could get elected!!!

[Donnachaidh]

3. shout this from the rooftops - k& freaking r! n/t

[Octafish]

8. Our American Upper Class

"In other societies, as a general thing, a member of the upper class is not supposed to make the accumulation of wealth his master-concern, or expected to be particularly good at it. His ancestors are supposed to have stolen enough in the first instance to enable him to rub along, merely taking care of what he has and devoting himself to other pursuits.

"The complete bankruptcy of intelligence exhibited in these representative pronouncements from our upper class should make a clean sweep of the notion so often advanced to account for the low level of our general culture, that our best minds nowadays go into business. They do not. They do not go anywhere. There is nowhere for them to go.

"Our society has made no place for the individual who is able to think, who is, in the strict sense of the word, intelligent; it merely tosses him into the rubbish-heap; while picking out the stupidest millionaire in sight and placing him in the White House to the accompaniment of a deafening fanfare of adulation for his almost superhuman abilities.

"Intelligence is the power and willingness always disinterestedly to see things as they are, an easy accessibility to ideas, and a free play of consciousness upon them, quite regardless of the conclusions to which this play may lead. Intelligence, therefore, while not precisely incompatible with success in accumulating wealth, is unrelated to it; hence it is disallowed by our Philistines."

-- Albert Jay Nock, "Our American Upper Class," Harpers Magazine, 1932

Thanks, Dr. Livergood!

[shireen]

7. i hope they realize that they can't take their wealth with them when they die. nt

[Octafish]

11. The World's Money Is Draining Away ... Where's It Going?

EXCERPT...

Indeed, all of the monetary and economic policy of the last 3 years has helped the wealthiest and penalized everyone else. See this, this and this.

A "jobless recovery" is basically a redistribution of wealth from the little guy to the big boys.

The Bush tax cuts and failure to enforce corporate taxes also redistribute wealth to the top 1%. See this and this.

Economist Steve Keen says:

"This is the biggest transfer of wealth in history", as the giant banks have handed their toxic debts from fraudulent activities to the countries and their people.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/08/worlds-money-is-draining-away-wheres-it.html

Of course, their heirs, descendants and cronies will gladly handle their holdings until the resurrection.

[Lorien]

23. Well worth a read. nt

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

15. They do it genetically. nt

[Juche]

35. They leave it to their kids, who fund right wing think tanks

Coors, Walton, Koch, etc.

[MrScorpio]

9. I bet that they're really tasty and tender...

[Octafish]

16. David Stockman: “Crony Capitalism” Has Killed the Free Market and Democracy

By Peter Gorenstein | Daily Ticker – Mon, Apr 25, 2011 8:00 AM EDT

EXCERPT...

"I believe we no longer have free market capitalism and we no longer have a democracy," says David Stockman, the blunt-talking former Michigan Congressman and Director of the OMB during the Reagan administration.

What now exists at the heart of the U.S. economy, Stockman argues, is "crony capitalism" - a system that benefits and even rigs the system in favor of America's banks and bankers at the cost of average Americans. It's a system built on the back of government-issued bailouts and free money. "The Fed is the great enabler" through its free money policies, which "generate results the market wouldn't otherwise provide for," he says.

For example, banks - which caused the 2008 economic and financial crisis - are enjoying profits once again as so-called "risk assets" reflate. Meanwhile, well-meaning members of the middle class intent on saving cash continue to get "savaged" (Stockman's word) when they keep money in low-yielding savings accounts and rely on a dollar that continues to lose value.

When Bernanke & Co. allow banks to borrow money at no cost for so long it turns "capital markets into a rip-roaring casino that really is not productive for the real main street economy and is generating windfall gains for to a very limited number of people for no good purpose," Stockman tells Dan Gross in the accompanying interview.

These policies are nothing new, Stockman says, but "crony capitalism" hit new levels of absurdity in the recent past with the bank bailouts and the auto bailouts.

SOURCE (w video interview): http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/david-stockman-crony-capitalism-killed-free-market-democracy-120004233.html

Vegetables for Vegetarians. Rotten Cabbages, most all.

[FarCenter]

10. Investment firms catering to the wealthy require at least $10 to $25 million

A million doesn't cut it any more. A dollar is worth between 10 cents and 1 cent from back in the time when millionaires were rich.

[Octafish]

50. The Real Housewives of Wall Street

Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs?

EXCERPT...

It's hard to imagine a pair of people you would less want to hand a giant welfare check to — yet that's exactly what the Fed did. Just two months before the Macks bought their fancy carriage house in Manhattan, Christy and her pal Susan launched their investment initiative called Waterfall TALF. Neither seems to have any experience whatsoever in finance, beyond Susan's penchant for dabbling in thoroughbred racehorses. But with an upfront investment of $15 million, they quickly received $220 million in cash from the Fed, most of which they used to purchase student loans and commercial mortgages. The loans were set up so that Christy and Susan would keep 100 percent of any gains on the deals, while the Fed and the Treasury (read: the taxpayer) would eat 90 percent of the losses. Given out as part of a bailout program ostensibly designed to help ordinary people by kick-starting consumer lending, the deals were a classic heads-I-win, tails-you-lose investment.

[amborin]

12. K&R

[Octafish]

49. World's wealthiest people now richer than before the credit crunch...

World's wealthiest people now richer than before the credit crunch

EXCERPT...

According to the annual world wealth report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, the wealth of HNWIs around the world reached $42.7tn (£26.5tn) in 2010, rising nearly 10% in a year and surpassing the peak of $40.7tn reached in 2007, even as austerity budgets were implemented by many governments in the developed world.

[amborin]

54. yes, exactly, LOL!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1346265

[Emit]

13. When I read posts like this

it reminds me of how I always hated the game Monopoly.

[Curmudgeoness]

26. So you sucked at it too? I never once won it.

In fact, as it is today, I would lose quickly and have to sit and watch everyone else continue to play while I picked my ass.

[Emit]

28. lol! I never, ever won! I gave up long before trying.

The game bored me to no end. I guess I'm just a born Socialist hahaha!

[Octafish]

51. Sen. Paul Wellstone warned us of coming economic meltdown 12 YEARS AGO!...

EXCERPT...

I rise in strong opposition to S. 900, the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. S. 900 would aggravate a trend towards economic concentration that endangers not only our economy, but also our democracy.

S. 900 would make it easier for banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to merge into gigantic new conglomerates that would dominate the U.S. financial industry and the U.S. economy.

Mr. President, this is the wrong kind of modernization at the wrong time. Modernization of the existing confusing patchwork of laws, regulations, and regulatory authorities would be a good thing, but that's not what this legislation is about. S. 900 is really about accelerating the trend towards massive consolidation of the financial sector.

This is the wrong kind of modernization because it fails to put in place adequate regulatory safeguards for these new financial giants the failure of which could jeopardize the entire economy. It's the wrong kind of modernization because taxpayers could be stuck with the bill if these conglomerates become ``too big to fail.''

SOURCE: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1226833/senator_paul_wellstones_speech_before_pg4_pg4.html?cat=9

[TBF]

14. This should be plastered everywhere - and for the life of me I can't figure out

why anyone making under $10M a year would vote for policies that don't include tax hikes on these individuals. As far as I'm concerned that has been Mr. Obama's greatest mistake - not letting those tax breaks expire.

[RevStPatrick]

17. Good stuff, thanks.

Money doesn't work if it sits in just a few hands.

[leveymg]

18. If taxed at 25%, that stash would pay to rebuild, educate, and reemploy America for a long time.

America isn't broke, it's just colonized.

[Initech]

19. I can guarantee we'll see an economic revolt in the US in my lifetime.

And when we do - it will not end well.

[Lorien]

22. The sick thing is that when people revolt and riot they attack their own instead

of the elite. They break and burn down small businesses and apartments instead of corporate headquarters, banks and mega mansions. Because of the the elite really aren't worried.

[Curmudgeoness]

27. I will second that! I have always been baffled

that revolts and riots always seem to occur in the revolters' neighborhoods. I keep yelling at the TV, "go torch THEIR neighborhoods so they will give a shit".

[dixiegrrrrl]

56. as one writer so eloquently stated:

"We exist in a culture that, day after day, inundates its have-nots with consumerist propaganda, and then, when the social order breaks down, its wealthy and bourgeoisie alike express outrage when the poor steal consumer goods — as opposed to going out and looting an education and a good job."

From one of the best, most moving articles I have ever read:

Life in an Age of Looting

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/08/12/life-in-an-age-of-looting/

[G_j]

20. great article

thanks Octafish :hi:

[Mnemosyne]

21. K&R Thank you, Octafish. It's heinous, imho. n/t

[Waiting For Everyman]

24. K&R This is THE #1 issue we have to fix. All others come from this.

There is no reason to allow this. None. Zero.

[lindysalsagal]

25. Not an economist, myself, so this is uninformed, but I seem to remember when

the uber-rich knew they had to spread it around a little better to prevent such things as the french revolution from happening to them. This new class doesn't fear retribution, even in the face of the country's first black president. You'd think that would be a wake up call, but they're so out of touch with reality, that all they can do is continue to fight each other for money they'll never need.

[Hydra]

36. Welcome to DU

And sadly, President Obama believes that these people are more important than we are, because they can donate large sums to him.

It's too long for me to post about here, but suffice to say that they know what they are doing, the threat it poses to them...and they have gambled that they have everything sewn up correctly when the revolt comes.

[sabrina 1]

29. That is obscene. I was just wondering the other day where

did all the money go? I mean all we hear is that country after country is in debt and they all have to 'tighten their belts' and 'share the sacrifice' and accept 'austerity programs'. And I wondered 'where did the money go'? Who are all these countries in debt to? Why can't they pay their debts unless the money that used to be circulating throughout the population has been stolen?

In 'Capitalism, A Love Story' (which everyone should see imo) Michael Moore goes to Wall St, puts crime tape around it, then he knocks on the door and with a megaphone in one hand and big sack in the other he yells 'We Want Our Back'! He tells the cop who comes up to him that he's here 'to get the American people's money, and who should he talk to'?

It was funny and simple, and the chances of him getting even a dollar from them were zero. But it's a question many people keep asking 'where did all the money go'? And why are they taking MORE from us? And even more important, WHY ARE WE LETTING THEM??

This is disgusting! Greed, crime, and they talk about looters taking a few TVs. Where are the prosecutions? Sen. Levin's Committee referred their findings which included corruption and crime, regarding the Financial Meltdown, to the DOJ. But that seems to have been the end of it.

[annabanana]

30. Thank you Octafish. You always bring the goods. . . .n/t

[Karenina]

58. +1

[annabanana]

31. Thank you Octafish. You always bring the goods. . . .n/t

[German]

32. This is also a must read on ampedstatus, where this topic is includet

EXCLUSIVE: Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America: Over 1 Million Deaths Annually, 62 Million People With Zero Net Worth, As the Economic Elite Make Off With $46 Trillion

[EvolveOrConvolve]

33. I'm not sure that people understand just HOW staggering these numbers are

Take myself. My wife and I bring in about $50,000 a year. We're about average, income-wise, but we're comfortable and I feel fortunate that we're in the position we're in. But these numbers are truly sobering. For example, I would have to work for a billion years, at $50k a year, to earn $46 trillion.

Eventually, I think this imbalance is going to lead to a societal crack. And it's going to be bloody, I fear.

[Juche]

34. How is that possible?

The richest 400 individuals have combined wealth of about 1.5 trillion. Even the richest 3 million (top 1%, which obviously includes kids or the disabled) shouldn't have 40+ trillion. The US has 403 billionaires at last count (all but 3 of whom are in the list of the top 400 I would assume), about 8.4 million millionaires (although I don't know how many of them are in the 300+ million category vs. 2 million). All the billionaires in the US combined shouldn't have more than 1.5 trillion in wealth.

I'd need more evidence that they have that much wealth. I know income inequality is a major issue in the world, but I don't know if I can believe that.

[Octafish]

52. Thank Moon for Switzerland...

World's wealthiest people now richer than before the credit crunch

EXCERPT...

This scale of wealth of the richest people in Asia Pacific – fuelled by the fast-growing economies in China and India – is now threatening to overtake North America, where the value of the wealth rose more slowly – 9% – to reach $11.6tn.

[dixiegrrrrl]

57. Much of the money is "on paper".

Remember that a LOT of "wealth" of the banks and hedge funds is from "derivatives" which have only nominal, not real value.
remember that a lot of bank money is from mortgages priced at nominal, NOT "to market" value.

Realize that the TBTF fail banks have actually been "broke" since before TARP, and that the stock market essentially consists of electronic trades between/among computers set up by, for example, Goldman Sachs and other entities, that
trade back and forth in milliseconds making paper "profits".

Remember than when you and I count up how much we are worth, we count "value of home" even if we are still paying the mortgage and do not "own" that home, same with car, same with stock/retirement funds, we count the "value" not the
"right this very minute if I sold it today" cash price.
Same with CEO compensation, a lot of that is stock value. Has NO worth until it is sold.

So, a lot of the money is actually paper value, and the rich are fighting like hell to make sure their phony value is never discovered to be smoke and mirrors.

On paper, the total "value" of the derivative market alone is something like 100 times MORE than all the money ever produced in the world.

[Major Hogwash]

38. And yet the Republicans say our taxes are too high.

When they have more money than the United States, do you think they will loan us some?

[pam4water]

40. Leaves my jaw in the floor for a while until my mouth starts collecting bugs... 45.9 trillion

[pam4water]

41. Brings back the "He wouldn't been over to pick up the nation debt", expression.

[bluebuzzard]

42. more from David DeGraw

http://daviddegraw.org/2011/07/how-the-two-party-oligarchy-uses-the-democrat-vs-republican-charade-to-loot-the-country-the-greatest-increase-in-poverty-and-hardship-produced-by-any-law-in-modern-us-history-non-hyperbolic-edit/

[TheUnspeakable]

43. k&r

[tomp]

44. k&r. nt

[malaise]

45. K & R

Great post

[Butch350]

46. Great! I'm drowning and your Describing the water.

[Harriety]

47. I don't understand people's lack of anger to wards these people.

Time and time again I hear someone tell me how union jobs get perks over private sector jobs, and that's just not fair. Time and time again I hear someone say that minorities and (gasp) immigrants are taking their jobs away. The real outrage should be directed at these fat cats. People should be complaining about big corporations sending their jobs to other countries and freezing their wages while the cost of living goes up. That's the truth of it, and all this other blibber-blabber has been pushed on them by certain news sources and hate ads sponsored by.... ta da! guess who? big corporations. When are some people going to wake up? Or, do they just refuse to realize how they've been sucker punched time and time again.....

[Blue_Tires]

55. Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours

[Zorra]

59. _^_