tagged w/ Billionaires
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As if we needed still more evidence that financial authority over national political campaigns is increasingly wielded by fewer and fewer really rich people, consider this exhibit:
Super PACs raised about $181 million in the last two years — with roughly half of it coming from fewer than 200 super-rich people.As if we needed still more evidence that financial authority over national political... more
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srpr
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The Ironic News Report is a satirical news parody that skewers politics and current events. This weeks edition talks of tea party economics, Republican Candidates, and even Alex Trebek!
You can now find and download The Ironic News Report from iTunes! Go Here:
You can also get her on The Ironic News Report podcast on Itunes here:
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-ironic-news-report/id465579757
This week's Question: The Italian Prime Minister called his own country 'shitty'. Here in the US, TX governor Rick Perry wanted to secede from the union. Is that the same insult?The Ironic News Report is a satirical news parody that skewers politics and current... more
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Hey here's a real dog bites man story for you: a really, really rich guy says to readers of billionaire Murdoch's Wall Street Journal that he "deeply resents" paying taxes and whines about how the government does things he doesn't like. This in response to Warren Buffet's call to ask billionaires to at least pay as much in taxes as their secretaries. Seriously, it wasn't in The Onion.Hey here's a real dog bites man story for you: a really, really rich guy says to... more
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Cabal
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6 months ago
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It may not have been Facebook's year at the Oscars, with The Social Network, the film depicting its creation, being trounced by The King's Speech, but when it comes to cold, hard cash, Facebook reigns supreme.
Here are the rich six
Co-Founder Dustin Moskovitz ($2.7bn)
Sean Parker ($1.6bn)
Peter Thiel ($1.5bn)
Russian investor in the company, Yuri Milner ($1bn)
Eduardo Saverin (Forbes estimates that the agreement that was reached makes Saverin worth $1.6bn)
Top of the list is Mark Zuckerberg. He ranks 52nd in the Forbes list, with a fortune estimated at $13.5bn.
Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/09/forbes-rich-list-facebook-sixIt may not have been Facebook's year at the Oscars, with The Social Network, the... more
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suzane
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11 months ago
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This really sickens me that in a year when the economy is in the tank, tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, the GOP saying we are broke and cant afford to have the "job makers" paying higher taxes, people losing their homes and depleting any savings they had we have the 214 people on this earth joining the ranks of billionaires, we get poorer and they get richer, IT IS TIME FOR CLASS WARFARE AND A REVOLUTION AGAINST CORPORATE SUPER POWERS!
This 25th year of tracking global wealth was one to remember. The 2011 Billionaires List breaks two records: total number of listees (1,210) and combined wealth ($4.5 trillion). This horde surpasses the gross domestic product of Germany, one of only six nations to have fewer billionaires this year. BRICs led the way: Brazil, Russia, India and China produced 108 of the 214 new names. These four nations are home to one in four members, up from one in ten five years ago. Before this year only the U.S. had ever produced more than 100 billionaires. China now has 115 and Russia 101.
Atop the heap is Mexico's Carlos Slim Helu, who added $20.5 billion to his fortune, more than any other billionaire. The telecom mogul, who gets 62 percent of his fortune from America Movil, is now worth $74 billion and has pulled far ahead of his two closest rivals. Bill Gates, No. 2, and Warren Buffett, No. 3, both added a more modest $3 billion to their piles and are now worth $56 billion and $50 billion, respectively. Gates, who now gets 70 percent of his fortune from investments outside of Microsoft, has actually been investing in the Mexican stock market and has holdings in Mexican Coke bottler Femsa and Grupo Televisa
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41989924/ns/business-forbescom/This really sickens me that in a year when the economy is in the tank, tax cuts for... more
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It’s Friday, noon prayers are over in Cairo, and protesters are considering the risks of storming the Presidential Palace and taking over the State TV building right now. Military leaders are considering their options. Their constitutional duty is to protect President Mubarak. He did not make their job easy by refusing to resign yesterday and concede power to them. The people would support them in a move to seize control. According to Al Jazeera's English Live Blog, “Massive crowds in Tahrir are chanting ‘the people and the army are hand in hand’.” Others report that mid level army officers have joined the ranks of the protesters.
ABC’s Christiane Amanpour reported this morning that Mubarak left the palace after he delivered his speech yesterday, for parts unknown. Latest reports from AJ Live Blog, claim that “Mohamed Abdelllah, senior member of (the) ruling party, said that ..Mubarak was heading to Sharm el-Sheikh.”
It appears that the US may have brokered an honorable exit for Mubarak to undergo an extended hospital stay in Germany. Elke Hoff, security policy spokesperson of coalition partner Free Democratic Party, said she would welcome Mubarak's early departure for Germany if it helps to stabilize the situation in Egypt. "This is not a political asylum," she said. Earlier reports suggested that Israel had offered the beleaguered President asylum.
Where’s Mubarak? But what we all want to know, did he pack his money bags? The more interesting questions to consider are how big is the Mubarak family fortune, where did it come from and can it be returned to benefit the Egyptian people?
Al Jazeera, The Guardian and others have reported that the Mubarak family fortune could reach $70bn, with cash in British and Swiss banks plus UK and US property. Anti-government demonstrators have been chanting this number, while denouncing Mubarak’s lies and corruption. US new sources MSNBC and Forbes
are ridiculing this figure as highly exaggerated, since it would place Mubarak in first place, ahead of Gates and Buffett, as the world’s richest man, ignoring the caveat that the figure also includes the wealth of his sons and wife. MSNBC cites various unidentified US government agencies that offer a miserly estimate of the family’s wealth, between $2 and $3 billion, with very little of it likely to be recovered.
While the US has been delivering about $1.5 billion in annual aid to the Egyptian government, the source of Mubarak’s wealth is largely indeterminate. Continued US aid is sure to become a political hot potato in the US, while congressional conservative Ron Paul starts to rumble for a complete cut-off and Saudi’s Prince Abdullah offers to match US aid from his own coffers in that event.
The US has an interest in downplaying the looting of Egypt by Mubarak, since much of that loot can from the pockets of suffering US taxpayers. CNC offers a wide spectrum of possible sources, including a form a corporate tithing where “Foreigner enterprises that wish to do business in Egypt are commonly asked to give a free 20 per cent stake to prominent Egyptians.” Could the wealth that this practice would bring to the tables of Mubarak and his cronies during a 30-year reign rival that of that gained “legitimately” by Microsoft’s dictatorship of computer software systems?
But for a deeper look at hiding wealth, you must read the comments and counter arguments to Kerry A. Dolan’s observation that “(w)e at Forbes don’t claim to know how much Mubarak is worth, but it’s very unlikely to be anywhere near as much as $70 billion.” An Argentinean commenter offered the view that with only one Argentine billionaire identified on the Forbes list of billionaires, there are at least fifteen billionaires missing that he could count in his own experience there.
Commenter longliveegypt, who claims to be an American businessman born in Egypt, offered this view in reponse to Dolan and Forbes’ opinion:
“The MAIN source of funding is the USA military Aid. Mubarak family has and had exclusive contracts to transport the $1.3B of military equipment plus assortment of other service contracts for 30 years or maybe more. Mubarak is the only person in Egypt who controls the military budget (no monitoring by the parliament or central accounting office etc. In fact a brother of law (sic) of Mubarak (the brother of Suzanne Mubarak was indicted in Maryland for the same). But the paperwork was fixed to give it some legitimacy and the money still rolls in.
Finally watch Hussain Salem and the oil and natural gas investment. Mr. Salem operate as confidential agent for Mr. Mubarak. I know !!
Unfortunately many of these sources are shrouded in secrecy and your own statement that the amount of Mubarak riches is exaggerated is untenable either. Take your own view with a big grain of salt as well.”
In my view, we need to follow the money and keep peeling back the truth. Our tax dollars need to support the aspirations of the Egyptian Pro-Democracy Movement. We must demand that the US pursue the return of treasure Mubarak claims as his own, and put it to work for people struggling to live and be free, both in Egypt and in the US.
Echoing these sentiments, a video posted on Youtube shows a solidarity protest song titled Sout al Horeya, The Sound of Freedom, by Moustafa Fahmy, Mohamed Khalifa, and Mohamed Shaker.
"I went down and I said I am not coming back, and I wrote on every street wall that I am not coming back.
"All barriers have been broken down, our weapon was our dream, and the future is crystal clear to us, we have been waiting for a long time, we are still searching for our place, we keep searching for a place we belong too, in every corner in our country.
"The sound of freedom is calling, in every street corner in our country, the sound of freedom is calling..
"We will re-write history, if you are one of us, join us and don't stop us from fulfilling our dream.
The sound of freedom is calling.It’s Friday, noon prayers are over in Cairo, and protesters are considering the... more
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Come Tuesday, Nov. 2, it will not matter whether you vote Democratic, Republican, Independent, Green, Tea, or write-in. That’s because the winning entity will not be on the ballot — and hasn’t been for a very long time.Come Tuesday, Nov. 2, it will not matter whether you vote Democratic, Republican,... more
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http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
David Koch is New York’s second-richest man, a celebrated patron of the arts, and the tea party’s wallet.
He and his brother Charles are lifelong libertarians and have quietly given more than a hundred million dollars to right-wing causes.http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
David Koch is New... more
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Christy Walton inherited a handsome share of the famous Wal-Mart supermarket chain after the death of her husband. Well this year, Christy Walton had made it to the listChristy Walton inherited a handsome share of the famous Wal-Mart supermarket chain... more
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mky786
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eva2
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This week thousands of New Jersey public school students walked out of class to protest draconian school budget cuts. “Save my teacher,” their signs read. In a state that is home to a bevy of high finance billionaires, with the highest per capita income in the nation, teachers are being sacked left and right. In our town half the student body protested outside the high school. Perhaps the protesters should turn their eyes towards the twenty-five top hedge fund honchos who took in $25 billion in 2009. Their “earnings” alone could fund 658,000 entry level teachers.
It’s ironic that the battlefield in this war over resources is public education. Because the public remains entirely uneducated about the connection between those billionaires and school budget cuts. We are clueless about what the Wall Street billionaires do to earn their riches and whether it’s of any value. We might be able to understand “weapons of mass destruction,” but financial weapons of mass destruction are way beyond us.
The new earning reports are good, we read. The giant financial institutions are back to making billions through “trading.” So are these bankers grown-up versions of kids trading baseball cards–or are they robber barons? Are they enriching our society or siphoning off its wealth? Maybe the marching students of New Jersey could ask Governor Christie to explain.
Here’s what we do know for sure. Our modern financial honchos are very different from the robber barons of old. Everybody knew that Rockefeller meant oil, Ford meant cars and Carnegie meant steel.
Yes, today, we know that Gates and Jobs mean computers. But who the hell is David Tepper, and what does he produce with his Appaloosa hedge fund? He must have done something pretty impressive to earn $4 billion (not million) in 2009, the worst financial year since the Great Depression, with 29 million Americans unemployed or forced into part-time work. Then again, how much would he have “earned” had we not provided more than $8 trillion in bailout funds, loans and guarantees to the collapsed financial sector?
Mr. Tepper lives in New Jersey where the governor has gone to war with the teachers, hoping to break the union and balance the budget on the backs of our students. But Governor Christie’s enthusiasm for a balanced budget only goes so far: HeRThis week thousands of New Jersey public school students walked out of class to... more
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The second part of an interview with billionaire Harrison Wyld, conducted in October 2009.
*Note - 'Now I Can Change The World' is part of ‘Bluebird AR’, an alternate reality drama by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) supported by Current. We invite you to participate in ‘Bluebird AR’. To learn more visit http://abc.net.au/bluebird.The second part of an interview with billionaire Harrison Wyld, conducted in October... more
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This is the first part of an interview with billionaire Harrison Wyld, conducted in October 2009. In the light of recent events with the leak of Harrison's Bluebird initiative I'm publishing the interview unabridged.
Episode 2 of NICCTW is on hold for now while I try and get to the bottom of Bluebird...
*Note - 'Now I Can Change The World' is part of ‘Bluebird AR’, an alternate reality drama by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) supported by Current. We invite you to participate in ‘Bluebird AR’. To learn more visit http://abc.net.au/bluebird.This is the first part of an interview with billionaire Harrison Wyld, conducted in... more
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Well I got a complete shock yesterday... Harrison Wyld, the subject of my next episode for NICCTW has plans to geoengineer the planet!? One of his top research scientists (Kyle Vandercamp) leaked Wyld's project (Bluebird) online and a Stop Bluebird campaign has also been launched...Well I got a complete shock yesterday... Harrison Wyld, the subject of my next episode... more
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We delve deeper into the greentech world and meet eco-billionaire Harrison Wyld who says it's the billionaires who can and will save the world.
*Note - 'Now I Can Change The World' is part of ‘Bluebird AR’, an alternate reality drama by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) supported by Current. We invite you to participate in ‘Bluebird AR’. To learn more visit http://abc.net.au/bluebird.We delve deeper into the greentech world and meet eco-billionaire Harrison Wyld who... more
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The second part to the premiere episode of this new online documentary series about billionaires and philanthrocapitalism.
*Note - 'Now I Can Change The World' is part of ‘Bluebird AR’, an alternate reality drama by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) supported by Current. We invite you to participate in ‘Bluebird AR’. To learn more visit http://abc.net.au/bluebird.The second part to the premiere episode of this new online documentary series about... more
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They're the great minds behind Microsoft, Google, CNN and Bloomberg. They're industrial titans, oil tycoons, venture capitalists and inventors.
But amongst the mega-rich there's a new generation of philanthropists keen to apply their business minds to tackle the planet's problems.
In this series we'll explore the new landscape of billionaire philanthropists. What drives them to pioneer new approaches to issues that were previously the domain of nation states?
Can the extremely wealthy save the world? And should we leave them to it?
*Note - 'Now I Can Change The World' is part of ‘Bluebird AR’, an alternate reality drama by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) supported by Current. We invite you to participate in ‘Bluebird AR’. To learn more visit http://abc.net.au/bluebird.They're the great minds behind Microsoft, Google, CNN and Bloomberg. They're... more
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