Meet the Global Financial Elites Controlling $46 Trillion in Wealth
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.
David Degraw, Alternet, August 11, 2011 |
The following is an adapted excerpt from David DeGraw’s new report on the financial destruction of the United States. The full report can be read here: Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
– Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
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.
Now consider, according to the latest IRS data, only 0.076 percent of the population, less than one-tenth of one percent, earned over $1 million in 2009.
The graph below, based on data from the Tax Policy Center, shows how much income is earned by a household at any given percentile in income distribution:
The highest bracket for annual income is $50 million or more. Only 74 Americans are in this elite group. The average income within this category was $91.2 million in 2008. As astonishing as that is, in 2009 they averaged $518.8 million each, or about $10 million per week. This means, in the depths of the recession, the richest 74 Americans increased their income by more than five times within this one year. These 74 people made more money than 19 million workers combined.
In context, overall, the richest 400 people in the US have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50 percent of the entire country. The top economic 1 percent of the US population now has a record 40 pecent of all wealth, and have more wealth than 90 percent of the population combined.
Who Rules America? Revealing The Economic Top 0.1 Percent
Here is an analysis from an investment manager with mega-wealthy clients breaking down the economic top 0.5 percent of the population, recently published by William Domhoff, sociology professor and author of Who Rules America?:
“Unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, those in the top half and, particularly, top 0.1%, can often borrow for almost nothing, keep profits and production overseas, hold personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and influence legislation in the US. They have access to the very best in accounting firms, tax and other attorneys, numerous consultants, private wealth managers, a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and many other benefits.
Folks in the top 0.1% come from many backgrounds but it’s infrequent to meet one whose wealth wasn’t acquired through direct or indirect participation in the financial and banking industries…. Most of the serious economic damage the US is struggling with today was done by the top 0.1% and they benefited greatly from it…. For example, in Q1 of 2011, America’s top corporations reported 31% profit growth and a 31% reduction in taxes, the latter due to profit outsourcing to low tax rate countries…. The year 2010 was a record year for compensation on Wall Street, while corporate CEO compensation rose by over 30%.…
In 2010 a dozen major companies, including GE, Verizon, Boeing, Wells Fargo, and Fed Ex paid US tax rates between -0.7% and -9.2%. Production, employment, profits, and taxes have all been outsourced….
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: A highly complex and largely discrete set of laws and exemptions from laws has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the US financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the US political and legislative processes.
They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%….
… the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.”
To get into the top economic 0.01 percent (one-hundredth of one percent) of the population, you have to have a household income of over $27 million per year.
If you look at some of the central players who caused this economic crisis, you will see that they are among this Economic Elite group.
Former Goldman Sachs CEO and Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had already amassed at least $700 million prior to moving to the US Treasury in 2006. Current Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and a few other top executives at Goldman Sachs just received $111.3 million in bonuses. Blankfein just took home $24.3 million, as part of a $67.9 million bonus he was awarded. Goldman’s President Gary Cohn took home $24 million, as part of a $66.9 million bonus he was awarded. Goldman’s CFO David Viniar and former co-president Jon Winkelried both took home over $20 million in bonuses.
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit just took home $80 million, in what may eventually total more than $200 million in compensation and bonuses. Coming in at the top of the list is JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who just took home $90 million.
If you think people in this income level don’t control the US political process, you are not paying attention. After they caused this economic crisis, they got the government to give them trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, and then, after taking our tax dollars, they gave themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses. 2009 was an all-time record-breaking year for Wall Street executives bringing in a total of $145 billion. And then, in 2010, they raised the bar even higher, breaking the all-time record set the year before by pulling in another $149 billion. The audacity of it all is stunning.
Finding people more grotesquely greedy than Wall Street executives would seem to be impossible. However, health insurance CEOs are giving them a run for their money. As the LA Times reported:
“Leaders of Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealth, WellPoint and Aetna received nearly $200 million in compensation in 2009, according to a report, while the companies sought rate increases as high as 39%….
H. Edward Hanway, former chief executive of Philadelphia-based Cigna, topped the list of high-paid executives, thanks to a retirement package worth $110.9 million. Cigna paid Hanway and his successor, David Cordani, a total of $136.3 million last year….
Ron Williams, the CEO of Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc., earned nearly $18.2 million in total compensation, down from $24.4 million in 2008.”
Aetna CEO Ron Williams has recovered from hisdownyear in 2009 by making $72 million in 2010.
Given this level of obscene profiteering within the health care industry, it is not surprising that Americans pay more for medical care than any other nation in the world. In fact, Americans are forced to pay twice as much as most nations, and get lower quality care in return. As health insurance companies admitted, they have been reaping windfall profits because peoplewith health insurance plansstill cannot afford to go to the doctors and have stopped going unless it is an absolute emergency. With well over 50 million people unable to afford health insurance and the skyrocketing costs, it is not surprising that over 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies are the result of medical bills. In fact, 75 percent of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people whohave health insurance.
Within this Economic Elite group, you also have the war profiteering oil companies, which themselves are in large part owned by the big Wall Street banks. The biggest five oil companies, while gas prices have been skyrocketing, reaped $36 billion in profit last quarter. These companies also receive an average of $6 billion per year in tax subsidies.
Tax Breaks For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Rest Of Us
To further demonstrate how the mega-wealthy have seized control of our political process, consider that the richest 400 Americans paid 30 percent of their income in taxes in 1995, but they now pay only 18 percent.
In fact, 1,470 Americans earned over $1 million in 2009 and didn’t pay any taxes.
The average tax rate for millionaires was 22.4 percent in 2009, down from 30.4 percent in 1995. The average millionaire saves $136,000 a year due to reduced tax rates.
Looking at the tax rate from a long-term perspective, the amount of money the richest people and most profitable corporations pay in taxes has fallen dramatically since 1955. Corporate tax accounted for 27.3 percent of federal revenue in 1955. In 2010, corporate tax accounted for only 8.9 percent of federal revenue. Corporate taxes accounted for 4.3 percent of overall GDP in 1955, in 2010 they accounted for only 1.3 percent.
Deliberate Systemic Attacks
The dramatic increase in economic inequality and poverty, along with the unprecedented rise in wealth within the topone-tenth of one percentof the population has not happened by mistake. It is the designed result of deliberate governmental and economic policy. It is the result of the richest people in the world, and the “too big to fail” banks, using the campaign finance and lobbying system to buy off politicians who implement policies designed to exploit 99.9 percent of the population for their financial gain. To call what is happening a “financial terrorist attack” on the United States, is not using hyperbole, it is the technical term for what is currently occurring.
I remember Geinther's speech where he alluded to how we got to the collapse of the Real Estate Bubble in which he said (I am parphrasing) 'Most people do not know how we came to be at this point." Then he whitewashed the real reasons in order to sell the Bail Out to the American People.
Fairy
...here is that they are only talking about Americans. Add in the Rothschilds and other international thieves and I wonder what the numbers look like?
You are talking as if the system being discussed is legitimate. It is not. It is an artificial construct that we the people have freely given over our power to. It is rigged from the beginning to orchestrate transfer of wealth back to the makers of such a system, and we have fallen for their description of "wealth". It is not, nor is it true power. After a while we forget that and talk as if it were the real world. It is not. I so look forward to "us" transcending it and re-cognizing and re-membering our Divine Sovereignty...
Warren Buffet invested 5 billion in B of A this morning and had made a profit of 700 million one hour after the market opened. This is their reality. This party we get to watch from the cheap seats. Do we really want to describe our reality from their perspective and definition of wealth and power?
Funny, this is one of the few places I can even raise this "delusional" perspective...
I am all for a Galactic Society where all modern needs and amenities are met by the people and for the people. It is assumed that living life to the fullest in comfort and in harmony are basic rights for all people and beings.
The Standing Women have a fairly accurate description of a Galactic Society--- they are most concerned with children but I tend to envsion All People and Beings.
Standing Women
Fairy
Thanks Chris for making that point. I would like to emphasize the "reality" of that point with just a small reminder of what makes this system what it is. It's DEBT. Remember - the money the wealthy are making is all because of something that is not intrinsically "money" - it's simply evidence of someone else's debt. None of this nonsense could occur if we had real asset backed currency - whether it be from gold, goods, labor etc.
As you mention - it was rigged from the beginning and specifically designed to strip the people of their wealth (labor, goods, assets) and move them over to the elite using something that is intrinsically "worthless." It was and is a brilliant scheme - so much so that it is generally acknowledged by some (and I firmly believe this) that it was all orchestrated by off world ET's - who have had a billion years to develop it. Bottom line - it works.
As for Fairy's comment - I would be very cautious of a "galactic community." We are not in that game - and they are not in ours. To embrace their paradigm is to abandon our own, and give our power over to yet another ET ruling class. NO THANKS!
At the risk of making a divisive statement, I'd like to point out that contrary to the popular belief, most of these guys are democrats - I'm thinking specifically of the Rockefellers and George Soros. They have found that the merger of corporations and state is what makes their money. They totally support health care provided by the state (really providing them with a way to monopolize the health care industry), pittance welfare making people dependant on the state and therefore easier to manage (think herd control), and state sponsored educational systems that indoctrinate their values (one national department of education is much easier to control than thousands of locally controlled school systems) - however they support a republican agenda when it comes to maintaining the warfare state - another place they can siphon off big profits all the while using it to control resources like oil and water, although the democrats have also been supportive of war since 9/11 anyhow. In short, big government is their friend, not their enemy.
Both sides: Democrats and Republicans are playing the same game. The republicans play the "bad" guy and the democrats play the "savior" ---however, both sides are playing against the middle and the game is to confuse the average sheople and get them to capitulate their free will so then they can enact whatever they want.
Fairy
They look to us to believe in such terms as Democrat or Republican, terms of the social construct matrix that seems to be working well to keep the sheeple polarized. To make an argument using these terms is to reinforce the ruse.
I am no longer even close to being tempted to use such terms designed to keep us busy being the willfully duped, the naive and excited donkeys and fish at their poker tables. I simply do not show up for the game anymore.
I have better things to do... Remember, we create from intention. This whole construct is a belief system that essentially depends upon what we individually and collectively choose, as Sovereign Sacred Divines, to willfully and intentionally believe.
It takes a relatively small percentage of the collective to change what they believe, and by so doing, to transcend the old (paradigm) and create the new. Terence McKenna was/is right - there should be (in a perfect world) a well-orchestrated and facilitated program, using such facilitators as Ayahuasca, mushrooms, DMT, LSD, etc. to assist in facilitating a much more grand "vision" of what is actually possible due to who we actually are.
This is a prison planet only because we choose to allow it to be. We are at the threshold of coming to the right number of us to transcend this very old and very tired nonsense. Discussing things using terms designed by the jailers is counter productive to say the least... We only make fools of ourselves by continuing to doing so...
I for one believe we have better things to do...
I am trying to find a way to explain this to my brother. He often comes to work ranting about the latest guy to be exposed, or the latest part of their system to be exposed to the public. He has that aura around him like he just got a big piece of truth, which, I guess in a sense, is true, but it just feeds the "program".
For a while I just didn't "respond", then I tried getting him to back up and look at the bigger picture, but it seems that many people just want to grasp that piece of info like it was a thousand dollar bill and cling to it.
I also agree that if we had some positive mind altering drugs in the water, instead of say,,fluoride, that the world would be a better place. The old cultures used them for exactly that reason. The prison "scenario" offends alot of people, or their egos,Ha!, and is a hard way to explain it to many. Hopefully, ingesting all that info will lead others to the realization. Hope you are well there,,,,,,,,,,T
Yes, but part of the illusion that has so many have bought into (I believe some have in this forum) is that the rich are republicans and want small government so they won't have any controls on their corporate proffitts. In actuality it works the opposite way with large government supporting the existence of monopolies and increasing corporate proffitts. I'm not trying to support republicans here as I realize they are equal partners in the game, I'm just attempting to help people see beyond it.
I have gotten that sense too Wendy. The Tea Party are actually talking about something quite legitimate, but do a lousy job of describing what they are sick and tire of. They end up coming off sound like wackos.
One must be careful to read between the lines and look for bits of truth wherever one finds them, even if they are found in a cave full of bat shit, LOL...
Order of the day - don't let tendency towards polarization blind you...
The MSM has done a good job of killing the Tea Party. It originated with Boston 9/11 truth, then was picked up by Ron Paul supporters and then was completely killed by the Koch brothers and Fox News. There's still a lot of good people within it but it's the kooks who get all the publicity.
This has a good synopsis of how this system was set up in 1933 - with the prequal to that being a repeat going on today in Britain - soon here in the US:
BRITISH GOVERNMENT BEGINS STEALING ITS PEOPLES' BANK DEPOSITS AHEAD OF THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL COLLAPSE
It happened before and it is starting again. Government confiscating (stealing) the people’s life savings. Just like in 1929 the British government began its theft of the people’s life savings just before the Great Depression. After an inflationary run-up in prices and asset values, the stock market crashed in 1929, and the economy soon went with the crash. This time the British government is disguising its outright theft by claiming the entire contents of safety deposit banks are owned by criminals and the contents are the proceeds of crimes.
In March of 2011 the British Prime Minister David Cameron ordered British police to execute Operation Rize - raid and seize the entire contents (art, gold ingots, gold dust, jewelery and cash) of nearly 7,000 safety deposit boxes from three vaults in London. The British government simply told Scotland Yard that the safety deposit boxes were used by criminals to store cash, guns and drugs.
How low can they go?
I had to do a little sleuthing to find the source of your article, Jeff. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/justice/article1239179.ece I was wondering why I hadn't heard this story reported in any of my alternative news sources.
Upon further investigation, I was astounded to discover that The Sun is one of Rupert Murdoch's papers. How did such an incriminating article squeak past the censors?!
It's a good question Noa - it seems that there are elements of truth out there in the media - albeit not always center stage. I got that in an email - so was unsure of the source - but that is interesting that they print such things in a controlled media such as we have - but they often times do. It's almost as though it's an insurance policy for the PTB - in that they can always come back and say - we told you so - and you did nothing...
And in that context - they really ARE telling us so - in all kinds of ways, from articles such as this to the films coming out of hollywood and whatever else. And, of course, we do nothing. So I guess for now all we can do is spread the word as we are doing here in hopes that enough people will get the message that is already out there coming right from the source.
I think at this point - as people find themselves charged for a crime just for having something of value in a "safe" deposit box - that the message is getting across load and clear, LOL!
Here's a related article by Simon Black (on the subject of government seizures of private assets). Please excuse the sales pitch at the end. I've included it in case someone is interested in buying the DVDs. - Noa
Sovereign Man
Reporting From: Zell am See, Austria
The Wall Street Journal published a disturbing article earlier this week entitled "Federal Asset Seizures Rise, Netting Innocent With Guilty."
You can already imagine the crux of the article.
In the United States, there are hundreds of regulations which authorize dozens federal agencies to confiscate private property-- homes, cars, bank accounts, gold, company shares, and even personal effects.
Ironically, most Americans still think that they live in a country where you're innocent until proven guilty. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it's just another clear example of how the US Constitution has become a worthless piece of toilet paper for the federal government.
The Fifth Amendment states that "No person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Tell that James Lieto, a New York businessman who was relieved of $392,000 when the armored car company used by his check-cashing firm was taken down by the FBI.
Lieto was innocent and not implicated in any wrongdoing, but the FBI took his money regardless as it just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Last October, another businessman named Raul Stio was suspected of wrongdoing by the Treasury Department. The government seized over $150,000 from his account, yet in the 10-months that followed, Stio has still not been charged with a crime.
According to Justice Department statistics, the total value of confiscated property exceeded $2.5 billion in 2010, more than double from five years ago. The average take per case? $166,000... and the vast majority of cases were non-criminal.
It's truly staggering to think about how much can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye, all without any judicial oversight or right to a hearing.
The reason could be anything. Maybe you violated some arcane, meaningless regulation among the hundreds of thousands of pages of US Code (ignorance of the law is NOT an excuse!). Maybe you were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe they had no real reason at all other than mere suspicion.
One minute you have money, the next you're completely locked out of your wealth and livelihood. They force YOU to prove to them that you aren't guilty, but they take away any means you had to defend yourself.
Look, this is the new reality in America. The entire country has become a nation of criminals-- there isn't a single man, woman, or child alive who is not in violation of some obscure regulation or cannot be 'suspected' of wrongdoing.
This is really just a form of cannibalism-- a government feeding on its own citizens in order to keep the party going just a little bit longer. They'll raise taxes, seize assets, take over pension funds, erode freedoms, start wars and send people to die-- whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.
I've long advocated for an internationalization strategy: diversifying various assets and interests overseas so that no one single government has total control over your livelihood.
Store your gold in Switzerland. Open a bank account in Hong Kong. Register your company in the BVI. Establish a 'backup' residency in Chile. Expand your business in Brazil. Get a better job in Singapore. Obtain a second passport in Malta. Open a brokerage account in the Cayman Islands.
This approach is NOT just for the super rich. In fact, I've helped all kinds of people to internationalize, young and old, rich and poor.
Taking some simple steps to protect yourself will give you extraordinary peace of mind. You'll know that, without doubt, you have some savings socked away that NOBODY can touch. You'll know that you have a solid emergency backup plan. You'll know that everything you've worked for won't vanish in an instant.
A few months ago we held a comprehensive, hands-on workshop in Panama that was a sort of 'internationalization crash course.' It fed years worth of experience and actionable information into a three-day event.
My personal contacts-- bankers, residency experts, gold dealers, corporate specialists, trustees, tax attorneys, etc. came from all over the world to teach people how to implement these tactics and maintain full compliance with the law.
Because the event sold out so quickly, we hired the most professional Hollywood film crew we could find to record the event and put together a video series for people who couldn't attend.
This 12-disc DVD kit contains over 20 hours of footage plus a comprehensive 200+ page workbook with the personal contact information of every single expert who spoke at the workshop. You simply cannot find these solutions or intelligence anywhere else at any price.
The alarm bells are ringing, and only you can choose to listen. Click here to learn more about our DVD Kit while supplies last.
Until tomorrow,
Simon Black
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com
And in America it is happening as well.....
http://www.prisonplanet.com/feds-may-confiscate-privately-held-gold-and-silver-coins.html
I don't understand how they can make the Liberty coin illegal. It is not illegal (presently) to own a one-ounce lump of silver. How does minting that same silver into a one-ounce Liberty coin somehow invalidate it? Are other silver coins targeted in the same way?
Hi Noa-
The liberty dollar got very popular as an alternative currency. Liberty dollar had also gone electronic so you could easily transfer funds, just like the banks. It also was represented as paper currency backed by silver, just as our old dollars were. In short it was way too much of a threat and they used the excuse that it looked too much like U.S. currency and charged the founder with counterfeit. Pretty good scam when you consider the regular u.s. dollars are being counterfeited legally by the trillions these days with every banker bailout.