I Love Forbes' Annual List of Billionaires....and Why We Don't Really Worry About Poor Socialists.

Forbes 100 list nothing more than entertainment - the real moneyed players are absent.

Where are the Rothchilds, Rockerfellers, and the rest of the holders of true wealth?

Originally posted by VforVendettea
Forbes 100 list nothing more than entertainment - the real moneyed players are absent.

Where are the Rothchilds, Rockerfellers, and the rest of the holders of true wealth?

Yeah....and they don't always list the dictators like Chavez and Castro.....what gives with that?

Oh, well....it's an entertaining list of the capitalists who do make it possible for the socialists to get help when they need it........without capitalism, socialism just can't generate enough economy on its own to survive.

That's why the Soviet Union had to close up shop to return as a Capitalist/Communist government. The Soviet Union had too many socialists feeding off the system. It drained the old Communist system.

But, never fear....the dictators of the socialists movement will rise to the top to make billions for themselves. Like Chavez and Castro.

Originally posted by coltcall
without capitalism, socialism just can't generate enough economy on its own to survive.

Socialism doesn't have to generate money. Socialism is the workers ownership of the means of production, which means they would have the means to produce for their needs, without money.

That's why the Soviet Union had to close up shop to return as a Capitalist/Communist government. The Soviet Union had too many socialists feeding off the system. It drained the old Communist system.

But, never fear....the dictators of the socialists movement will rise to the top to make billions for themselves. Like Chavez and Castro.

The Soviet Union was not socialist, it had a state-capitalist economy. State ownership of the means of production is no better than capitalism. State-capitalism is not socialism.

Cuba is also not socialist. The problem with Cuba's economy is not Castro, it is the United States and their embargo. The reason Castro is so demonized is because he refused to let the US exploit Cuba, he ousted the Batista regime that was far more brutal, but was allowing American capitalist exploitation. Castro offered to do business with the US, on Cuba's terms, but they refused, the Russians stepped in and made an offer so Castro took it. The US used the Russian connection to demonise Castro.

Again socialism is the workers ownership of the means of production, an economic system, not a form of government. Anarchists are socialists.

"Anarchism is stateless socialism" - Mikhail Bakunin

Those ghettos you talk about are not victims of socialism, they are victims of our capitalist society which is not truly capitalism but crony capitalism and corporate socialism. Funny in one post you state the poor have iPhones and live well but then talk about Detroit and the slums and how awful it is. You obviously live well and are sheltered from seeing true economic inequality. Some examples:

- According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty. The number of Americans living in poverty is now at a level not seen since the 1960s.

- When you add in the number of low income Americans it is even more sobering. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either "poor" or "low income".

- It may be hard to believe, but approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are currently living in homes that are either considered to be either "low income" or impoverished.

- According to a recently released report, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

- The number of children living on $2.00 a day or less in the United States has grown to 2.8 million. That number has increased by 130 percent since 1996.

- For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.

- Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.

- One university study estimates that child poverty costs the U.S. economy 500 billion dollars each year.

- Today, there are approximately 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

- There has been an explosion in the number of "working poor" Americans in recent years. Today, about one out of every four workers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the poverty level.

- Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even include Social Security or Medicare.

- The number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of Spain.

- According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of "Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming."

Since the S&P 500 first reached its current level, in March 2000, the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve have expanded their balance sheet sixfold (to $3.2 trillion from $500 billion). Yet during that stretch, economic output has grown by an average of 1.7 percent a year (the slowest since the Civil War); real business investment has crawled forward at only 0.8 percent per year; and the payroll job count has crept up at a negligible 0.1 percent annually. Real median family income growth has dropped 8 percent, and the number of full-time middle class jobs, 6 percent. The real net worth of the “bottom” 90 percent has dropped by one-fourth. The number of food stamp and disability aid recipients has more than doubled, to 59 million, about one in five Americans.

And Sheepslayer, you beat me to it, but the Koch brothers and their Koch Industries are a great example of the environment of corporate socialism we live in today. People want to talk about redistribution of wealth and how awful it is only when it's giving money to the poor. But to multinational corporations that need no help? Nah, let's ignore that.

So the Koch's, they run Koch Industries, a huge multinational that does business in oil, petrochemicals, paper, agriculture and financial services. It is Americas second largest private corporation. They own Georgia-Pacific and a multitude of companies you've heard of. They've been around for decades. They fund "conservative" and "libertarian" think tanks and publications like The Mercatus Center, Americans for Prosperity, Reason Magazine, the Federalist Society, Cato Institute, and the Heritage Foundation. They fund many of the Tea Party candidates. Problem is, they also funded in the past the Democratic Leadership Council, which helped launch the careers of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and they profit from tax payer funded corporate subsidies and take advantage of socialistic policies despite publicly bashing them.

For example, in 1998 Koch Industries entered into a lucrative partnership with two state-owned companies – one Venezuelan, the other Italian – to open a massive $1 billion nitrogen-based fertilizer plant in Venezuela called Fertinitro. Fertilizer production requires massive amounts of natural gas, and obtaining it can account for 50 percent of operating costs. Luckily for Koch, Fertinitro’s semi-state-owned status allowed it to tap into a guaranteed supply of natural gas subsidized by the state. For Koch Industries, whose role in the partnership is to unload half of the 6 million tons of fertilizer produced by Fertinitro every year on the American market, they received up to $123.6 million in subsidies every year. Savor the irony: While tea partiers wave Koch-funded placards comparing President Obama to Hugo Chavez, the Kochs were busy profiting off Chavez’s socialist economy only to turn around and blame Venezuela’s poverty on Hugo Chavez’s socialist policies.

For the past fifty years, through its Matador Cattle Company subsidiary, Koch Industries has been quietly milking a New Deal program that allows ranchers to use federal land basically for free. Matador, one of the ten biggest domestic cattle ranching operations, has something in the neighborhood of 300,000 acres of grazing land for its cows—two-thirds of which belong to American taxpayers, who will never see a penny of profit.

In 2006, Koch Industries acquired pulp and paper giant Georgia-Pacific for a $21-billion cash payment, allowing the Koch brothers to tap into a whole new area of government largesse: the ability to log public forests for private gain and have taxpayers cover the operating costs. Not only can companies like Georgia-Pacific, which is the world’s leading manufacturer of paper products, exploit a publicly-shared resource without sharing the profits, but the U.S. Forestry Service subsidizes them to do it by forcing taxpayers to fund the construction of new logging roads that provide loggers with access to virgin growth - a nice welfare arrangement for the industry that costs taxpayers over $1 billion a year.

In 2010, Koch Industries got into the ethanol business by buying two ethanol plants in Iowa. Other than defense, ethanol is possibly the most subsidized industry in America. Koch’s own Cato Institute has called ethanol a “boondoggle,” writing that “the dizzying array of federal, state and local subsidies, preferences and mandates for ethanol fuel are a sad reflection of how a mix of cynical politics and we-can-do-anything American naiveté can cloud minds and distort markets.” The institute has sharply criticized the billions of dollars in federal and state subsidies that are poured into the ethanol industry (between $5 billion and $6.8 billion in 2006 alone). Koch Industries has traded ethanol for years on the commodities market, but their entry into the production side of the business put them in a position to profit off the subsidies in a more direct manner.

Although highly diversified, Koch Industries’ vast network of oil and gas pipelines remains the company’s core business and main source of revenue. The exact size of their pipeline network is not known, but some estimate that Koch Industries operates anywhere between 35,000 and 50,000 miles of pipelines between Texas and Canada—enough plumbing to wrap around the globe twice or zigzag between New York and Los Angeles 15 times. How did the Kochs manage to build up a pipeline network of this magnitude? By getting the government to use its tyrannical powers of eminent domain to forcibly seize private property on Koch Industries’ behalf. As far as libertarians are concerned, eminent domain is a socialist tyranny straight out of the Leninist playbook, as it recognizes the government as the real owner of all land and vests it with the power to expropriate private property for alleged public good. At the most fundamental level, libertarians believe that eminent domain invalidates the notion of private property rights, threatening not just prosperity, but freedom. Charles Koch is clear on this. “Countries that clearly define and protect individual private property rights stimulate investment and grow,” he writes in his book The Science of Success. “Those that threaten and confiscate private property lose capital and decline.” But not all property rights are created equal. A Koch Industries oil pipeline recently built in Minnesota shows that Charles Koch does not see anything wrong with the government confiscating private property, as long as he stands to make a profit. Completed in 2008, the 304-mile line now carries crude oil from the Canadian border to a Koch Industries refinery near the Twin Cities area via a two-foot-wide pipe. Company PR execs pitched the pipeline as a public benefit project, as it would increase Minnesota’s gasoline supply. But the 1,000-plus landowners who were forced to handover their private property so that Koch Industries could run its pipeline didn’t quite see it that way.

Think it's just the Koch's? Think again...

Billionaire Norman B. Champ III received nearly a half-million dollars in welfare payments for poor farmers, despite the fact that he lives in a multimillion dollar co-op at 828 Park Avenue. From 1995 to 2006, he raked in a total of $405,807 in dairy, corn and soy subsidies via his stake in the Champ family’s dairy farm in Missouri, his home state. An upper-crust billionaire type who lives in one of the nation’s wealthiest ZIP codes and collects welfare meant for struggling farmers? Whatta champ!

He might not be what most of us expect a welfare queen to look like, but that’s only because we have been duped by the whole poverty thing, convinced that the crumbs we throw the needy are a huge burden on our budget. So we look for any way to cut them off. For those who want to observe a real subsidy queen in his natural habitat, there’s no better place than Park Avenue. I am not trying to be ironic here. The people are literally welfare queens: They live where queens live and take money from the poor like queens do. Billionaires Leonard Lauder, Mark Rockefeller and his dad, David Rockefeller, are just a few of the more famous names exploiting their salt-of-the-earth legal status. Over the past decade, however, millions of dollars in corn, dairy, peanuts, cotton, soy and livestock subsidy payments from the federal government have gone to countless rich rank-and-file Manhattanites few people have ever heard of: It’s all right there in the farm subsidy database maintained by the Environmental Working Group. William Lesse Castleberry, a tax attorney who oversees leveraged buyouts, received $133,680 in cotton subsidies through an Arkansas farm. Mary W. Heller, a photographer with a studio on East 74th Street, got $143,783 via a farm in Kansas for growing wheat and sorghum. William Philip Walsh, who recently purchased a $2.9 million luxury condo with interior design done by Armani, was paid $212,463 to NOT farm his land. Phyllis A. Joyner, a 77-year old peanut farmer with a swanky Greenwich Village apartment and over $7 million worth of beautiful land in rural Virginia, received $239,624 for her peanut crops.

They’re not your typical crusty overall wearing farmers. But then, the small family farmers we picture in our heads, who live on their land with their family and rise with the rooster to milk the cows, aren’t around much these days (except maybe in Brooklyn backyard imaginations). And if they are, they probably aren’t receiving any assistance from the federal government anyway. “American taxpayers have been writing farm subsidy checks to wealthy absentee land owners, state prison systems, universities, public corporations, and very large, well-heeled farm business operations without the government so much as asking the beneficiaries if they need our money."

Look at that.....not a single Rothschild or Rockefeller in the top 100.

Originally posted by VforVendettea
Forbes 100 list nothing more than entertainment - the real moneyed players are absent.

Where are the Rothchilds, Rockerfellers, and the rest of the holders of true wealth?

They aren't on the list because they are no longer the global players the CT's want to claim they are.... The Rothschilds lost a large piece of their wealth over the past 100 years....the rest has been dispersed and diluted among the family descendants. Same can be said about the Rockefellers. They are still wealthy, certainly....but not in the league with the people you see on this list.

Originally posted by coltcall

Originally posted by Cito
U.S. federally funded outfits are socialism

public school system
public library system
social security system
national parks and recreation service
Sewage treatment,
the FCC,
Fema,
EBT/ Foodstamps,
Zoning Laws (so your house isn't next to a giant building or in an area where it is unsafe for a house)
Airport Security
DFCS
and on and on

No. Those are segments of city and/or state (and in some instances you mentioned, federal) departments funded by capitalist tax dollars.

Remember. Socialists don't pay taxes. Don't have jobs. Don"t etc...etc...etc...

Even the socialist program of food stamps and welfare are paid for by capitalist tax dollars. Because...drum roll as we repeat.....socialism does NOT create an economy. Socialism sucks off of a capitalist economy.

food stamps and welfare are not socialism. They are social programs.

Socialism is the workers direct ownership of the the means of production. Not public welfare.

Originally posted by CIAGypsy
Look at that.....not a single Rothschild or Rockefeller in the top 100.

David Rockefeller is worth 2.7 billion. Not bad for a guy 97 years old.

Being that David Rockefeller still doesn't have enough wealth to make the top 100, says something about wealth worldwide. The capitalists are doing smashingly well. It's estimated that David Rockefeller has given away 900 million in his lifetime. Which probably has something to do with knocking him out of the top 100.

The Rockefellers are a familial wealth. And nobody can say just how much the Rockefeller family is worth. Their monies are neatly tied up in so many directions it's nigh impossible to pinpoing.

The Rothschild's are a family wealth, too....like the Walton's are a family wealth. The wealthiest Rothschild has somewhere around 50 billion. There are so many Rothschild descendants it's difficult to say how much the family is worth. One estimate is the family wealth is around 400 billion.

Not a bad family tree to be swinging from.

Again, the capitalists are doing swimmingly well in today's market.

By the way, the Walton family worth is around 115 billion. That's divided six ways among the Waltons.

None of the people you have picked from that rich list are actual socialists. They are elites who occasionally make slightly liberal decisions.

Originally posted by coltcall

Yeah....and they don't always list the dictators like Chavez and Castro.....what gives with that?

Chavez was very popular and consistently won the vote in uncontroversial elections. Sorry, he was not a dictator. All recent American elections are far more compromised than any Chavez won.

The Carter Center, founded by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter in 1982, is a non-profit human rights organization with a self-described emphasis on €œseeking to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health€ around the world. Founder and former President Jimmy Carter recently stated As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.€ Hector Vanolli, director of the Carter Center in Venezuela, says that the automization (is this a word?) of every step of the process, from pre-election voter registration, to election day voting, to post ballot tallying, along with its auditability, is what sets the Venezuelan electoral system apart from other countries.

reply to post by PatriotGames2


We could go on and on about the wealthy powers that be. They will always be there in some fashion, as will the poor, and it will continue until the end of time. I agree that certain programs need to be discontinued for those who are undeserving, and also that the tax loopholes need to be closed for certain things. I am all for a flat tax.

What I don't agree with, is the part where you want to hold the capitalists responsible for their part in taking advantage of the system, but don't seem to advocate responsibility on the part of some of the poor. The people that can least afford to have children are the ones having children ! There is a trend among the better off and wealthy to limit how many children they have, why not among the poor! Exactly what is wrong with waiting to have children until you can afford it?

This country needs a reset button, up and down the classes, all across the boards. In every situation, there are always two sides to the story, and two players. BOTH classes are at fault, because all of those involved are human.

Originally posted by artnut
reply to post by PatriotGames2

 

We could go on and on about the wealthy powers that be. They will always be there in some fashion, as will the poor, and it will continue until the end of time. I agree that certain programs need to be discontinued for those who are undeserving, and also that the tax loopholes need to be closed for certain things. I am all for a flat tax.

Are you actually aware of the massive distortion in wealth equality between classes today? Are you aware that this distortion is new thing in America which has taken place mostly over the last 35 years? There can be no 'equal blame' when such a virulent and new phenomena occurs, since all the power and control resides with the few.