Who "The Rich" Really are in America Today

(Hint: They are Democrats, and they are making the rest of us poor...)

 

 

Note: The figures and statistics noted in these essays were compiled in 2007-8 and may have changed from that time.

 

The New Economics 101: As Nikitas3.com has said repeatedly throughout this website, liberals are more obsessed with wealth than capitalists and conservatives are; many more than half of all “rich” Americans today are leftist liberals; and there are two types of rich people, those who “create” wealth and those who “appropriate” wealth.

A new study by the Heritage Foundation, using Internal Revenue Service data, reinforces these conclusions.

When the Democrats killed a tax bill that would have 'taxed the rich', USA Today said “The Democrats, who control Congress and who claim to represent the middle and lower classes, ought to be embarrassed.”

If only it were so. In fact, the Democrats are the party that is protecting “the rich”… their own kind of “rich”, that is. To read more about how, go to the Nikitas3.com essay on the home page called From Wealth Creation to Wealth Destruction to learn the difference between getting rich "creating" wealth versus getting rich by "appropriating" wealth.

And if you do not understand the “two kinds” of rich people there are in America today, see the essay farther down this page called Two Kinds of Rich People.

Here are the facts:

More Democrats than Republicans today represent districts and states with the highest concentration of rich households. The Heritage Foundation study combined two income categories – single with income more than $100,000, and married with income over $200,000 – and found that Democrats now represent the majority of the wealthiest congressional districts. And more than 50% of the wealthiest households in America are concentrated in the 18 states in which Democrats control both US Senate seats including New York, California and Illinois.

Ultra-liberal House Speaker Democrat Nancy Pelosi represents one of the wealthiest parts of the nation, with her San Francisco congressional district having more than 43,700 “wealthy” households, while House minority leader Republican John Boehner has fewer than 7,000 such households in his Ohio district. Yet Democrats are always claiming that it is the Republicans who represent the rich, and that Democrats are the party of “the common people”. Nonsense.

The Republicans are the party of “the common people”. The Democrats protect their wealthy friends through rhetorical means alone. They say how much they favor the downtrodden and the middle class, while accumulating more and more wealth for themselves.

Here’s more: The House Democrat majority leader Steny Hoyer represents the Maryland suburbs outside of Washington DC with 19,000 wealthy households with a median income of more than $62,000. The reason this district is so wealthy? Because it is populated by federal government bureaucrats with some of the most generous pay/benefit/pension plans in the nation and who vote relentlessly Democrat.

And who is paying these salaries?

You, the taxpayer, that is who.

Yet House minority whip Republican Roy Blunt comes from a Missouri congressional district that has only 5,200 wealthy households, and where the median income is only $33,000.

Maryland congressman Chris van Hollen is chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. His district has more than 36,000 “rich” households, and it has a median income of $70,000. Meanwhile his Republican counterpart Tom Cole of Oklahoma has fewer than 5,000 “rich” households in his congressional district, and the median income there is just $35,500.

Ultra-liberal Democrat John Lewis represents an Atlanta district with more than 27,500 “rich” households. Meanwhile, the three wealthiest districts in Iowa are solid Democrat, while the two poorest districts are solid Republican.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives, far-left Democrat Nancy Pelosi, whose California district is one of the wealthiest in America, reported total assets in stocks and real estate of between $30 million and $131 million, according to a financial disclosure statement released June 16, 2008.

Meanwhile, the most powerful Republican in the House, John Boehner of Ohio, reported assets of between $2.1 million and $7.9 million.

Don’t ever let the Democrats tell you they are the “party of the common people”. They are the party of the rich… and of the wrong kind of rich, the wealth “appropriators”, not the wealth “creators”. And the decline in wealth “creation” in favor of wealth “appropriation” is the reason that we are having so much economic trouble in this nation today, and why the middle class is so hard-pressed. Because as Nikitas3.com has said repeatedly, socialism is the system of “the rich and the poor” while it is Republican capitalism that distributes wealth more evenly throughout society.

 This website, along with my book Right Is Right, long has been touting the fact that Democrats represent the “new rich” in America, but that Democrats speak against "the rich" in order to explain away, and cover up for their love of money.

Today's socialism comes out of the 1960s 'hippie' generation. The 'hippies' claimed that they were 'anti-materialists' and 'spiritual' in nature. That is the opposite of the truth. As they have aged and shown their true stripes, they have proven to be the most materialistic people in history, and are diametrically opposed to genuine spirituality (they are anti-Christian).

It is time for America to find this out as well.

 

They’re Mostly Democrats, Sir…: The Democrat party has been spreading the myth for decades that rich people are all Republicans. But today well over 50% of people called “rich” are Democrats (wouldn’t we expect it to be 0%?) and that number is increasing annually into the 60% to 70% range, and even higher in some districts. Go into the wealthy suburbs of America and they are becoming increasingly Democrat, while more than 50% of the richest Congressional districts in America are represented by Democrats, some way over on the liberal left like Nancy Pelosi and her Marin County, California district. California itself, the richest state in the nation, is an overwhelmingly Democrat state and is represented in the United States Senate by two very liberal liberals, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

And most of the “super-rich” in America are committed leftist Democrats.

The three richest men in America – Bill Gates (estimated net worth according to the Forbes 400 list of 2007, $56 billion), Warren Buffet ($52 billion) and Larry Ellison, the chairman of computer company Oracle ($28 billion) all are liberal Democrats. Gates repeatedly has supported gun control, abortion rights and higher taxes in his home state of Washington.

Meanwhile, virtually all of the ultra-rich Hollywood elites are far-left Democrats like David Geffen ($4.5 billion) and Steven Spielberg, who has visited communist Cuba and embraced Castro. The list of names and wealthy places goes on an on... San Francisco, New York City, Santa Fe, Martha's Vineyard... heavily Democrat, hardly a Republican in sight.

The Democrats in fact are shielding the rich and the super-rich from scrutiny by “the rest of us". By saying that they are liberals, rich liberals “immunize” themselves from criticism about having so much money, easing their consciences and getting richer and richer every year while increasingly marginalizing the middle class, as evidenced in this interview with Larry Ellison from the September 7, 2003 edition of SFGate.com:

 

Q: But you're a Democrat.

A: I am a Democrat, but so is Arnie. I mean, to look at Arnold Schwarzenegger's positions and call him a Republican is kind of a bizarre thing. There are no Republicans in California; they're just middle-of-the-road Democrats.

Five years ago, (California governor) Gray Davis ran out of water. Two years ago, he ran out of electricity. This year, he ran out of money. Now he's running out of time. It's been a poorly run administration.

Q: Didn't you once say you wanted to run for governor?

A: No. What I said was there are a few things I am deeply concerned about, one of which is education. California has the largest education budget in the United States. If you're going to spend that much, you could do a better job.

If I thought I could make a difference in education by running for governor or any other position, would I be willing to do that? Absolutely.

The state of our educational system is the biggest crisis we have facing this country, especially in California.

Q: Are there one or two things you'd suggest to improve it?

A: I'm for a means-tested voucher system. Right now, you have a system where rich people, like myself, can send their kids to private school and poor people can't, which is outrageous. A single mother has no choice but to send her child to a school where no teaching goes on.

Choice is a good thing, and poor parents, disadvantaged parents, should have the same choices that I have.

Q: Wouldn't a better choice be to improve the public schools?

A: We don't know how to make the public school system work. We tried for years, and we continue to condemn poor people, minority children, to these dreadful schools.

The argument that everyone gives is, "Why don't we just make this work?" You've had 50 years. You failed. I don't believe you're going to make it work in the next five years. In the next five years, this child has to be taught. So enough. You failed.

(end of interview excerpt)

 

Now consider Ellison's words. First, Ellison admits that he is a Democrat, which means a lefty in ultra-rich California-speak. Then he goes on to say that California’s educational system is far too expensive and is not doing its job. Then he says: “The state of our educational system is the biggest crisis we have facing this country, especially in California.”

Yet his friends in the Democrat party and the teacher unions control the public education system across this nation lock, stock and barrel, while multibillionaire Larry Ellison cannot influence them one iota. This is telling.

Imagine if, say, three out of every ten gallons of gasoline sold by ExxonMobil had water and other impurities in it, and clogged your engine. There would be demands for a government takeover for stealing from the public. Yet the same type of abysmal statistics about the failures in public education go unchallenged, and show that the Democrats and their friends in the media and in Congress are totally unwilling to reform the teacher unions that then turn around and are supporting the Democrat party, lock, stock and barrel, with huge campaign contributions, phone banks, volunteers etc.

When asked: “Are there one or two things you would do to improve (public education)?” Ellison never answers the question because he knows well that the socialist control of education cannot be challenged, by him or by Schwarzenegger or by anyone else.

He only answers: "We don't know how to make the public school system work. We tried for years, and we continue to condemn poor people, minority children, to these dreadful schools."

This is nonsense. What really needs to happen is that we need to pressure states and localities to pass laws to make the schools accountable and to strip away the protections built in by years of Democrat pro-union law-making. Get rid of the tenure system, make schools accountable to the public, scrutinize their taxpayer-busting budgets, and on and on. But the Democrats block reform every time.

Look at what else Ellison says: “I'm for a means-tested voucher system. Right now, you have a system where rich people, like myself, can send their kids to private school and poor people can't, which is outrageous. A single mother has no choice but to send her child to a school where no teaching goes on. Choice is a good thing, and poor parents, disadvantaged parents, should have the same choices that I have.”

No, it is not outrageous that Ellison can send his kids to private school. That is the system that rich Democrats have crafted for themselves. It is their own choice to keep their kids out of the public system while their own party fights any reform. It is totally expected. It is outrageous that Ellison would feign outrage!

Also, Ellison and his friends live in the richest neighborhoods in America, and they still don’t trust the public schools. They send their kids to private schools then neither expect nor advocate any reform or any alternatives for the majority of Americans in the middle class, only suggesting vouchers for the poor. He says "Choice is a good thing..." Except for the majority in the middle class, that is. This is pure cowardice and shows the leftist elite for who they really are.

If he said that, as a Democrat, that he wants reform and vouchers for everyone including the middle class, that would be too much of a challenge to teacher union power because it would represent a challenge to every school district in America. And the Democrats will not risk that. They are thumbing their noses at the middle-class people who really do the hard work of building the nation. That is why the Republican party increasingly is representing the interests of the middle class in seeking vouchers and reform for all schools.

Ellison and his Democrat friends also know darned well that the poor districts he is referring to are located in urban Democrat strongholds, and that voucher programs never will pass public votes. So essentially he is saying there will be no reform. And it becomes clear that Ellison's concern about "the poor" is all window dressing, as it is for all ultra-rich socialists. They care only about themselves and their yachts and private jets and mansions.

Look at what else Ellison says: “If I thought I could make a difference in education by running for governor or any other position, would I be willing to do that? Absolutely.”

Notice his words... “if I thought I could make a difference…” Which he knows he can’t. Because the public-ed bureaucracy is a closed empire and cannot be challenged, even by the Democrat party that keeps it in power, and that it keeps in power. When was the last time you saw a bunch of grim-faced public-sector school officials dragged before Congress to testify on their failures the way you see private-sector oil-company execs and pharmaceutical company execs and health-care execs constantly paraded before investigative committees?

What does this say about the modern-day Democrat party?

It says that this is the party that protects a certain minority in America -- its rich and ultra-rich friends and its labor-union friends -- while the majority suffers under a disastrous public education system.

And that conservative Republicans are the ones who truly represent the middle class and the "working families" of America.

One final question: Why doesn't the "concerned" Larry Ellison take $5 billion of his own money and set up good private schools in poor districts to give these underprivileged children the education he says they deserve?

The answer has three parts: First, Ellison, like all ultra-rich liberals, likes to talk about helping the poor, but really does not want to take any personal risk or work hard to aid them. He is a liberal because he wants all the risk and responsibility to fall on a big government so that he can say that he believes in helping.

Second, he does not want to risk any of his own money because modern-day American liberals love money more than any people at any time in history, including capitalists.

And third... and this is important... Ellison would be shunned, maligned, threatened and harassed by his liberal lefty friends for setting up anything that would threaten or challenge the Democrat party loyalists in the public school bureaucracy and the teacher unions.

"The Rich" Indeed Get Richer: Imagine for the sake of round numbers that the American economy is producing $10 trillion annually in wealth.

Imagine that the people who call themselves part of Group A are getting $4 trillion while those who adhere to the opposing ideals of Group B are getting $6 trillion, and that the people of the nation are generally happy. Imagine that there are good jobs everywhere, that the economy is growing, people are buying homes and producing lots of finished products – cars, furniture, computers, tools, lamps etc. Imagine that America is producing the highest per capita standard of living in the world.

Now imagine that the American economy actually starts to shrink, and produces only $9 trillion in wealth, and several million people are losing their jobs. And imagine that Group A now is getting a larger share of the total, or $5 trillion, while Group B is getting a much smaller share of the total, with only $4 trillion.

Who would be happy?

Obviously, even with economic dislocations in the shrinking economy, Group A would be very happy because its share of the wealth actually had increased even as the nation’s total wealth had decreased.

Now imagine that the total wealth of the nation dropped to $8 trillion, and millions more people were losing their jobs, but that Group A was getting $6 trillion and Group B was getting only $2 trillion.

Who would be happy?

Obviously, despite the dire economic circumstances, people in Group A would be very happy because their wealth – and also their political power -- had increased yet again, and they would like to see the trend continue and would seek to continue to entrench that trend through policy.

Now imagine that the economy dropped to $7 trillion, tens of millions more were living in misery, and Group A was getting all $7 trillion, along with all the political power, while Group B was getting zero.

Who would be happy?

Obviously the people in Group A would like the trend very much, even though millions were suffering. They would be much, much richer than ever and have more power than ever.

This parable might be seen as an allegory about the evils of capitalism, where “the rich get richer” as everyone else gets poorer. And it would look like a description of the way that corporate titans and their shareholders and political cronies were increasing their wealth as people were being thrown out of their jobs.

And in fact this story really is a metaphor for what is happening in America today.

Unfortunately, though, the people in the richer and richer Group A are liberal socialists, regulators, taxers, bureaucrats, college professors and environmentalists on the Democrat side of the aisle, and their wealth and power indeed are increasing as the national economy declines. The conservative capitalists in fact are in Group B, whose power indeed is declining in America today, along with our national economic muscle.

Here is how it works:

Throughout our history, the American economy has been expanding. There certainly have been peaks and valleys, but in general, the nation’s wealth has been steadily increasing.

The reason is that the Founding Fathers specifically wanted America to be a low-tax, free market capitalist nation. They certainly wanted laws to govern business, but they did not want intrusive laws that would dictate to business how it should operate, which they knew would stifle growth and innovation.

So our economy grew over two centuries. As some people got extremely wealthy, others further down the economic chain were able to become very prosperous, prosperous or even just a little prosperous, while those at the very bottom were able to be helped by charity from the large amount of wealth that the economy was creating.

Compared to the history of the world, the overall picture was of a nation in which various levels of prosperity above mere subsistence were attainable to “the common man” for one of the few times ever.

Consequently, tens of millions of immigrants came to America, and continue to come right now. Because America indeed has been the land of opportunity.

Our nation for its first 125 years had been a Group B nation. People were free to start businesses, build barns, grow corn, manufacture chairs and generate power without massive interference from the government like regulation, red tape and bureaucracy. Taxes were low. Entrepreneurs started businesses and paid their workers whatever they wished without unions or government dictating what that pay rate should be. There were no environmental regulations or restrictions, no wetlands laws or the like.

America was far from perfect, however. While “the common man” had opportunities, few laws governed safety for workers and many died. It is said that more than 200,000 railway workers were killed on the job in just a single 30-year period in the late 19th and early 20th century. Factory workers sometimes were paid little for their toil and frequently were maimed and died at work. There was no regard for the environment, as chemicals and waste were dumped into rivers. Meanwhile, unsavory and unscrupulous businessmen rigged the system every way they could.

But still, there was great growth and prosperity and many good and innovative people built up the American economy, and millions of happy people were the result. It was overall a positive picture.

Beginning in the 20th century, however, people began to agitate over the shortcomings in the economy. Labor unions began to organize workers and demand better wages, and better work and safety conditions. Businesses were taxed in order to fund government operations. Government began to impose myriad regulations on unscrupulous business practices. And later on, by the 1960s, environmental pollution finally was being seen for the real hazard that it was.

In each case, needed remedial action was taken by government and activist groups, often over many years and through persistent work, and finally we reached a state where pure economic growth was counter-balanced with government oversight, worker protection and environmental protection so that everyone was able to better share in the national prosperity.

We could say that America went from being a Group B nation (avowedly capitalist, with few regulations, leading to fast growth) to a nation where Group A (government regulators, labor unions, government workers, college professors, environmentalists, tax collectors) increasingly was sharing power and wealth with Group B.

But today, things are changing rapidly in favor of Group A, and they began to change almost 100 years ago. It really started in earnest in 1913 when America instituted a federal income tax that today is taking larger and larger proportions of individuals’ and businesses’ wealth, a level of taxation that is far too large, according to the ideas of the Founding Fathers who fought to break from Britain over the same issue of over-taxation.

Government regulators and bureaucrats in Group A have grown tremendously in power over the last 100 years. Unions in the 1950s controlled almost one-third of the private-sector American workforce, although today that figure is much less, only around 12% in both the public and private sectors combined. And today environmental laws cover every single facet of economic development. These Group A people (government workers, some unions, Democrat party functionaries, environmentalists) are increasing their wealth and power every day as the American economy produces less and less wealth, and as millions suffer economic decline. And as this happens, we are going to see much worse dislocation as we did when Group B had the preponderance of power.

Consider regulation. Once hardly regulated, the American economy today is highly regulated. Business is told myriad things it can and cannot do from mandates that they should offer their workers (health insurance, sick leave etc.) to pages on pages of behavior codes for not only employees, but employers too, who are barred even from asking certain simple questions of applicants like “Are you married?”

These laws are written for the most part by busybody Democrats in the various legislatures who pass more and more laws because that is all they know how to do—get elected to office and make laws over the people. And as they write more and more laws, they gain more political power for themselves and their friends in Group A, and are able to sway more and more of the nation’s wealth through this political power.

Power attracts wealth and wealth attracts power.

The tax system, created by Group A, has become overwhelmingly burdensome, with armies of lawyers and accountants needed just for the simplest procedures. The tax code has grown from zero pages in 1912 to more than 50,000 pages today. The system requires huge investments of time and money from business and individuals, all of which saps the economic vigor of business and discourages economic expansion and new job creation. Average Americans live in fear of the Group A Internal Revenue Service and that is the way the IRS wants it. Meanwhile, many businesses have moved their operations overseas to escape excessive taxation. They say, “Why bother with all this nonsense.”

Environmental laws are strangling business all over America. Many of them were positive in the beginning, but today are becoming overly stringent, costing business more and more, and driving much wealth overseas. In rural areas, enviro regs are throwing millions of people out of work by restricting logging, mining, ranching, quarrying and other forms of economic development. And the overall wealth and well-being of people in these areas is declining, sometimes precipitously, as enviro groups get richer and richer through contributions from an increasingly wealthy Democrat power base in the cities and in the suburbs. And as enviro lawyers get richer and richer filing lawsuits against growth and resource extraction, people get poorer without jobs.

So as Group A increases its power over the nation, the national wealth declines. But Group A does not care as long as its share of the wealth increases, and as long as its political power increases. This is called socialism and the whole point of socialism is to get more wealth and power. Period.

As businesses pay more and more in taxes, and as the government increases its power over business and individual citizens, people who are members of government Group A public-employee unions (including school teachers) get more money, higher salaries and better benefit and pension plans. And the private-sector taxpayer (Group B) gets poorer! And if you’ll notice, all over the declining economies of the Northern Tier of America from Oregon to Maine, town and school budgets routinely increase, year after year, even though the wealth of the region is declining, sometimes precipitously. Anyone who opposes school-budget increases is called “anti-children”.

Naturally, as is typical under Group A socialism, the more school budgets rise and the more school teachers are paid and the more power they subsequently accrue, the worse is the quality of education. And school teachers are getting more and more of the nation’s wealth ($500 billion for public education annually, and rising). The median income of a public school teacher, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the same income as for the population in general… except that many school teachers work only 75% the number of hours of most people in the private sector! So they actually are making a higher salary per hour than people in the private sector, which they do not want you to know. They always cry poor.

At the same time, it is an established statistic today that, as living standards decline overall in private-sector America, that other government employees - federal, state and local - increasingly are making more salary and getting much better benefits and pensions than private-sector employees (toll collectors on the Massachusetts Turnpike make $70,000 a year for a $25,000 a year job. Boston police officers make $123,000 per year). This is part of the increasing wealth of the Group A economy.

The richest county in America, as measured in median income, is Montgomery County, Maryland.

And who lives there? Corporate titans? Capitalist robber barons?

No, Montgomery is home to tens of thousands of people who work for the federal government in nearby Washington, DC.

Meanwhile private-sector labor unions demand higher and higher wages, all of which are paid by the consumer. This saps business, the consumer and the economy in general because unions artificially inflate costs, and shift wealth, in favor of Group A. And it weakens the companies that these unions work for. Just look at General Motors. Then when factories are closed, the unions extract big severance packages out of General Motors.

And finally, what about the college professors, in their bastions of Group A socialism? Yes, college costs – and even college textbook costs – are rising at three times the rate of inflation, enriching this Group A constituency as the parents of America find themselves poorer and poorer.

Indeed, Group A is getting richer and richer, and has more and more power as Americans become incrementally poorer and poorer. Which suits Group A just fine.

So what about the scenario where Group A controls 100% of the wealth as the nation’s total wealth declines to $7 trillion as in the example above?

That is what is slowly happening in America, so slowly that people do not appreciate it. And of course, the media dismiss it, talking about the profits of oil companies, how rich Republicans are hogging all the money etc. But just think how little real power the “rich” oil companies have in America, and particularly how much they are regulated and taxed. They cannot even drill an oil well without the approval of the government (i.e., the environmental movement).

And in another example of how this wealth-shifting works, many millions of Group A Democrats -- including rich urban liberals, public-employee unions, public school teacher unions, left-wing college professors, upper-income liberal professionals, and even environmental groups -- own stock in… American corporations.

So as the media throw a temper tantrum over the profits of, say, ExxonMobil, who is benefiting from these profits?

In large part, Group A liberals are benefiting, that is who. And since they are anti-business and anti-corporate in their political positions, they are using capitalism’s own wealth to fight against the interests of wealth-creating capitalism and to shift this wealth to Group A!

Meanwhile, the richest people in America increasingly are voting Democrat. Look at the ultra-rich in Hollywood, New York, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Chicago, Martha’s Vineyard, Silicon Valley. Hardly a Republican in sight. All the richest states and richest congressional districts in America today are represented by Democrats. Yet our economy is increasingly a "service" economy, that is not creating new wealth through manufacturing. So many of today's rich people are living off of, and taking a bigger portion of, existing wealth through the media, through legal maneuvering, through urban paper wealth, in Hollywood, in the universities with their exorbitant tuitions etc.

Why are they voting Democrat? Because wealthy people want to be part of the increasing political and economic power of Group A so as to increase their own power, money and prestige, even if the nation as a whole is suffering.

Remember too that rich people get fawning media coverage only if they are liberals, and so they become liberals and are invited to all the liberal parties, and get good press in The New York Times. The three richest men in America – Gates, Buffett and Ellison – are all leftist Democrats. Oprah is a liberal. And on and on.

Ultimately, the $7 trillion scenario above very slowly is coming to pass as Group A today (Democrats, hard-left socialists) is talking about increasing taxes on the wealthy, on business, on everybody else, about restricting energy production in America, and about ratcheting up enviro regs all over the nation through their ‘global warming’ fantasy. These factors will combine to slow the American economy even further and to give to Group A more and more of the nation’s wealth and power.

Eventually, this will lead to disaster. Because when business is increasingly hamstrung, the wealth of the nation could plummet quickly to, say, $3 trillion. This is what happens in communist countries, where the economy always falls off a cliff and leaves the population destitute.

And then, of course, the people in Group A start fighting amongst themselves over the remaining wealth, and they start killing each other off. And you know the rest of the story. The remaining wealth, as it shrinks, is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and in the hands of the military, which protects this elite.

This wealth-dissipation scenario does not happen under conservative capitalism. Despite all its flaws, capitalism still is the only system under which wealth generally expands. Under socialism, wealth always contracts as it is placed in fewer hands. And this is what we are facing if we do not stop this massive wealth transfer trend today.

Two Kinds of Rich People: Every day in the media it seems that there is some reference to “the rich” or to “rich people”. The implication always is that all rich people are Republicans who are protected by Bush, and that Democrats are just everyday moderate-income salts of the earth who are on the side of the “little guy”. But a closer look shows how utterly false this idea is.

First, the two richest men in America, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, with combined personal wealth of more than $80 billion, are both liberal/leftists. Just look at the ideas they espouse. Look them up on the web and explore the agenda that they support.

Second, the 8 richest people in the United States Senate are all far-left Democrats including John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Diane Feinstein (California), Herb Kohl (Wisconsin) and Hillary Clinton.

Third, most of the ultra-rich actors, producers, directors and agents in Hollywood are leftist socialists.

And fourth -- in by far the biggest group -- many, many, many of the upper-income, rich and super-rich people all over liberal, urban America (many of them quite famous) in places like San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle and other cities, along with all those cities’ wealthy suburbs, are devout Democrats, some of them very far to the left.

And fifth, many of the ultra-wealthy entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are on the political left as well.

Overall, many of these people have much, much more wealth than George Bush or Dick Cheney. And looking at glittering, big-bucks campaign fundraisers in 2007, you could surmise that at least half of all the “rich” people in America, and possibly more, are… Democrats.

Are there rich Republicans? Of course there are. But this is understood; we have been hearing about them since time immemorial, and they have been portrayed as capitalist “robber barons” for more than a century. But the idea that the wealth of America is somehow being hoarded by Republicans is a giant socialist fabrication to cover up the truth, that so many of the ultra-wealthy in America and around the world are leftists.

And here is the important part: They preach socialism not in order to “help the poor”, as they say, but to continue to enrich themselves without challenge, because they cover up for each other and for their massive wealth accumulations with their socialist rhetoric.

To understand this, recall that there are two distinct ways of getting rich.

First, you can get rich by “manufacturing” things. You mine iron ore and turn it into steel. You manufacture copper wire for the transmission of electricity. You harvest trees and turn them into timber for home construction. You manufacture automobiles. You make mailboxes, hand tools, piping, lamps, furniture, plastics, spaghetti, ladders, paint, roofing shingles, office chairs, soap, razor blades, glass, oatmeal, shoes, sunglasses, and on an on.

“Making” things always is a process of taking natural resources from the ground and turning them into finished goods. This is how the world’s wealth ultimately is created, and always has been created, because iron ore, for instance, has no intrinsic value until it is turned into something that people want, while trees are beautiful to look at, but gain economic and social value for humans when they are harvested, refined and become homes that people need to live in, or furniture.

And the process of “making” things always requires mining and timber harvesting and manufacturing processes and repetitive toil and energy consumption. And this is how many so-called conservative capitalists create the products that make our lives better every day, and also create the world’s wealth, not only for themselves but for others through job creation. Just think about how many towns are happy when “the mill” is operating full steam, and sad when “the mill” closes down?

Yet as this happens, at every turn, conservatives who create wealth and products this way are attacked by the media and by environmentalists and by labor-union activists, consumer activists and academics.

The greenie environmentalists say that as capitalists mine coal and iron and then make steel, that the earth and air are being despoiled. Hollywood activists abhor the destruction of the atmosphere by factory emissions that are said to cause ‘global warming’ -- without considering that ‘warming’ has happened many times before, even in times when there were no factories. Labor unions claim that productive, wealth-creating conservatives are never paying their workers enough, while college professors and consumer activists nitpick every product and every manufacturing process as dangerous to consumers and bad for the environment, the public health etc.

Nag, nag, nag…

And all these complaints are echoed through the friendly media.

All of these groups – media, environmentalists, consumer activists, college professors, labor unions and Hollywood blowhards – are allied on the political left. And it is important to note that none of these entities – media, environmentalists, consumer activists, college professors, labor unions (not to be confused with “labor”) and Hollywood blowhards – ever produces one pound of steel, one house, one kilowatt of electricity, one chair or one lamp. They are all non-productive when it comes to wealth and product creation. In fact wealth is best created without them because they actually thwart wealth creation.

Yet as mentioned above, many people over on the political liberal/left side are fabulously wealthy, so we must look at how this happens if indeed they are not creating any wealth in the first place.

For instance, if Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy has never produced a single kilowatt-hour of electricity, or one chair, or one ton of steel, how did he get rich?

The answer is that he inherited it, just as Massachusetts Senator John Kerry “inherited” a $1.5 billion fortune by… marrying a woman with a $1 billion fortune.

And how did Al Gore accumulate a reported $100 million in wealth without making a single light bulb or screwdriver?

He made speeches about ‘global warming’ and became influential and got people to give him money, that is how.

Where did ultra-liberal Oprah Winfrey get her $2.5 billion fortune? Did she manufacture cars or telephones or plumbing fixtures?

No, she sits in front of TV cameras and babbles for an hour a day.

In other words, while many people get rich doing “hard” things like running factories and manufacturing goods, liberals, on the other hand, do “soft” things like acting in movies or on TV, or making speeches, or owning newspapers, or shuffling paper around in the stock market. Or inheriting their money.

Here’s an interesting observation: Joseph P. Kennedy, Senator Kennedy’s father, accumulated much of the family’s fortune in the 1920s. How? By shuffling paper, that’s how, by pulling a series of shady stock-market and securities deals, the kind that are outlawed today. And the way he did it is this: Every dollar that he obtained for himself was a dollar lost by another person. That is why the practices he used are outlawed today. He did not create wealth and jobs by manufacturing paper or furniture. He appropriated it, leaving other people high and dry in the process.

Much of the urban wealth in America today comes from shuffling paper around, in stock market deals, bond deals, securities deals. And today these transactions are much, much more highly regulated than it was when Joseph P. Kennedy made his money in the 1920s, which is a good thing. George Washington warned specifically that certain financial practices should be carefully watched over by law.

And while many of the people who make this paper-shuffling money are Republicans, many, many of them are far-left Democrats, like the ones in New York City who have accumulated vast fortunes not by manufacturing things but by moving paper around and taking a small percentage of each transaction. And this all would be well and good if they all believed in wealth creation in the first place, as Republicans do.

But these Democrats often themselves get rich in the markets, then decry the way that wealth is created in the first place. They advocate heavy taxes on business, propose over-reaching enviro rules, favor overly-invasive business regulation and paperwork, ask for mandates on companies to do this and that for their employees, and support organized labor in its quest to bully private business into giving more and more and more in wages, benefits, pensions etc.

Now look at Senator Kerry. He got his money by marrying his rich wife. But how did she get her $1 billion fortune? Answer: She was married to Senator John Heinz of the Heinz family ketchup, relish and mustard fortune. When Senator Heinz was killed in a plane crash, she got the money. She did nothing for it… except to marry it. And now she uses that money to advocate socialism under which Heinz-type fortunes cannot be amassed, but rather would be taxed and regulated away; or by giving huge amounts of money to radical enviro groups like the Tides Foundation which thwart economic growth everywhere with endless legal obstruction on extracting resources like coal, oil, timber etc.

So if rich socialists advocate “taxing the rich”, are they not saying that they themselves wish to pay more in taxes?

No. Look deeper and you will see what is happening:

They wish to tax and regulate businesses that create wealth, like utilities that generate electricity, and mills that make the essential steel that our society uses every day. These are for the most part not “their” businesses, but are the businesses of conservative capitalists. Meanwhile, “their” businesses are owning newspapers and giving speeches and inheriting money and shuffling paper. (Don’t misunderstand: Some liberals in fact do create wealth by “making” things, just as some conservatives make money in the media. But not many.)  But ultimately what liberals wish to do is to use tax and government policies and environmentalism to thwart new wealth creation in Other Peoples’ Businesses (conservative businesses).

Certainly in the short run it will appear that they themselves may pay somewhat more in taxes if rich liberals succeed in “taxing the rich”. But as these liberals thwart new wealth creation, they ultimately will have less competition for power, and ultimately themselves will get richer and richer and richer. Just go to any communist country and you will find the dictator and his friends with billions and the population impoverished.

After all, if Al Gore can make $100 million giving speeches about ‘global warming”, imagine how much wealth he will accumulate if ‘global warming’ becomes absolutely accepted worldwide as fact, and myriad new environmental regulations slow down our economy, push up energy prices and throw millions out of work.

He may end up making $1 billion or $10 billion because his power will increase exponentially. He will become one of the most powerful men in the world. And the media will cover up for him and tell America that Al Gore has $10 billion because it is in the interest of “the common good”. And this is nonsense, because we all will get poorer as Gore and all his friends, including those in the environmental movement and the media and the universities, get richer and richer and richer with nobody to question their wealth and to challenge their power.

The editorial below appeared in the Election 2008 section of Nikitas3.com

 

Billionaires for Barack

 

Barrack Obama of Illinois, the most liberal member of the United States Senate and now the presumed nominee of the Democrat party to be President of the United States, has been publicly endorsed by America’s richest citizen as of July 2008, investor Warren Buffett.

This should sound surprising to a media-saturated nation which is propagandized by leftist folklore year after year that the Republican party is the party of “the rich” and is the party that doesn’t care about anyone except itself and its wealth.

These media, along with their allies in the entertainment industry, the public schools, the arts and the college professoriate have told us for decades that Democrats are all just salt-of-the-earth types trying to rub two nickels together to buy a skimpy sandwich that some scrooge Republican is trying to take away from them.

If only it were so. But quite the opposite it true. Buffett’s endorsement comes as no surprise at all to those who study the facts about wealth in America. Read the essays in the section Who “The Rich” Really are in America Today, accessible from the Nikitas3.com home page, to give lie to the myths.

America’s wealthiest citizens are increasingly liberal and are using their influence and giving large amounts of money to Democrats as a result of America’s drift away from a conservative manufacturing economy of “wealth creation” in favor of a socialistic and service economy of “wealth appropriation” that is making America poorer.

And it is crucial to recall that when a rich person – or any American at all – gives a dollar to today's Democrat party that they in fact are fueling a far more radical leftist ideology than the Republican party is conservative. Because as Republicans have become more moderate, Democrats are increasingly leftist.

No, you may insist, that cannot be true.

But yes. Just look at George Bush’s ostensibly “conservative” agenda which in fact has angered many conservatives as far too moderate.

And then look at the ultra-liberal face of the Democrat party with senators like Obama, Boxer, Schumer, Feingold, Durbin, Murray, Kennedy, Kerry, Leahy, Sanders and Levin; a Congressional Black Caucus that votes as a bloc way over on the left; and many caucasian congresspeople who are far-left like Speaker Pelosi, Kucinich, DeLauro, Woolsey, Capps, Harmon, Sanchez, DeFazio, McDermott, Moran, Frank, Markey, Delahunt, Maloney, Slaughter, Miller, Loewy, Nadler and many, many more.   

 

On the Forbes 400 list of September 20, 2007, Warren Buffett was listed with a net worth of $52 billion and gave $9,000 to Republicans and $96,000 to Democrats.

America’s 4th richest man on the list, Larry Ellison, with $26 billion, is a self-admitted Democrat who has given about equally to Democrats and Republicans ($127,700 to $135,600) which means that he has fueled a leftist tilt in American politics just by giving evenly.

Bill Gates ($59 billion) the richest man in America at the time of the list, is shown to have given $67,000 to Democrats and $81,000 to Republicans. But Gates has publicly supported very liberal political positions like the status quo in public schools, abortion rights, higher taxes in his home state of Washington, and gun control.

Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer, #16 on the Forbes list with $15.2 billion, has given $80,642 to Republicans and $59,450 to Democrats. Shouldn’t it all be Republican for this wealthy man if the media folklore is true?

Even Alice Walton of the Wal-Mart Waltons, at #15 on the list with $16.1 billion, gave $320,000 to Republicans and $187,000 to Democrats. Isn’t this supposed to be the right-wing Republican family that is in bed with Bush and corporate America? Why all the contributions to Democrats?

Microsoft’s Paul Allen, #11 on the list at $16.8 billion, has given to both Republicans and Democrats, but favors Democrats $184,450 to Republicans $27,900.

Michael Bloomberg, #25 on the list with $11.5 billion, the New York City mayor who gained his fortune through the Bloomberg media empire, started as a Democrat, turned Republican for election purposes, now is an Independent but rules the city like the nanny-state liberal that he is. He has given $340,000/$327,000 Republican/Democrat. How can evil rich conservatives give all that money to Democrats?

Maybe rich people are not conservative at all...

Kirk Kerkorian, #7 on the Forbes list with $18 billion, whose wealth source is listed as ‘investments, casinos’ gave $103,500 to Republicans and $73,300 to Democrats. That’s a lot of money for the Democrat party for a “rich Republican” to be giving.

Carl Icahn, of leveraged buyouts fame, #18 on the list with $14.5 billion in assets, gave almost equally, $185,000 to Republicans and $190,000 to Democrats.

George Soros, #33 on the Forbes list with $8.8 billion, has contributed heavily to far-left causes like moveon.org and radical environmentalists.

So why do all these “rich Republicans” give so much to Democrats?

Because the wealth of the nation is shifting in favor of socialism. And the rich indeed are getting richer - the Democrat rich that is. And the gap between rich and poor is increasing. Between the Democrat rich and the poor that is.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt (2004 net worth $2.8 billion) gave $25,000 that year to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. His total contributions listed on the internet are $6,500 Republican and $229,216 Democrat. Meanwhile employees of Google, one of the richest and fastest growing firms in America, gave 98% of their campaign contributions to Democrats as noted in a 2005 USA Today article. 

Could there have been pressure from the ultra-rich CEO?

 

No, friends, the reality is quite different from the folklore that you are presented every day, and it should be troubling to all Americans. Our nation’s privileged classes are becoming more liberal with every passing year at all levels from the super-rich; to the middle class (public school teachers, government employees (Boston, Massachusetts police officers earn more than $120,000 a year), college professors and other socialists all have statistically the highest incomes in the middle class); and even down to the poor (the government-dependent poor - most specifically single mothers with children - are better off financially than working poor people).

So what is going on?

First, Warren Buffett is part of a long trend in which “the rich” are convinced that the wealth-creating aspects of capitalism are unjust, and that the real generosity of a society comes out of wealth redistribution via government. Obviously this is nonsense, because only capitalism has created a middle class anywhere in the world. Still rich people are often convinced that their own wealth is a mark of shame.

This works particularly well with inheritors of wealth who feel guilty over their pure luck in having been born rich. And thus they feel an innate need to appear generous. But they do not think of starting businesses to create jobs and wealth because that would be real work. So they think only of giving away wealth (socialism) because that is the lazy man’s way to exonerate their guilt.

Guilt has worked well throughout history. Karl Marx, who defined modern communism with The Communist Manifesto, was a child of privilege.

And through the media’s insistent push for socialism and wealth redistribution nationwide, rich people are offered a choice: Either talk the socialist agenda or the non-business media will ignore you or trash you. Take your pick. Today in America, the Kennedys well represent this outlook; they believe in socialism and so the media coddle them. Just try to think of one negative thing the media have said about one single Kennedy. You will find a few (the media cannot appear overboard, and must report the family’s myriad pathologies) but in elective coverage, it has been 95% positive… or rather 95% sycophant.

There are many rich people who are naturally socialistic. They do not wish to really do any hard work to help the nation as conservatives do in starting companies to help expand the economy. They do not study economists like Adam Smith, or consider the Founding Fathers who recognized that true wealth equity would come through free markets and private enterprise.  No, they vote Democrat in order to “let the government do it” and the media then portray them as compassionate. This gives them a free pass to live their materialistic lives and to exonerate their guilt.

And as living standards are declining in America in 2008, and as energy supplies are tightening, the socialist rich deserve scrutiny. Because they favor increased taxation and regulation, making more difficult the creation of new wealth from the bottom up. They favor labor unions which have been killing American businesses and jobs since the end of World War II. And they frequently are advocates of radical 'global warming' environmentalism which restricts energy supplies and kills jobs and opportunity particularly in rural areas where citizens have little political power in relation to the juggernaut of the urban-based enviro movement.

So today, we know for certain that many of the ultra-rich in America, including Warren Buffett, favor socialism over capitalism, and Barack Obama over John McCain.

In a few simple quotes, here is what you could expect to hear from the ultra-rich (these are not actual quotes, but are fabricated by Nikitas3.com):

*“I am Warren Buffett. I have gained my wealth through investments. I sit in front of computer screens to get my riches. This is the lazy man’s way. I am a Democrat so that the government will “take care of” all those pesky social problems. If I ever advocate the conservative free-market ideals that I have taken advantage of to get rich, I will be portrayed by the media as hard-hearted. So I support Obama.”

*”I am Oprah Winfrey. I have a net worth of $2.5 billion. I make my living as a silly TV host fawning over empty-headed Hollywood stars; advocating wealth redistribution through my support of Obama; and presenting Al Gore and his ‘global warming’ theory as an honest and legitimate stance. All in the name of appearing generous and open-minded and informed. If I ever advocate conservative free-market ideals, I will be portrayed by the media as hard-hearted. So I support Obama."

*”I am Ted Kennnedy. My family has a $1 billion fortune that I never worked a single day for. That makes me feel guilty. So I favor wealth redistribution… as long as it is not my wealth. If I ever advocate conservative free-market ideals, I will be portrayed by the media as hard-hearted. So I support Obama.*

*”I am John Kerry. I married a female with a $1.5 billion fortune that she got from her husband, US senator John Heinz, who was killed in an airplane crash. The Heinz family built their capitalist fortune on hard work making food products. My wife and I have done nothing to deserve such riches. So we feel guilty and now we use that fortune to fund radical environmentalist groups and to advocate for wealth redistribution… as long as it is not our wealth. If I ever advocate conservative free-market ideals, I will be portrayed by the media as hard-hearted. So I support Obama.

And on and on.

So what is the problem with all these rich people, and hundreds and thousands more like them? Why are so many rich elites in Hollywood, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Silicon Valley etc. giving money, time and energy to the increasingly radical Democrat party? Why are the wealthy suburbs of America becoming increasingly Democrat?

Because of relentless media attacks on capitalism; because of the "appropriation" of huge amounts of wealth through easy channels like Hollywood; because of the spread of feminism in which simplistic wealth redistribution is seen as the way to help the poor; and through the feminization of men, who become soft and pliable in the hands of the media, and people like Oprah Winfrey, uneducated Hollywood stars, and their wives and girlfriends.

American wealth today is shifting decidedly to the left. Barack Obama is the favorite of the new socialist elite in America. And now our nation is becoming more like Europe where socialist money and power are used to control the societies there, and have undermined economic growth and have caused high rates of unemployment and big transfers of wealth from productive citizens to non-productive ones.

Today in America, we are seeing huge transfers of wealth from taxpaying citizens to government bureaucrats; and from the wealth-“producing” rich to the wealth-“consuming” rich like John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Warren Buffett and the Hollywood elite.

This will play out in this year’s Billionaires for Barack campaign. And if Obama wins, his policies will undermine our economy and the electorate will clamor for the return of conservatism in 4 years, as Europeans are voting "right" in large numbers to undo the damage done by the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the political left.