85 richest now have as much money as poorest 3.5 Billion

[finehoe]

"There's been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won."

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett made that remark more than three years ago and it still holds true today — only the gap between the richest and the poorest has gotten even wider.

Here's how bad it is: Oxfam now calculates that the 85 richest billionaires on the planet, including the likes of Carlos Slim, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, have as much money as the 3.5 billion poorest people.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/11/07/globalpost-richest-poorest/18640031/

[WarDamJagFan]

Countries with high population density accompanied by extremely corrupt and overbearing central governments (China, India, Brazil, Pakistan, etc) will make sure that there are only a tiny fraction of those with power dictating the lives of the masses they control. America has been working towards that unflattering goal for sometime as well.

[fsquid]

stop buying the richest 85's products then.

[fsquid]

stop buying the richest 85's products then.

Or stop them from using the publicly owned infrastructure for free?

that works both ways, fsquid.

go for it, contact your reps.

[fsquid]

and good luck with the public campaign for international boycotts!

I only boycott the French

[Ocklawaha]

"There's been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won."

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett made that remark more than three years ago and it still holds true today — only the gap between the richest and the poorest has gotten even wider.

Here's how bad it is: Oxfam now calculates that the 85 richest billionaires on the planet, including the likes of Carlos Slim, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, have as much money as the 3.5 billion poorest people.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/11/07/globalpost-richest-poorest/18640031/

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one of five co-founders of the social networking website Facebook.

Warren Buffet, as a child displayed an interest in making and saving money. He sold chewing gum, Coca-Cola, or weekly magazines door to door. He worked in his grandfather's grocery store. While still in high school he made money delivering newspapers, selling golf balls and stamps and detailing cars, among other means. On his first income tax return in 1944, Buffett took a $35 deduction for the use of his bicycle and watch on his paper route.[17] In 1945, as a high school sophomore, Buffett and a friend spent $25 to purchase a used pinball machine, which they placed in the local barber shop. Within months, they owned several machines in different barber shops.

Carlos Slim, Slim was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1940 to Maronite Catholic parents, Julián Slim Haddad and Linda Helú, both of Lebanese descent. In 1911, Julián established a dry goods store, La Estrella del Oriente (The Star of the Orient). By 1921, he had purchased real estate in the flourishing commercial district of Mexico City. These enterprises became the source of considerable wealth. In August 1926, Julián Slim and Linda Helú married. They had six children: Nour, Alma, Julián, José, Carlos and Linda. Julián senior died in 1953. Carlos Slim's mother, Linda Helú Atta, was born in Parral, Chihuahua, of Lebanese parents who had immigrated to Mexico in the late 19th century. Her parents upon immigrating to Mexico had founded one of the first Arabic language magazines for the Lebanese-Mexican community, using a printing press they had brought with them.

Bill Gates, Born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington, famed entrepreneur Bill Gates began to show an interest in computer programming at age 13. Through technological innovation, keen business strategy and aggressive business tactics, he and partner Paul Allen built the world's largest software business, Microsoft. Born: October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington. Son of William Henry Gates II (attorney) and Mary Maxwell (teacher); married Melinda French (Microsoft manager), January 1, 1994; on of 3 children. Attended Harvard University, 1973–1975. Son of William Henry Gates II (attorney) and Mary Maxwell (teacher); married Melinda French (Microsoft manager), January 1, 1994; children: three.

DAMN! It's pretty obvious these evil people should be forced to give 90% of their riches to the poor, after-all they earned that money... and that's not fair to 'Victim Democrats.' Never mind that they are also among the largest charitable givers in the world, they should be loaded in a boxcar and hauled to Yekaterinburg! Escorted to the basement of Ipatiev House, they could be shot with little protest and cheers from the far-left humanists. I'm certain execution.

...Okay, so I couldn't resist!

[simms3]

Most of the tech billionaires give way too much lip service to a whole lotta nothing.  They are by far the most annoying rich people we have in America today.

There's actually a social war going on in SF where the established are fed up with the tech wealth.  Reason?  The old-money folks, who have "only" a few hundred million or so give a much larger percentage of it up to local charities, and they donate to museums or cultural outlets (theater companies, the opera, parks, etc), essentially keeping them going and keeping SF world class, which is a large part of the reason tech is there in the first place as it's a city that attracts smart and interesting people.  They throw better parties, too.  There's something to be said about inheritance, and more often class comes with (and people worked A LOT harder for their wealth back in the day...many of the new billionaires are literally kids who came up with some stupid app idea and had others implement, and they earned billions overnight hardly lifting a finger, their financiers and programmers guiding the way and their PR guys keeping them out of the spotlight when they get into trouble - i.e. Snapchat CEO snafu last year).

All of this new tech wealth - these people honestly don't know where to put their money.  Finally there is some talk (so far again just lip service) that some Valley companies will pitch in for transit (which benefits their own companies the most, but also benefits the region), and some companies have tried to help their own PR by donating to after-school programs, etc, but the tech CEOs throw corny parties and barely contribute a dime to stuff in their own backyard.  Instead, because they don't know how to put all of their wealth to better work for the common good, they're being LAZY and just asking to be taxed more.

Fuck'em.

I like the old school billionaires who made great libraries and cultural institutions happen and whose wives made great and interesting cities happen with their elaborate use of their hubbies' bank accounts.  I see a difference firsthand behind the older wealth and the new wealth (i.e. douchebags MY AGE who are even douchier than I am who now have a billion dollars in their bank account...which only makes things worse), and it makes me long for days past.  Most tech billionaires are hubby-wife billionaire teams - their wives aren't interesting socialites.  Instead their wives are ball-busting nerdy tech women who are also their own billionaire CEOs who are the most UNINTERESTING women I've ever heard of.  No interesting stories from these people.  No more social magazines.  All speeches and talk about tech/business.  WTF  So idiotic.

I have no problem with super rich people, but nowadays it's too often some immature 20s-30s something nerd kid turned tech douche who comes into way too much money, doesn't know what to do with it, so gives a bunch of traveling speeches on "business", throws a few pennies to after-school programs, pats other douchey tech billionaires on the back (it's the biggest pat each other on the back business I've ever witnessed, holy cow), MARRIES A FEMALE TECH BILLIONAIRE EQUIVALENT SO YOU GET THE MOST BORING RICH HOUSEHOLD EVER, and call for higher taxation because they're "making too much money".

OMG - my thoughts on the matter...

I want to be fairly rich some day.  But I don't want these douchebag idiots clamoring for higher taxes on anyone making $250K+ because they feel entitled to speak their ill informed LAZY opinion based on the fact that they are ill equipped to handle the money "bequeathed" them.  These people don't even donate super large sums to their alma maters.  Leave that up to the non-tech billionaires, or super rich people from days past.  So pathetic.

[simms3]

Case in point about tech and lip service.  My newsfeed gets slaughtered everyday by such posts as (and I had to leave Twitter altogether, omg):

"People have this vision of being the CEO of a company they started and being on top of the pyramid. Some people are motivated by that, but that's not at all what it's like.

What it's really like: everyone else is your boss – all of your employees, customers, partners, users, media are your boss. I've never had more bosses and needed to account for more people today.

The life of most CEOs is reporting to everyone else, at least that's what it feels like to me and most CEOs I know. If you want to exercise power and authority over people, join the military or go into politics. Don't be an entrepreneur."

- Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote

Followed up by comments from friends such as:

Aside from occasional project cancellations and silly turf battles, I'm a lot happier as Staff Engineer today than I was as CEO or VP at various past jobs.


I literally just hopped on FB knowing my wall would be filled with people quoting themselves or other 25 year old CEOs of tech who they admire (granted Phil is in his late 30s/early 40s, but comes across as a very inexperienced CEO), and then followed up by posts from people my age who have already been CEO and seem to think they've figured everything out as a result.

The tech industry as a whole is run by the most dull people ever who are so full of themselves, their industry, and lip service.  The guy who reposted Phil's quote came on a ski trip last year as a boarder and talked his skills up, a lot (everyone knows that when it comes to skiing/boarding, you play yourself down before hitting the slopes with others as you REALLY don't want to get yourself in trouble on some double blacks when you can barely manage a blue).  Borrowed another friend's GoPro, got left behind at the first summit, and proceeded to film himself barely boarding down a bunch of blues.  #douche

Funny how much we've demonized those in finance as a-holes who are in it only to make money and screw everyone else over, and how much we've demonized prior titans of industry as ruthless, evil people.  I miss me some robber/oil barons, railroad magnates, and wall street pimps!  And their ever interesting wives!

[Ocklawaha]

http://www.youtube.com/v/OG3PnQ3tgzY?hl=en_US

[finehoe]

"Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked.  And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful. That's what I have a problem with. And I think most people agree with me."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation

http://www.amazon.com/Predator-Nation-Corporate-Criminals-Corruption/dp/0307952568

[fsquid]

Buffet just structured the Duracell deal to be tax-free, I guess actions speak louder than his words?

[IrvAdams]

I read an article somewhere (might have been here) that said in this country, around the turn of the century, the disproportion of wealth was almost as bad as today. The difference was the businesses involved: the superrich were the industrialists, factory owners, etc.

What happened over time was the natural dispersion of taxation and inheritance, etc., and today that wealth is spread out over a much wider area.

So, give it a hundred years and it will be equitable again :-)

[finehoe]

What happened over time was the natural dispersion of taxation and inheritance, etc., and today that wealth is spread out over a much wider area.

Except there was nothing "natural" about it.  It was a conscious political movement to enact progressive income taxes, strong unions, and universal education.  It didn't 'just happen'.

[Ocklawaha]

"Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked.  And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful. That's what I have a problem with. And I think most people agree with me."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation

http://www.amazon.com/Predator-Nation-Corporate-Criminals-Corruption/dp/0307952568

Well then this should be easy to solve. We simply round them up, and take their money from them. If we give it to the government we can be assured that it will not be misused. Once we've rounded up all of the rich, we can get the intellectuals, business owners and hell we're already half way home in taking over the health-care industry. In true socialist countries, there are never any party elite's... Obama, Putin, Kim Il-sung and Li Keqiang, would be working down at the collective right alongside the rest of us. NOT!

[bill]

What happened over time was the natural dispersion of taxation and inheritance, etc., and today that wealth is spread out over a much wider area.

Except there was nothing "natural" about it.  It was a conscious political movement to enact progressive income taxes, strong unions, and universal education.  It didn't 'just happen'.

How is that working for you? Declining wages, declining unions, declining education. After 30 years we only need 6 more to "set things right".