Free Republic

…Demographic data compiled in the 2016 and 2020 elections showed that the top 40 percent of income earners preferred the Democratic candidate for president (Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden) over the Republican (Donald Trump), signifying a sizable coalition shift from where the party was in the previous decade. Recent data shows the trend is likely baked in. In a CNBC survey, America's millionaires said they are more likely to support Biden over Trump in the upcoming presidential election by double-digit margins. And most of the nation's voters are not wealthy. … In the 2016 election, approximately 60 percent of white...

Should the wealth effect reverse as assets fall, capital gains evaporate and investment income declines, the top 10% will no longer have the means or appetite to spend so freely.Soaring wealth-income inequality has all sorts of consequences. As many (including me) have noted, the concentration of wealth and income in the top 0.1% has enabled the few to buy political influence to protect their interests at the expense of the many and the common good.In other words, extreme wealth-income inequality dismantles democracy. There is no way to sugarcoat this reality.But the concentration of wealth and income isn't limited to the...

Putting on its Victorian gentleman suit (pace Tom Wolfe), the Washington Post's editorial board tut-tuts a rich part of Washington, D.C. and its political patrons, for pulling out all stops to prevent construction of a child-migrant shelter in its fancy environs. MANY AMERICANS are rightly outraged by the Trump administration’s treatment of migrant children, who have been separated from parents and ill-treated by authorities. Democrats have been understandably eager to distance themselves from such policies — a stance that can result in knee-jerk opposition even to sensible practices in effect during the Obama administration. That might explain the nearly uniform outcry from Washington-area politicians incensed...

Even as Democrats publicly and loudly decry corporatist political “dark money,” billionaire Democrats and other donors funnel hundreds of millions to radical and violent causes.   Barely a week had passed after Donald Trump’s historic upset in the November 8 presidential election, but some of the world’s richest individuals were already launching a counteroffensive. George Soros and his fellow deep-pocket funders of the Democratic Party and left-wing causes gathered with a lineup of party activists and luminaries from Hollywood, K Street, and Wall Street for a three-day “investment conference” (November 15-17) at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C....

President Obama blasted Republicans as the party of “billionaires” on Tuesday while mingling with high-rollers at the $26 million estate of Rich Richman — yes, that’s his real name — in Greenwich, Connectiut. Richman, who built his $10 billion company developing rental housing, lives in the Conyers Farm area, where the minimum lot size is 10 acres. Twenty-five donors paid $32,400 each to get their photo taken with the president. Others paid $10,000 for dinner. While Obama was schmoozing — and the press pool was playing billiards in the basement — he was also soliciting donations for House Democrats in...

Its biggest donation - $2 million - came from telecom billionaire Irwin Jacobs, who had not previously given to the Obama super PAC. And Priorities received $1 million each from Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner, an Obama campaign bundler and prominent gay rights supporter who had previously donated $500,000, and star actor Morgan Freeman, a newcomer to big-political-check writing. It also received $750,000 from billionaire heir Jon Stryker, a big donor to gay rights causes, and $333,333 from billionaire media entrepreneur Haim Saban, who was among a handful of major Democratic donors who had been intensely courted for months to...

So just who are those top 1 percent of Americans that we're all supposed to hate? If you listen to President Obama, the protesters at Occupy Wall Street, and much of the media, it's obvious. They're either "trust-fund babies" who inherited their money, or greedy bankers and hedge-fund managers. Certainly, they haven't worked especially hard for their money. While the recession has thrown millions of Americans out of work, they've been getting even richer. Worse, they don't even pay their fair share in taxes: Millionaires and billionaires are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. In reality, each of...

President Obama was criticized by conservatives for suggesting that an income of $250,000 a year made people rich. If anything, however, Mr. Obama may have been aiming too high. A new Gallup poll shows that Americans say they would need to earn a median of $150,000, or have $1 million in total net worth, to consider themselves rich. The $150,000 in income puts you roughly in the top 10%. On the income side, 30% said they would need to earn less than $100,000. And another 18% said $60,000 a year would make them rich. Fully 15% said they would need...

Sharia favours the rich, claim Nigerian rights activists Boko Haram’s deadly insurgency is fuelled by their desire to see stricter Islamic law, or Sharia, in northern Nigeria. Civil rights activists have voiced their concerns that poor people would bear the brunt of a more severe form of Sharia. Sharia has been practised to varying degrees for as long as Islam has been in Nigeria. But in 1999, the then-governor of Zamfara State, Ahmed Sani, called for criminal cases to be tried in Sharia courts. Civil rights activists in Nigeria complain that Sharia hands down harsh sentences to poor Muslims, while...

NEW CANAAN, Conn. – Daisy Franklin of Norwalk was among the nearly 100 protestors who came to the New Canaan home of General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt Saturday to take part in the first known Occupy Wall Street rally in Fairfield County. "I worked in a small Norwalk manufacturing company for 15 years until it was forced to shut down a year ago," Franklin, 55, told the crowd, using a bullhorn. "Now, I get by on less than $200 a week of unemployment for me and my daughter. When you run out of money, you run out of options. So,...

Zbiginew Brzezinski, national security adviser under Jimmy Carter, told the "Morning Joe" program he thinks the names of the rich "should be known publicly" so the masses can "pressure some of those people to give some of it back to society." "You know, how many Americans are really fully aware of how many other good people, that’s like Warren Buffett and others, who really donate a lot of their earnings to charities, to philanthropy?" Mr. Brzezinski said. "But how many more are there in the hedge funds? In the banks? In a variety of other places who on the basis...

Ultra-rich people come in a variety of shapes, sizes and ages. But they can generally be divided into two distinct groups when it comes to what they do with their money - there are those who made it and those who inherited it. " Inheritors are far less hungry than the ones who worked for it - Raymond Goss Raymond Goss, investment specialist at Investec, says the first generation with serious money is usually inherently entrepreneurial and entirely focused on wealth creation - they are always on the alert for a great deal and are shrewd and incisive about the...

President Obama raised a mammoth sum for his campaign in the second quarter collecting $86 million to support his reelection, a figure that should far surpass the fundraising totals for his Republican challengers. Obama campaign manager Jim Messina announced the haul in a web video posted Wednesday morning, outlining for supporters the president's second quarter numbers, as well as a bit of the campaign's fundraising strategy. The $86 million figure represents a sum that includes contributions directly to Obama's campaign, along with money collected by the Obama Victory Fund, the joint-fundraising account established to benefit the president's campaign and the...

The U.S. economy is crumbling. Businesses are collapsing in record numbers. Jobs have disappeared. Tax revenues are down dramatically. Coincidence? Everything happening today under Obama resembles the storyline of Ayn Rand’s famous book, Atlas Shrugged, one of the most popular books of all time, selling over 7 million copies. Now, under President Obama, Atlas Shrugged has come to life. Rand prophesized a country dominated by socialists, Marxists and statists, where looters, free loaders and poverty promoters live off the productive class. To rationalize the fleecing of innovative business owners and job creators, the looter class demonized the wealthy, just as...

Looks like President Barack Obama is seeing his income dip too. From 2009 to 2010, the President's income has dipped 68.6% as his popularity and "rock star" appearance to the nation's uninformed has waned. In 2009, the Obamas made $5,505,409, as Mr. Obama's book sales boomed over his election and inauguration. That year, the Obama family paid $1.8 million in taxes. A year later, the President made less than what he paid in taxes a year before. Embroiled in nearly constant controversy and plummeting popularity, President Obama and his wife made $1,728,096 last year. That total was mainly from the...

Bill Whittle looks at funding the government by taking away all corporate profits, money from those who make above $250k, etc. Eat the Rich

With the temporary recognition of people's right to their property (in this case, their money), we're once again hearing the endless rants from the looters about how the "evil rich" are responsible for all our economic hardships and how respecting their rights will only wreck our economy further (honestly, does hate and jealousy ever get old for these people?). In light of this, and how eagerly dear leader will play it to conceal his own meddling in our economy, I think it's time we give everyone a very clear, very thorough view of who holds the most power over the...

The argument continues in Washington over whether or not to extend the Bush tax cuts to Americans making over $250K per year. Besides maligning these earners as "the rich" and making the same tired appeal to identity politics, the Democrats' position is that extending tax cuts for this income class would leave hundreds of billions of dollars of unrealized taxable income on the table over the next decade. The Republicans' position is to block all tax increases, including those on high earners, so as not to hamper our fragile economic recovery. While this position has merit, it is receiving a...

This week, Professor Todd Henderson criticized Obama’s plan to let tax cuts for the “rich” expire. Online criticism that he was “out of touch” was so fierce, Henderson swore off blogging. An excerpt from his original remarks: I’m the president’s neighbor in Chicago, but we’ve never met. I wish we could, because I would introduce him to my family and our lifestyle, one he believes is capable of financing the vast expansion of government he is planning. A quick look at our family budget will show him that, like many Americans, we are just getting by despite seeming to be...

Microsoft founder Bill Gates looks to have lost his title as the world's richest man, toppled from top spot by the Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim. Three months ago the cigar-chomping Mr Slim quietly slipped past legendary US investor Warren Buffett to take second place in the global wealth league. Now, thanks to a surge in the shares of his America Movil group, Mr Slim has claimed pole position, according to the Mexican online financial publication, Sentido Común. It was Sentido Común's founder, Eduardo Garcia, who highlighted Mr Slim's rapidly rising wealth in April, although by his calculations the Mexican...