The Forbes 400 Richest People in America

The rich haven’t gotten richer–or poorer–this year. The price of admission to this, the 27th edition of The Forbes 400, is $1.3 billion for the second year in a row. The assembled net worth of America’s wealthiest rose by $30 billion–only 2%–to $1.57 trillion. …

http://www.metimes.com/Busines.....rica/4278/

Actually, this news is a little stale….Forbes published the list in September.

But isn’t it interesting that in a period when the MSM was trumpetting the “longest recession since the Depression”, while the Stock Market was falling 20%, while the sub-prime “crisis” was undermining the economy……our wealthiest Aristocracies INCREASED their fortunes by 2%, after extracting living expenses for their decadent lifestyles.

The average net worth of a Fortune 400 Aristocrat is $3.9 billion (reported, lol), so this tiny group of concerned citizens represents $1.56 Trillion in untaxed assets.

According to CNN in Mar of 2008, 1.16M Americans had net worth’s of over $5M.

The lower end of the filthy rich scale has actually lost assets recently in the economic “crisis”, but you can bet Teddy, Traitor Kerry, and anybody with assets over $100M hasn’t lost a penney.

And of course, they pay no taxes, being Aristocrats and all.

Big-money bash set for Perdue’s birthday

Raleigh, N.C. — The North Carolina Democratic Party has scheduled a birthday reception for Governor-elect Beverly Perdue that has raised questions among political watchdogs.

The Jan. 22 party at a private Raleigh home solicits donations from attendees ranging from $500 for a “friend” to $10,000 for a “host.”

“The big question is where the money goes,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of North Carolina Common Cause.

Individuals are limited to $4,000 in contributions to political candidates annually, but political parties can accept unlimited amounts of money and can give unlimited amounts to candidates or elected officials.

“I think political parties can and should raise money for their benefit. It’s just that unlimited transfer to an elected officer or a candidate that we have problems with,” Phillips said.

Perdue’s campaign finance reports show she and her husband, Bob Eaves, loaned her campaign more than $900,000 and that the loans are outstanding.

Kara Bolton, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Party, says the fundraiser is for the party, not Perdue. Yet the invitation tells those wishing to attend to RSVP to Perdue’s Web site.

http://www.wral.com/news/local.....y/4273735/

And these are the people we trust to spend our tax dollars.

The elite Aristocracy in this country has figured out that they can permanently entrench themselves by legally bribing people with your money.

1sttofight may be correct. If this economic confiscation gets enough out of control, and enough people refuse to submit to serfdom to the elites, we might see another revolution/civil war.

America is finished. The inmates are running the asylum and sanity won’t be returning, at least not in our lifetimes.

By force of arms…

From ABC new, which for some reason unbeknownst to mankind chooses to let the brilliant John Stossel have a forum.

Arrogant Conceit: Obama Thinks He Can Reform The Economy
Obama’s Interventionist Reforms Go in Precisely the Wrong Direction

…Obama’s nearly trillion-dollar plan will not merely repair bridges, fill potholes and fix up schools; it will also impose a utopian vision based on the belief that an economy is a thing to be planned from above. But this is an arrogant conceit. No one can possibly know enough to redesign something as complex as “an economy,” which really is people engaging in exchanges to achieve their goals. Planning it means planning them

…This is not the first time a president chose reform over recovery. Franklin Roosevelt did it with his New Deal, and the result was long years of depression and deprivation.

…FDR feared that signs of recovery had jeopardized his reform plans by removing the sense of emergency: “To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose.”

What a shame. Free people enjoying their lives make it harder for the administration to forcibly impose its utopian vision on them.

…Obama has no real wealth to inject into the economy. He can only move around existing money while inflation robs us of purchasing power. Meanwhile, private investors who might have produced a better engine, battery, computer, cancer treatment or other wealth-creating and life-enhancing innovations, hold back for fear that big government will undermine productive efforts.

The way to a lasting recovery is to greatly lighten the burdens of government. Then free Americans will save and invest…

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Sto.....amp;page=2

We are now facing the greatest eneny we have ever faced, greater than Hitler, greater than Stalin, greater than Akmanutjob…….it’s our own leadership. We survived the wars, we survived the hardships, we survived the risks, but we will not survive the imposition of an inane, sophmoric, tried and proven wrong prescription for the economy we all depend on to survive.

Despite the ample evidence of history, they are driving the country over the cliff.

Reuters, Jan 9.

UBS closing U.S. clients’ offshore accounts

ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss wealth manager UBS AG (UBSN.VX) (UBS.N) is closing all the offshore accounts of its U.S. clients, the bank said on Friday, as it comes under pressure from U.S. tax authorities.

The Swiss bank decided in July last year to stop offering offshore accounts to U.S. citizens after it was targeted by a U.S. tax investigation which challenges Switzerland’s famous banking secrecy laws.

U.S. prosecutors have alleged UBS helped clients hide $18 billion of untaxed American money in undeclared accounts. This amounts to around $300 million of annual unpaid taxes, the newspaper said….

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090109/bs_nm/us_ubs_1

This is what i’ve been ranting about for the last week or so.

It’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The people who do this are not Joe Blow citizen who makes a good salary. They are the Kennedy’s, Kerry’s and their fellow parasitic scum.

I predicted a moment ago that the take would be $1 Trillion in year 1 from just taking 5% p.a. from these criminals. If this article is accurate, then that estimate is far too low.

Meanwhile, we have regular readers of this site who are unemployed and who have lost their life savings in this manufactured economic crisis.

Did Bush cause the financial crisis?

“Consider the terrible consequences of the ‘anything goes’ Bush Administration, whose irresponsible non-regulation of financial institutions has led to this crisis.”

Those words, from the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, sum up the charge against George W Bush – that in the eight years of his presidency he actively pursued policies of deregulation which caused the biggest financial and economic meltdown since the Great Depression.

It is a grim legacy for President Bush to contemplate as he enters his final days in office – but is it true?

Market collapse

He certainly presided over a widespread failure of regulation.

On his watch, the US authorities did little to prevent the sale of millions of mortgages to people who could never afford them.

They failed to police the market in mortgage-backed securities which has now collapsed with such devastating consequences.

And credit default swaps, those multi-billion-dollar bets on other people going bust, went virtually unregulated.

…..
In the blame game for this financial crisis, George W Bush comes a close second to greedy and unscrupulous Wall Street bankers.

But there are serious flaws in this argument.

Deregulation started long before President Bush came to power, and it was enthusiastically pursued by both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Here is just one example:

The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 separated the activities of commercial banks, which take deposits, from investment banks, which invest money. It was repealed in 1999.

That relaxation of the rules enabled commercial lenders, like Citigroup, to trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralised debt obligations.

‘Far-reaching reform’

Many see the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as a major, direct cause of the current financial crisis.

But it was signed by a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, and supported by many other Democratic politicians, among them the scourge of Bush deregulation Nancy Pelosi.

What is more, President Bush actually increased the burden of regulation on US companies, enacting in 2002 what he called “the most far-reaching reform of American business practices since the time of Franklin D Roosevelt”, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

…..But Mr Bush is not entirely blameless.

Affordable home ownership, especially for African-American and Hispanic borrowers, who had traditionally found it difficult and expensive to get a mortgage, was a key policy goal of the Clinton administration and one enthusiastically carried forward by President Bush.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7814704.stm

I’m surprised they admitted as much, however, since most people only read the first few lines of any story, most will believe it is all Bush’s fault. But the take home message:

There is no doubt that George W Bush is a natural supporter of deregulation and that his administration did nothing to stop all sorts of questionable financial activities in the private sector (even though it did not condone them).

The government needs to mettle in the private sector, or dissolve it completely. Only more government and less free markets will bring the turmoil to an end.

http://tinyurl.com/5qhd5

It seems this has been floating around in various forms since 2004.

Is there any truth to these allegations or is this just another bit of web-generated mythology? All responses and any info much appreciated.

Pentagon drifting from nuclear deterrence, report says

A task force recommends that leaders go back to school and refocus the nation’s nuclear mission.

By David Wood

After firing the two top Air Force leaders last year for a series of embarrassing nuclear weapons mishaps, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was told Thursday that the same problems of inexperience, poor training and splintered authority over nuclear arms affect the entire Pentagon, including its top leadership.

A task force headed by former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger painted a dismal picture of a Pentagon that has drifted from the mission of nuclear deterrence during the nearly two decades since the Cold War ended. Among the Pentagon’s senior military and civilian leaders, the panel found “a distressing degree of inattention” to the role of nuclear weapons in deterring attacks on the United States.

Education in nuclear deterrence theory and practice at the nation’s top military schools has largely ended, senior-level exercises have stopped and the number of senior officials familiar with deterrence is rapidly dwindling and will soon become an “acute” problem, Schlesinger reported.

Many senior leaders “lack the foundation for understanding nuclear deterrence, its psychological content, its political nature and its military role — which is to avoid the use of nuclear weapons,” the report concluded.

Among Schlesinger’s recommendations: Send senior leaders back to school, ramp up training, consolidate responsibility for nuclear missions within the Pentagon bureaucracy and encourage the new administration to construct a new strategic framework to define the role that nuclear weapons should play.

The report also urged creation of a position of assistant secretary of Defense for deterrence to oversee the nation’s nuclear weapons programs.

Gates issued a short statement Thursday saying the nation’s force of intercontinental ballistic missiles, bombers and submarine-launched missiles “remains safe, secure and reliable.”

“No one should doubt our capabilities or our resolve to defend U.S. and allied interests by deterring aggression,” Gates said.

Schlesinger said Gates had reviewed all of his panel’s recommendations, and told reporters that “so far we have gotten no push-back” on them.

Underlying the Pentagon’s loss of focus on the nuclear mission, officials said, is uncertainty and confusion over how deterrence — the prospect of certain nuclear retaliation — works in an age when many of the potential U.S. adversaries are not states but terrorists who hold no territory and are clearly willing to engage in suicide attacks.

Within senior military and civilian circles, there have been ongoing debates about whether the leadership of Al Qaeda, for instance, would buy into the kind of mutual strategic deterrent rationale that governed the U.S.-Soviet confrontation during the Cold War.

Without a clear answer, many officials have simply turned to other issues, Schlesinger indicated.

The report said that the Navy had maintained its commitment to safeguarding nuclear weapons but that there had been “fraying at the edges,” and it urged Navy officials to conduct more frequent reviews of how it handles weapons programs. …

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....1904.story

There is a point here of sorts; al Qaeda will never feel threatened by our nuclear arsenal.

Of course, other nations do not either, because they know damn well that even if there are mushroom clouds over New York and Washington, America will likely lack the fortitude to use their nuclear weapons in response.

Not that most of our nuclear weapons will actually work given a few more years’ of neglect.

While our enemies have all modernized their arsenals over the years, the left has successfully painted simply updating ours from 1960s technology as somehow being an escalation of the “arms race.”

(Who we’ve been in a “race” with since the fall of the Soviet Union I’ll never know, as our enemies have been developing weapons at full speed anyway.)

Gay marriage foes want campaign contributions anonymous, citing ‘harassment’

By Jessica Garrison

Proponents of a ballot measure that banned same sex marriage filed a lawsuit in federal court this week seeking to overturn state campaign finance laws that require that names and personal information of donors to state political campaigns be made public.

They claimed that donors to Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California after one of the most heated campaigns in recent memory, have been the victim of threats and harassment because of their support for ending same-sex marriage was made public.

“This harassment is made possible because of California’s unconstitutional campaign finance disclosure rules as applied to ballot measure committees where even donors of as little as $100 must have their names, home addresses and employers listed on public documents,” Ron Prentice, head of the Protect Marriage Coalition, said in a statement.

Since 1974, state law has required that donors who give more than $100 must have their names disclosed.

The law was intended to prevent money laundering and to provide disclosure of who is making contributions to political campaigns. It has withstood several previous legal challenges. Experts on the 1st Amendment experts said they did not believe the suit stood much of a chance of success.

“This trashes the 1st Amendment and it is a thinly veiled attempt to eliminate transparency as to the role of money in state election campaigns,” said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU of Southern California. The ACLU was a major opponent of Proposition 8.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.co.....-of-1.html

Of course the ACLU would be upset; they’ve already put in so much work in setting up programs for splitting big donations into multiple anonymous $99.99 contributions.

Meanwhile, readers’ comments are of the usual “bigots hate the light of day” and “those who want to take away others’ civil rights deserve to be exposed” variety.

The Deficit Spending Blowout
The looming red ink is unlike anything in U.S. peacetime history.

Thanks to a 6.6% decline in revenues due to recession., a spending increase of some $500 billion or 19%, and assorted federal bailouts, the U.S. deficit for fiscal 2009 (ending September 30) will nearly triple to $1.19 trillion.. That’s 8.3% of GDP, which CBO says “will most likely shatter the previous post-World War II record high of 6.0 percent posted in 1983…..But there’s more. None of that includes the new fiscal “stimulus” that President-elect Obama has promised to introduce upon taking office in two weeks. The details aren’t known, but Mr. Obama and Democrats have been talking about at least $800 billion, and probably $1 trillion…if the economy stays slow the deficit could reach $1.8 trillion, or a gargantuan .12.5% of GDP.…..Federal expenditures are now rapidly outpacing the growth of the economy….we estimate the federal spending share of GDP will climb to 27.5%.…this money has to come from somewhere, which means that it is borrowed or taxed from the private economy. This spending blowout is .all but guaranteeing huge future tax increases, and anyone who thinks only the rich will pay is living an illusion.

http://online.wsj.com/article/.....62735.html

The decline is not due to “the rececssion”. It is due to the government forcing banks to make bad loans, and Democratic market maniputlations to win the election.

The decline is revenues is just the beginning. There will be no capital gains paid for 2008, which are usually about 20-30% of total tax revenues. Unemployment will add to that.

The race to have the government represent 27.5% of the economy is a disaster of unimaginable proporsions. Currently, the percentage is about 18%, so the Democrats are increasing government by 50% in one fell swoop.

The economic problems we are having are NOTHING compared to the proposed solution. It is DISASTROUS and might spell the end of the country as we know it.

This will spiral out of control, impact China and India, and dramatically increase the chances of another major war as China struggles to contain internal unrest.

But hey, this isn’t impacting the Kennedy’s and Kerry’s at all. They pay no taxes, have no need to work and live off guarnateed interest from municpal bonds. So you see, even a major depression will not affect those lions of our democracy. In fact, they will come out of it in 8 years or so in even better shape than they are now. That’s why they can happily force our country to swallow a poison pill.

As we have oft-noted, several Fox News producers do read this site. As do several of their correspondents.

For which we are grateful.