Tag Archives: Billionaires

A Return To The Gilded Age.

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During his second inaugural speech, Donald J. Trump, he of the golden toilets, announced that he would lead America into a “Golden Age.” What does that mean? Well, based on his executive orders to date and his roadmap called Project 2025, it appears that he wants to return the U.S. to the Gilded Age of the late 1800s when our economy was controlled by a small group of ruthless men who eventually became labeled Robber Barons.

In other words, the Gilded Age was a time when all the nation’s wealth trickled upward to the likes of Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, Jim Fisk and others. Through a combination of inspiration, luck, and insatiable greed, these people created monopolies based on unfettered access to the continent’s natural resources. By 1890, one percent of American families controlled as much as 51 percent of the nation’s wealth. Most of the rest of the nation’s citizens, especially people of color and women, were relegated to a life of hardships and poverty.

That era only came to an end because of economic depression, exposure of corruption by courageous journalists, a populist movement that instituted regulations and antitrust laws, and the Second Industrial Age.

Trump’s so-called Golden Age promises to be worse.

To begin, in 2014 an extensive study determined that the United States could no longer be called a democracy, but an oligarchy – a government controlled by a few wealthy elites. And they have gained even more power under the new Trump administration. Indeed, his campaign was financed by billionaires such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, all of whom were front and center at the inauguration.

Once in power, Trump appointed at least seven billionaires to powerful government positions. And who was the ally given the most power? Elon Musk, the world’s richest man with more than $400 billion in mostly government and Chinese money, who (coincidentally?) also donated the most to Trump’s campaign.

These unelected people are the ones who will benefit the most from Trump’s promise to cut taxes. These are the people who will reap the most rewards from a hollowed-out federal government that repeals regulations. These are the people who will benefit most from Project 2025’s planned attack on labor unions. These are the people who will remain unharmed by Trump’s trade war. And these people will almost certainly be among the very few who will benefit from the economic recession that almost certainly will result from Trump’s actions – actions that will lead to even more wealth disparity between billionaires and ordinary working people. (In 2023, the top one percent already controlled 30 percent of American wealth. And fifty percent of Americans controlled 97.5 percent of the wealth.)

Musk, aided and abetted by Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson and other congressional Republicans, is also the one given unparalleled power by the Felon-in-Chief to lead the ongoing coup against our government and the Constitution through the newly formed and unofficial agency called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk claims his agency should be pronounced “doej”, but it would be more aptly pronounced “douche”. And, without constitutional Article I authority, the lead douchebag has taken control of multiple agencies that are created and funded by Congress.

In just 14 days, Musk has taken control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and unconstitutionally shuttered the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He has also blocked communications between government agencies and the American citizenry – all without congressional approval.

Of course, there are precedents for these kinds of actions. We have seen them executed by dictators and fascists the world over. But they have never before been seen in the United States of America where we are now watching our once proud democracy circle down the drain of one of Trump’s golden toilets.

The Panama Papers? Why Not The Delaware Papers?

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While the Panama Papers exposed thousands of politicians and billionaires who have used off-shore tax havens to hide trillions of dollars from taxes, the leaked papers will likely have little effect on Americans. It’s not that American corporations, billionaires and politicians are any more trustworthy than their foreign counterparts. It’s just that they don’t need to hide their money in the Cayman Islands when they can hide it in a much safer and less transparent refuge…the United States.

That’s right, the US is quickly becoming the world’s capital for money-laundering and tax shelters. Outside of Kenya, the US is now the easiest country in the world to open an anonymous shell corporation. No need to move your money off shore; no need to hire a Panamanian law firm; no need to place your trust in the economy of a third world country. Instead, you can open a shell company in Delaware, Nevada or South Dakota that will allow you to invest your money anonymously.

A recent article in the Washington Post noted that, if it weren’t for such schemes, the US Treasury would annually collect an additional $36 billion from wealthy individuals and an additional $88 billion from multinational corporations. That’s $124 billion a year that could be used to pay for public schools, to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, and to improve public transportation!

And US citizens are not the only ones who are taking advantage of our lax tax laws.

According to TaxHavenUSA.com, the US has become the world’s largest tax haven for wealthy non-residents. You see, Congress, in an attempt to encourage more investment in US securities, made it easier for non-residents to invest through “pass through” or “disregarded” tax entities. These are the same vehicles the Koch brothers and their wealthy rightwing friends are using to influence elections without disclosing the source of their funding.

Through these LLCs, non-residents can easily open US financial accounts and make investments in securities without paying US taxes on the income they earn. They can avoid US capital gains taxes. Further, the investors in these entities can operate businesses outside the US while taking advantage of US corporate tax write-offs and incentives. Thanks to a variety of treaties, non-resident investors can reduce their tax liabilities in other countries, as well. They can transfer income to other, lower tax nations. All the while their investments are protected by the full faith and credit of the US. Their US bank accounts are even protected by the FDIC! Best of all, the investors in these entities can all remain anonymous.

So if you’re expecting the Panama Papers to reveal names like Charles Koch, David Koch, Sheldon Adelson, Mitt Romney, or Donald Trump alongside such people as David Cameron, Vladimir Putin and the House of Saud, don’t hold your breath. Like me, you’re probably going to be sorely disappointed.

Falling Behind Russia.

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For those Americans who still consider Russia a rival of the US, I have bad news. We have fallen behind the Great Russian Bear in one important economic category: Russia is one of the few nations on the planet with more economic disparity than ours.

In the US, the top one percent own 40 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 80 percent own just 7 percent. But in Russia, just 110 people own 35 percent of the nation’s wealth! According to a report by Credit Suisse, “Russia has the highest level of wealth inequality in the world, apart from small Caribbean nations with resident billionaires.”

Damn those Russians! We used to be number one!

Of course, this means our greedy billionaires will need to step up their game. We know they’re trying. The Koch brothers funded the government shutdown over “Obamacare” in order to maintain the status quo. Wall Street, the health care industry, and defense contractors have increased their lobbying groups in Washington. And the US Supreme Court is currently hearing a court case that may allow the obscenely wealthy to better purchase politicians and political favors under the guise of free speech.

But even that may not be enough. So the bought-and-paid-for Teapublicans are working overtime to privatize Social Security, Medicare, our military, prisons, schools and every other institution in the US. The claim is that this will make the institutions run more efficiently and more cheaply. But, in reality, privatization merely makes these institutions less responsive while adding to their costs and the corporations’ bottom lines.

But who are the poor and the middle class to complain? This is about national pride. We’re exceptional!  We have to be number one. USA! USA! USA!