A Billionaire Case Study of Inheritance Influence, Power and Democracy
Howard Buffett, son of multibillionaire Warren Buffett, has long dominated the social and political life of the central Illinois town of Decatur. It’s a case study in how extreme wealth hollows out democracy.
Source: Howard Buffet’s Oligarchic Playground in Small-Town America
What has Morrison done? He’s left two Russian Oligarch’s investments in Australia alone. In fact he simply ignored the Panama and Pandora papers when they came out. Money laundering and tax evasion are still a hugely lucrative business for the banks and accounting firms in Australia.
The first step in fixing the hidden wealth system is ownership transparency—requiring disclosure of beneficial ownership in real estate, trusts, and companies and corporations. Cities like Los Angeles are exploring municipal-level disclosure of real estate ownership so they can know who is buying the neighborhood. But we should sign a spotlight on the enabling wealth defense industry. Days after the release of the Pandora Papers, U.S. lawmakers introduced the ENABLERS Act, to require such attorneys, wealth managers, real estate professionals and art dealers to report suspicious activity. The attention on Russian oligarchs has revived interest in this legislation. If the U.S. wants to clamp down on Russian oligarchs, the first step is to get our own house in order.
Source: Crack Down on Russian Oligarchs by Cracking Down on US Tax Havens | The Smirking Chimp
Trumpers are individual privateers just doing it for themselves. There is no Trickle Down only a Trickle Up end game as far as they’re concerned. Trump is playing that out through the Capitalist Democracy of America. It’s institutional court system allows payment for justice and appeals after appeals and can be bought. Russian Oligarchs thought they were safe in that enviroment, but are now looking for safer, more hidden and dark harbors. Their DNA like Trump’s is the same and completely transactional.
The appearance of superyachts near the Maldives and Seychelles this week illustrates the degree to which Russian oligarchs are panicking in response to the sanctions the West has imposed on Russia and the ultra-wealthy businessmen seen close to Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine.Superyachts belonging to billionaires Victor Rashnikov, Oleg Deripazska, Alexei Mordashov and Andrey Kostin are floating around the island nations, according to Bloomberg reports.
Source: Russia-Ukraine war: Russia’s oligarchs rush to put wealth beyond sanctions
Because of a corrupt Supreme Court, oligarchs and the corporations that made them rich have taken over the American political system. If we don’t take it back from them soon, the entire experiment of an American democratic republic will come to an end.
via How the Supreme Court and the Morbidly Rich Are Ruining Democracy in America | The Smirking Chimp
Labor senator Sam Dastyari has warned there is something “fundamentally wrong and rotten” with Australia’s entire political system, claiming there are 10 huge companies with so much power and influence they have killed proper democratic process at the federal level in this country.
Source: Labor senator Sam Dastyari claims 10 companies have taken control of Australian politics
Frequent presidential candidate and all-around rich guy Mitt Romney, who once referred to the poorest 47 percent of Americans as “takers.” Maria Dryfhout / Shutterstock.com
This won’t come as a total shock, but there’s some new hard data to back up what we already suspect anecdotally: Our democracy is really an oligarchy.
Looking at actual policy and polling, researchers at Princeton concluded that the wealthiest Americans tend to get what they want, or at least they did between 1981 and 2002 (the time frame on which the study focuses).
“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,” write Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, “while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”
Another quote from the peer-reviewed study: “When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it.”
Further reading (and depression) can be found at TPM and the Telegraph.
For the record, the technical definition of an oligarchy is a country or institution controlled by a small group of people.
The theory of “biased pluralism” that the Princeton and Northwestern researchers believe the US system fits holds that policy outcomes “tend to tilt towards the wishes of corporations and business and professional associations.” Over the past few decades America’s political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.
olddogthoughts 