Wealthy Psychopaths Hate Competition

By Philippe Gastonne

Sam Wilkin is an economist and has been studying the very rich for most of his working life. And he's not talking about ordinarily loaded here… No, he's talking about 'a fortune of yachts and personal helicopters, of diamond-encrusted light fixtures, of stately homes and private islands, of your name emblazoned upon landmark buildings and a charitable foundation bravely tackling world issues'. A fortune that ensures your name will live forever, even if you can't.

Suppose such a fortune was your goal. How would you acquire it? Wilkin seeks to answer this question by studying the relatively small number of people in history who have achieved this. And he finds a certain number of common factors.

Wilkin has determined that behind almost every great fortune, there lies what he calls a 'wealth secret'. This is a piece of knowledge or a technique that, while not exactly criminal, certainly skirts the customs of the time, and possibly the laws as well. All of them, he says, involve 'some sort of scheme for defeating the forces of market competition'. Many involve legal maneuverings or the exercising of political influence. Boldness and fearlessness are a given. Psychopathy helps, too.

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/wealthy-psychopaths-hate-competition/

That the super-rich are not like you and me is no surprise. Among other differences, they have billions of Federal Reserve Notes to their name – more than they can possibly spend. How does one join them?

The author profiled in today's article asks that question. He finds that massive wealth most often arises from having "some sort of scheme for defeating the forces of market competition." Usually this includes "legal maneuverings" and "political influence."

Your correspondent has long questioned the simplistic American narrative that working hard, thinking positively and having great ideas brings financial success. That theory simply doesn't match the empirical evidence.

We all know people who work hard, think positive and have great ideas, yet are not wealthy.

We also know lazy fools who somehow amassed a fortune.

Since the correlations clearly aren't causative, some other force must be at work. Professor Wilkin's book suggests the wealthy become so not by excelling in a competitive economy, but by making it uncompetitive. This applies to modern tech titans as well as 19th century robber barons.

Would today's large corporations exist if government didn't grant them special privileges and/or restrain potential competitors? Maybe some would, but the majority clearly would not. This means they would not have grown so large, and their founders would not have grown so wealthy.

Their main tool is the modern regulatory state. The reams of regulation that govern manufacturing and distribution of practically anything create economies of scale where none would otherwise exist.

For example, Apple can afford to have hundreds of engineers and attorneys decipher the technical rules of the Federal Communications Commission, and equivalent agencies in other countries. The person who thinks he can build a better smartphone in his garage can't call on that resource. He won't succeed no matter how great his idea is or how hard he works.

Maybe some people do acquire great wealth without political influence, but we can't think of many examples. Wealth, political corruption and moral weakness always seem to find each other. As the article says, "It's all very well being the best in your field, but it's much more lucrative to be the only."

Now Just Five Men Own Almost as Much Wealth as Half the World's Population

by Paul Buchheit

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/06/12/now-just-five-men-own-almost-much-wealth-half-worlds-population

Last year it was 8 men, then down to 6, and now almost 5. 

While Americans fixate on Trump, the super-rich are absconding with our wealth, and the plague of inequality continues to grow. An analysis of 2016 data found that the poorest five deciles of the world population own about $410 billion in total wealth. As of 06/08/17, the world's richest five men owned over $400 billion in wealth. Thus, on average, each man owns nearly as much as 750 million people. 

Why Do We Let a Few People Shift Great Portions of the World's Wealth to Themselves? 

Most of the super-super-rich are Americans. We the American people created the Internet, developed and funded Artificial Intelligence, and built a massive transportation infrastructure, yet we let just a few individuals take almost all the credit, along with hundreds of billions of dollars. 

Defenders of the out-of-control wealth gap insist that all is OK, because, after all, America is a 'meritocracy' in which the super-wealthy have 'earned' all they have. They heed the words of Warren Buffett: "The genius of the American economy, our emphasis on a meritocracy and a market system and a rule of law has enabled generation after generation to live better than their parents did." 

But it's not a meritocracy. Children are no longer living better than their parents did. In the eight years since the recession the Wilshire Total Market valuation has more than TRIPLED, rising from a little over $8 trillion to nearly $25 trillion. The great majority of it has gone to the very richest Americans. In 2016 alone, the richest 1% effectively shifted nearly $4 trillion in wealth away from the rest of the nation to themselves, with nearly half of the wealth transfer ($1.94 trillion) coming from the nation's poorest 90%—the middle and lower classes. That's over $17,000 in housing and savings per lower-to-middle-class household lost to the super-rich. 

A meritocracy? Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos have done little that wouldn't have happened anyway. ALL modern U.S. technology started with—and to a great extent continues with—our tax dollars and our research institutes and our subsidies to corporations.

Why Do We Let Unqualified Rich People Tell Us How To Live? Especially Bill Gates! 

In 1975, at the age of 20, Bill Gates founded Microsoft with high school buddy Paul Allen. At the time Gary Kildall's CP/M operating system was the industry standard. Even Gates' company used it. But Kildall was an innovator, not a businessman, and when IBM came calling for an OS for the new IBM PC, his delays drove the big mainframe company to Gates. Even though the newly established Microsoft company couldn't fill IBM's needs, Gates and Allen saw an opportunity, and so they hurriedly bought the rights to another local company's OS -- which was based on Kildall's CP/M system. Kildall wanted to sue, but intellectual property law for software had not yet been established. Kildall was a maker who got taken. 

So Bill Gates took from others to become the richest man in the world. And now, because of his great wealth and the meritocracy myth, MANY PEOPLE LOOK TO HIM FOR SOLUTIONS IN VITAL AREAS OF HUMAN NEED, such as education and global food production. 

—Gates on Education: He has promoted galvanic skin response monitors to measure the biological reactions of students, and the videotaping of teachers to evaluate their performances. About schools he said, "The best results have come in cities where the mayor is in charge of the school system. So you have one executive, and the school board isn’t as powerful." 

—Gates on Africa: With investments in or deals with Monsanto, Cargill, and Merck, Gates has demonstrated his preference for corporate control over poor countries deemed unable to help themselves. But no problem—according to Gates, "By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world."

Warren Buffett: Demanding To Be Taxed at a Higher Rate (As Long As His Own Company Doesn't Have To Pay)

Warren Buffett has advocated for higher taxes on the rich and a reasonable estate tax. But his company Berkshire Hathaway has used "hypothetical amounts" to 'pay' its taxes while actually deferring $77 billion in real taxes.

Jeff Bezos: $50 Billion in Less Than Two Years, and Fighting Taxes All the Way 

Since the end of 2015 Jeff Bezos has accumulated enough wealth to cover the entire $50 billion U.S. housing budget, which serves five million Americans. Bezos, who has profited greatly from the Internet and the infrastructure built up over many years by many people with many of our tax dollars, has used tax havens and high-priced lobbyists to avoid the taxes owed by his company.

Mark Zuckerberg (6th Richest in World, 4th Richest in America) 

While Zuckerberg was developing his version of social networking at Harvard, Columbia University students Adam Goldberg and Wayne Ting built a system called Campus Network, which was much more sophisticated than the early versions of Facebook. But Zuckerberg had the Harvard name and better financial support. It was also alleged that Zuckerberg hacked into competitors' computers to compromise user data. 

Now with his billions he has created a 'charitable' foundation, which in reality is a tax-exempt limited liability company, leaving him free to make political donations or sell his holdings, all without paying taxes. 

Everything has fallen into place for young Zuckerberg. Nothing left to do but run for president.

The False Promise of Philanthropy 

Many super-rich individuals have pledged the majority of their fortunes to philanthropic causes. That's very generous, if they keep their promises. But that's not really the point. 

American billionaires all made their money because of the research and innovation and infrastructure that make up the foundation of our modern technologies. They have taken credit, along with their massive fortunes, for successes that derive from society rather than from a few individuals. It should not be any one person's decision about the proper use of that wealth. Instead a significant portion of annual national wealth gains should be promised to education, housing, health research, and infrastructure. That is what Americans and their parents and grandparents have earned after a half-century of hard work and productivity.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago. His latest book is, Disposable Americans: Extreme Capitalism and the Case for a Guaranteed Income. He is also founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org),  and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul [at] UsAgainstGreed [dot] org.

How America Is Being Sold Off, Richest 5 Men Own Half The World & More

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crblxxh2gsE

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