Billionaires That Belong to BRICS

(L to R) Brazil’s President Michel Temer, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, China’s President Xi Jinping, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi pose for a group photo during the BRICS 

Summit on September 4, 2017.    Wu Hong | Afp | Getty Images




Millionaire population in the BRICS countries will see a substantial surge over the next decade contributing to the largest increase in wealth across any group of nations, according to a recent report by Henley & Partners.

Millionaire count in the BRICS countries — which together hold $45 trillion in investable wealth — is forecast to rise by 85% over the next 10 years, the investment migration consultancy noted in its report published in partnership with global intelligence firm New World Wealth.


The BRICS bloc, which is composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates this year, with Saudi Arabia also set to join the bloc.

Currently, there are 1.6 million individuals with investable assets of more than a million in the group.     READ MORE...

Billionaires to Support Israel

A billionaire real estate tycoon in the United States is rallying support for a high-dollar media crusade to boost Israel’s image and demonize the Hamas armed group amid global pro-Palestinian solidarity protests.

The media campaign — called Facts for Peace — is seeking million-dollar donations from dozens of the world’s biggest names in media, finance and technology, according to an email seen by news website Semafor.

More than 50 individuals are being courted, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Dell CEO Michael Dell and financier Michael Milken. They have a combined net worth of around $500bn, Semafor said.  READ MORE...

Billionaires and Their Private Jets

HAILEY, Idaho — Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, flies in a Gulfstream G650. So do Jeff Bezos and Dan Schulman, PayPal’s chief executive. The jets, roughly 470 of which are in operation, retail for about $75 million each.

Most days, those planes are spread out, ferrying captains of industry to meetings around the globe. But for one week in July, some of them converge on a single 100-foot-wide asphalt runway beside the jagged hills of Idaho’s Wood River Valley.

The occasion is the annual Sun Valley conference, a shoulder-rubbing bonanza organized by the secretive investment bank Allen & Company. Known as “summer camp for billionaires,” the conference kicks off this year on Tuesday, and it draws industry titans and their families — some of whom are watched over by local babysitters bound by nondisclosure agreements. In between organized hikes and fly-fishing at past gatherings, there have been sessions on creativity, climate change and immigration reform.

For decades at these secluded gatherings, chief executives and board chairmen have made deals that have shaped the TV we watch, the news we consume and the products we buy. It is where, near the ninth hole of the golf course, the head of General Electric expressed interest in selling NBC to Comcast. It is where Mr. Bezos met with the owner of The Washington Post before agreeing to buy the paper, and where Disney pursued a plan to purchase ABC — with Warren Buffett at the center of the discussions.

It is also the biggest week of the year for Chris Pomeroy, the director of Friedman Memorial Airport and the man responsible for making sure all the moguls come and go smoothly.

In the months before the conference starts, Mr. Pomeroy prepares to play a high-stakes, three-dimensionsional game of Tetris with multimillion-dollar private jets as attendees travel to Sun Valley, a resort town with a year-round population of 1,800.

During a 24-hour period last year as the conference began, more than 300 flights passed through Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey, a small town near Sun Valley, according to data from Flightradar24, an industry data firm. They ranged from tiny propeller planes to long-wing commercial jets. By comparison, two weeks ago, when Mr. Pomeroy gave me a brief tour of the airport, just 44 flights took off or landed there over 24 hours, according to the data firm.  READ MORE...

Americans For Prosperity

The cries of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” rang throughout the marbled walls of the Wisconsin state assembly chamber. Disgusted Democratic politicians, some of whom had been up for over 60 hours by this point, punctuated their chants by throwing papers – and even drinks – at their Republican counterparts. Police officers had to be summoned to physically restrain one Democratic representative yelling “Cowards!” across the aisle.

The source of this confrontation, in the early hours of February 2011, was an unprecedented push by Wisconsin Republicans, led by the state’s newly elected Republican governor, Scott Walker, to slash the union rights held by most public workers. 

Walker argued that budget woes in the state necessitated the shift, and barrelled forward to eliminate the rights of virtually all public-sector workers to collectively bargain with government and to allow government employees to opt out of paying dues to their unions.

At first blush this might seem like a years-old local issue in a US state that rarely lights up the international headlines. Yet events in Wisconsin are crucial to understanding how a little-known, billionaire-funded organization, called Americans for Prosperity (AFP), has tilted American politics to the right. It is intertwined with, and rivals in size, the Republican party itself.

Where did Walker’s ultra-conservative labor agenda come from? As a candidate, Walker barely mentioned collective bargaining or union busting. And we know this plan did not come from voters. Before the legislation popped up on the agenda, Wisconsinites generally supported collective bargaining. Nationally, only about 40% of American adults favor curbs to public sector bargaining rights, and in Wisconsin, this minority level of support was about the same.

Instead, to understand what happened in Wisconsin – and what is happening in states across the country – we need to look to the underappreciated organization that is at the center of the political network created and directed by the billionaire conservative industrialists, Charles and David Koch.  READ MORE...

America's Billionaires Control Americans

A new study reveals how the wealthy engage in ‘stealth politics’: quietly advancing unpopular, inequality-exacerbating, highly conservative policies

If we judge US billionaires by their most prominent fellows, they may seem to be a rather attractive bunch: ideologically diverse (perhaps even tending center-left), frank in speaking out about their political views, and generous in philanthropic giving for the common good – not to mention useful for the goods and jobs they have helped produce.

The very top titans – Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates – have all taken left-of-center stands on various issues, and Buffett and Gates are paragons of philanthropy. The former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is known for his advocacy of gun control, gay rights, and environmental protection. George Soros (protector of human rights around the world) and Tom Steyer (focused on young people and environmental issues) have been major donors to the Democrats. 

In recent years, investigative journalists have also brought to public attention Charles and David Koch, mega-donors to ultra-conservative causes. But given the great prominence of several left-of-center billionaires, this may merely seem to right the balance, filling out a picture of a sort of Madisonian pluralism among billionaires.

Unfortunately, this picture is misleading. Our new, systematic study of the 100 wealthiest Americans indicates that Buffett, Gates, Bloomberg et al are not at all typical. Most of the wealthiest US billionaires – who are much less visible and less reported on – more closely resemble Charles Koch. 

They are extremely conservative on economic issues. Obsessed with cutting taxes, especially estate taxes – which apply only to the wealthiest Americans. Opposed to government regulation of the environment or big banks. Unenthusiastic about government programs to help with jobs, incomes, healthcare, or retirement pensions – programs supported by large majorities of Americans. Tempted to cut deficits and shrink government by cutting or privatizing guaranteed social security benefits.

How can this be so? If it is true, why aren’t voters aware and angry about it?  READ MORE...

Against Big Government and Their Controls

 

There are basically two groups of people living here in the United States and each group has their little spinoffs...  these two groups are:

Those who favor BIG GOVERNMENT (50%)

Those who favor SMALL GOVERNMENT (50%)

It would appear that the United States is equally divided in what it believes and what it wants which in a way is damn near perfect because one side does not control more than the other side...

However,

our Federal Government SHOULD NOT TELL US what we should or should not do with our bodies...

that is to say:

1. if a woman wants to get an abortion she should be allowed to get an abortion
2. if a male/female does not want to get a COVID vaccine they should be allowed to do so
3. if a male/female want to take illegal drugs they should be allowed to do so
4. if a male/female wants to drink alcohol they should be allowed to do so
5. if a male/female wants to smoke cigarettes they should be allowed to do so
6. if a male/female wants to own a firearm they should be allowed to do so
7. if a male/female wants to become a terrorist they should be allowed to do so
8. if a male/female wants to sell illegal drugs they should be allowed to do so
9. if a male/female wants to speak out against the government they should be allowed to do so
10. if a male/female does not want to pursue an education they should be allowed to do so
11. if a male/female wants to get themselves into endless debt they should be allowed to do so
12. if a male/female does not want to pay higher taxes they should be allowed to do so
13. if a male/female wants to change genders they should be allowed to do so
14. if a male/female wants to believe in communism they should be allowed to do so
15. if a male/female wants to worship their God(s) they should be allowed to do so
16. if a male/female hates other races or ethnic groups they should be allowed to do so
17. if a male/female wants to organize a movement to defund the police they should be allowed to do so
18. if a male/female believes the US Constitution should be written they should be allowed to believe that way
19. if a male/female steals something from someone else they should be allowed to do so (but punished)
20. if a male/female wants to be homeless they should be allowed to do so

The United States...  IN ALL ITS GREATNESS...  has not been able to prevent the WEALTHY from CONTROLLING all of those individuals and couples that are NOT WEALTHY...

The BIGGEST PROBLEM in the United States is NOT politics, employment, education, or healthcare...  it is all the MILLIONAIRES AND BILLIONAIRES who invest their monies in CONTROLLING AMERICANS...

A Colonizing Space Mindset

An artist’s rendition of a future space colony. Credit: Shutterstock

It was a time of political uncertainty, cultural conflict and social change. Private ventures exploited technological advances and natural resources, generating unprecedented fortunes while wreaking havoc on local communities and environments. The working poor crowded cities, spurring property-holders to develop increased surveillance and incarceration regimes. Rural areas lay desolate, buildings vacant, churches empty—the stuff of moralistic elegies.

Epidemics raged, forcing quarantines in the ports and lockdowns in the streets. Mortality data was the stuff of weekly news and commentary.

Depending on the perspective, mobility—chosen or compelled—was either the cause or the consequence of general disorder. Uncontrolled mobility was associated with political instability, moral degeneracy and social breakdown. However, one form of planned mobility promised to solve these problems: colonization.

Europe and its former empires have changed a lot since the 17th century. But the persistence of colonialism as a supposed panacea suggests we are not as far from the early modern period as we think.

Colonial promise of limitless growth
Seventeenth-century colonial schemes involved plantations around the Atlantic, and motivations that now sound archaic. Advocates of expansion such as the English writer Richard Hakluyt, whose Discourse of Western Planting (1584) outlined the benefits of empire for Queen Elizabeth: the colonization of the New World would prevent Spanish Catholic hegemony and provide a chance to claim Indigenous souls for Protestantism.  READ MORE

Surviving A Global Collapse of Society

New Zealand, Iceland, the UK, Tasmania and Ireland are the places best suited to survive a global collapse of society, according to a study.

The researchers said human civilisation was “in a perilous state” due to the highly interconnected and energy-intensive society that had developed and the environmental damage this had caused.

A collapse could arise from shocks, such as a severe financial crisis, the impacts of the climate crisis, destruction of nature, an even worse pandemic than Covid-19 or a combination of these, the scientists said.

To assess which nations would be most resilient to such a collapse, countries were ranked according to their ability to grow food for their population, protect their borders from unwanted mass migration, and maintain an electrical grid and some manufacturing ability. Islands in temperate regions and mostly with low population densities came out on top.

The researchers said their study highlighted the factors that nations must improve to increase resilience. They said that a globalised society that prized economic efficiency damaged resilience, and that spare capacity needed to exist in food and other vital sectors.

Billionaires have been reported to be buying land for bunkers in New Zealand in preparation for an apocalypse. “We weren’t surprised New Zealand was on our list,” said Prof Aled Jones, at the Global Sustainability Institute, at Anglia Ruskin University, in the UK.

Jones added: “We chose that you had to be able to protect borders and places had to be temperate. So with hindsight it’s quite obvious that large islands with complex societies on them already [make up the list].  READ MORE

Only 6% of Americans aren't worried about anything

I.  There are 540 billionaires in the United States, with a combined net worth of $2.399 trillion, according to our 2016 list of the world's richest people.

II.  According to the report, the US has 18.6 million millionaires, highest in the world.

III.  As of 2019, the USA had a population of 328 million

If we were to add I and II, the result would be about 19 million...  as a percentage of 328 million, the result would be .06 or 6%

What does this mean?

Billionaires and Millionaires represent 6% of the total population of the USA...  while, 94% of the population of the USA are not Millionaires or Billionaires.

Think about this!

Those who are in the 6% are telling those of us who are in the 94% not to worry about the financial implications of COVID-19 and the fact that they are out-of-work and pretty much staying-at-home.