
How to Cover the One Percent - xoher
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/01/14/how-to-cover-the-one-percent/
======
jnbiche
I'm ambivalent about this article. While I agree that the hidden power of
mega-philanthropists is unsettling, the hidden players of our "public"
government are orders of magnitude more powerful.

Frankly, differentiating between the "public" and "private" when discussing
the ills of the %1 is pointless [1]. People at this level of society move in
and out of the top levels of corporations and government all the time. They
socialize together, intermarry, and share family bonds. Only together have big
business and big government created this massive feedback loop that promotes
inequality and loss of freedom for the common man.

It pains me to see my "right" and "left" leaning friends blame one side of the
coin while completing ignoring the damage wrought by the flip side.

1\. To be clear, the top 0.01% is what the article is really referring to,
since the top %1 includes people like successful everyday doctors and lawyers.
Perhaps a small cadre of powerful bureaucrats at this income level could be
reasonably included in the top tier group the article refers to, but for the
most part, these are people who are wealthy and influential in their local
communities, but decidedly not actors at the level the article describes.

~~~
laotzu
>It pains me to see my "right" and "left" leaning friends blame one side of
the coin while completing ignoring the damage wrought by the flip side.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and many others explicitly
warned about this.

>The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit
of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries
has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.
But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The
disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek
security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or
later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than
his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation,
on the ruins of public liberty. Without looking forward to an extremity of
this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the
common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make
it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

-George Washington, Farewell Address

It's the age old strategy of divide et impera. It couldn't work if the masses
weren't arguing futilely among themselves:

>Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means
that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain
unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in
Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He
kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get
together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves
in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out
of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.

-MLK, I've Been to the Mountaintop. Last speech given the night before assassination.

~~~
cmdrfred
I consider myself a skeptic. To me JFK was killed by a lone gunman, we went to
the moon, and 911 wasn't a inside job. Then I read I've Been to the
Mountaintop and wonder if there wasn't some involvement, at some level, from
the US government (or those who control it) in MLK's death. It is already
proven they attempted to discredit him, did they simply take that one step
further?

Then I look at stuff like black lives matter. More white people were killed by
police last year than black people. What did all the people murdered by police
have in common? They were male, and they were poor. Are we sure this is a
white/black problem and not a rich/poor one? Framing it in the black/white
context seems to keep the for profit prisons humming along happily.

~~~
adam1davis
There's a kernel of truth here, but you have to be careful about comparing
_numbers_ of white/black people killed/jailed. You need to look at the per-
capita (percentage) killed or jailed. There are way more "white" people so of
course there are more of them killed/jailed/whatever! But when you look at the
percentage then you see the injustice. "The country is about 63 percent white
and 12 percent black... death rate due to legal intervention was more than
three times higher for blacks than for whites in the period from 1988 to
1997."

Source:
[http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/aug/21/...](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/aug/21/michael-
medved/talk-show-host-police-kill-more-whites-blacks/)

~~~
cmdrfred
I understand that but black people have statically lower incomes and that
might be a reason that they are over represented. What you never see is police
killing women or the wealthy of any color.

------
rubidium
"Ten years ago, for example, Google had a one-person lobbying shop in
Washington; today, it has more than one hundred lobbyists working out of an
office roughly the size of the White House. " ... to the tune of $16.8 Million
dollars.

[https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00002200...](https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000022008)

I really like this article. It's a well-researched call to action for
journalists to do real investigative work.

------
eliben
Top 1% is (based on [http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/income-
rank/](http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/income-rank/)) >$400k / year income.
The billionaires this article talks about are in much, much higher brackets -
maybe something like top %0.01

* P.S. based on another source [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2015/01/26/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2015/01/26/what-the-top-1-percent-makes-in-every-state/)], it's state-dependent and the highest I see is $678k in CT

~~~
rubidium
1% in journalism = the elite wealthy controlling banks, businesses and
bureaucrats.

------
ideonexus
Summary: The wealthy are using non-profits, charities, and foundations to push
political agendas at the expense of taxpayers who are footing the bill because
these institutions are also tax write-offs.

The article focuses on these organizations pushing advocacy, but I would also
add that many "non-profit" organizations are actually incredibly profit-
focused. An early introduction to this for me was growing up next to the
Christian Broadcasting Network, a charitable organization that was raking in
millions of dollars selling alternative medicines, opening five-star
restaurants, hosting luxurious retreats, while also raking in donations from
the poor people who would tune into the show seeking god's grace [1].

I see the same thing with Mega Churches, which are springing up like fast food
franchises all over the DC-Metro region. These enormous buildings are raking
in profits every Sunday while giving nothing back in taxes to pay for the
roads, utilities, and emergency services the community provides for them.
Taxpayers are losing $71 billion a year in revenues because of these for-
profit franchises [2].

It isn't just religious institutions either. I've stopped giving blood to the
American Red Cross in favor of donating it directly to my local hospital so
they don't have to pay the overhead that comes with Red Cross blood [3]. The
DC-Metro area is packed with "non-profits" that are really for-profit
companies that pay out their profits directly to CEOs and board members while
sending lobbyists to the National Mall to buy expensive lunches for our
Representatives.

The article notes that the alternative is the European system of not providing
tax-breaks for these organizations--which results in much fewer organizations.
It's hard for me to accept that when I think of all the organizations I
_perceive_ as doing good in America, but maybe they aren't really doing good
and are simply enjoying the good sentiments that come with the words "charity"
and "non-profit?"

[1]
[http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20070327/NEWS/70327037...](http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20070327/NEWS/703270372?Title=Lawsuit-
says-evangelist-Pat-Robertson-abuses-tax-free-status-to-push-product)

[2] [http://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/how-to-
make-71...](http://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/how-to-
make-71-billion-a-year-tax-the-churches)

[3] [http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/07/business/all-about-
blood-b...](http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/07/business/all-about-blood-banks-
a-multibillion-dollar-business-in-a-nonprofit-world.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
lmm
> The article notes that the alternative is the European system of not
> providing tax-breaks for these organizations--which results in much fewer
> organizations. It's hard for me to accept that when I think of all the
> organizations I perceive as doing good in America, but maybe they aren't
> really doing good and are simply enjoying the good sentiments that come with
> the words "charity" and "non-profit?"

You've got to ask how much of those sectors' income is going to organizations
that are doing good, and how much is not. And remember that taxes are used for
the public good, so the bar to be tax exempt should not be merely "is this
organization doing good?" but rather "is this organization doing more good per
dollar than is done with general taxation?"

~~~
barney54
Is the government "doing good?" There is some good, but there is a case that
non-profits such as the Red Cross, churches, food banks, are more accountable
and do more good.

To me non-profits do far more good per dollar than the government does through
general taxation. The biggest reason why is that non-profits have a much more
defined scope and mission.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I find it _very_ difficult to believe that the Red Cross does more good than
Medicare and Medicaid, or that food banks do more good than Food Stamps.

~~~
dignan
You're comparing an organization with a budget of about $3 billion to one with
a budget of over $1 TRILLION. It's a nonsensical comparison.

