Browsing the Forbes 400 list, some things I noticed....
First, that most of these people are NOT household names. How many Americans have seriously heard of Len Blavatnik, Andrew Beal, or James Goodnight?
I don't blame you if you haven't. Most of the richest Americans are not flashy media figures.
Which leads me to my second point: That America's richest people are, by and large, NOT in the entertainment, academic, research, scientific, or other fields that are stereotypically thought of as the "liberal elites." These are the real elites, and most of them are not "liberal", I can tell you that. Most of their wealth comes from the usual suspects-banking, hedge funds, investments, oil, natural gas, real estate, insurance, family foundations, etc.
Finally, there are several thousands of Americans who are almost as wealthy as the Forbes 400-I'm talking about the multimillionaires, not the billionaires. Someone like Mitt Romney would fall into the upper end of this category (hundreds of millions of dollars in net worth). These people are also quite powerful, when taken as a group.
These people have so much $$$$, that they can literally buy elected office, especially since Citizens United and other court rulings that have strengthened the link between private profit and public service. How can we let this kind of thing happen to America?
