492 US billionaires times $3.5M = $1.722 Billion

[arendt]

To a billionaire, $3.5M is 0.3% of total worth.

By themselves, billioniares could easily spend more than the entire US presidential year campaign budget.

Surprisingly (not) it is hard to get exact breakdowns. The next level of granularity I could easily find says there were 8, 274 tax returns filed for incomes above $10M. That's incomes, not net worth.

Making a wild guess, based on the exponentially shrinking population vs worth, there are probably at least 2,000 people worth more than $100 M. Suppose these "poor" folks could only pony up $1 M. Taking out the top 500 billionaires, we have

1,500 centimillionaires times $1 M = another $1.5 Billion.

So, basically, the top 2,000 people can spend three times as much as was spent in 2012 and not even notice its missing.

This is Burke's peerage on steroids. The same number of oligarchs in the US today controls god knows how many times as much wealth as the stinking British aristos did a hundred years ago.

Why did no one with access to a pocket calculator make this argument to SCOTUS?

This country is now officially an oligarchy. Money talks and democracy walks. The dirty SCOTUS5 have sold us out because they are ideologues. Politics is now an official joke.

[FarCenter]

1. But would they? Billionaires didn't become billionaires by betting on losers.

[librechik]

2. anybody who depends on the good will (or common sense) of billionaires

should have their head examined.