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… Five super-rich men are deciding the GOP nomination - A quarter of the money that has fueled a bitter nomination battle among Republican White House hopefuls, from which no settled favorite has yet emerged, has come from just five super-rich Americans. The sway that wealthy donors have been able to exert has come about due to them pouring money into so-called super PACs, political action committees with no formal affiliation to a candidate but, more crucially, no funding cap. […] Around $126 million has so far been donated to super PACS, with nearly 25 percent of that money coming from Simmons, Adelson, Friess, Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, and Houston construction magnate Bob Perry.
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Five super-rich men are deciding the GOP nomination - A quarter of the money that has fueled a bitter nomination battle among Republican White House hopefuls, from which no settled favorite has yet emerged, has come from just five super-rich Americans. The sway that wealthy donors have been able to exert has come about due to them pouring money into so-called super PACs, political action committees with no formal affiliation to a candidate but, more crucially, no funding cap. […] Around $126 million has so far been donated to super PACS, with nearly 25 percent of that money coming from Simmons, Adelson, Friess, Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, and Houston construction magnate Bob Perry.

… Cause of the still terrible job market? The wealthy and the “great consumer bust” Joshua Holland at Alternet discusses the fallacy of the wealthy as ‘job creators’ and the fact that without working- and middle-class consumers, there isn’t a need for more jobs. And without good jobs, Americans have no money to spend: Consumer demand accounts for around 70 percent of our economic output. And with so much wealth having been redistributed upward through a 40-year class-war from above, American consumers are too tapped out to spend as they once did. This remains the core issue in this sluggish, largely jobless recovery. The wealthy, in their voracious appetite for a bigger piece of the national pie, are the real job-killers in this economic climate. Don’t take my word for it. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that “the main reason U.S. companies are reluctant to step up hiring is scant demand, rather than uncertainty over government policies, according to a majority of economists” the paper surveyed. That jibes with what business owners themselves are saying. Last week, the National Federation of Independent Businesses released a survey of small businessmen and women that found widespread “pessimism about future business conditions and expected real sales gains.” New York Times reporter David Leonhardt wrote this week that “We are living through a tremendous bust. It isn’t simply a housing bust. It’s a fizzling of the great consumer bubble that was decades in the making.” Related: The growing income gap, stalled economic growth, and financial deregulation The American Dream: we’ve gone from ‘prosperity for all’ to ‘the rich takes all’ Middle America since 1979: doing more work for less money, even as corporate profits rise Tax breaks to the wealthy will never create jobs 19 Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America
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Cause of the still terrible job market? The wealthy and the “great consumer bust”

Joshua Holland at Alternet discusses the fallacy of the wealthy as ‘job creators’ and the fact that without working- and middle-class consumers, there isn’t a need for more jobs. And without good jobs, Americans have no money to spend:

Consumer demand accounts for around 70 percent of our economic output. And with so much wealth having been redistributed upward through a 40-year class-war from above, American consumers are too tapped out to spend as they once did. This remains the core issue in this sluggish, largely jobless recovery. The wealthy, in their voracious appetite for a bigger piece of the national pie, are the real job-killers in this economic climate.

Don’t take my word for it. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that “the main reason U.S. companies are reluctant to step up hiring is scant demand, rather than uncertainty over government policies, according to a majority of economists” the paper surveyed. That jibes with what business owners themselves are saying. Last week, the National Federation of Independent Businesses released a survey of small businessmen and women that found widespread “pessimism about future business conditions and expected real sales gains.”

New York Times reporter David Leonhardt wrote this week that “We are living through a tremendous bust. It isn’t simply a housing bust. It’s a fizzling of the great consumer bubble that was decades in the making.”

Related:

It’s not like they’re creating jobs… Bernie Sanders has a great idea: Under Sanders’ legislation, a 5.4 percent tax on income of more than $1 million a year would yield up to $50 billion annually for the U.S. Treasury. The same legislation would end tax breaks for big oil and gas companies. That provision would yield about $3.5 billion a year in new revenue. Sanders voted yesterday against a House-passed spending bill that slashed Head Start, Pell grants, community health centers, LIHEAP, the Social Security Administration and many other programs that are vitally important to millions of middle-class families. “The Republicans wanted to move toward a balanced budget solely on the backs of the middle class and some of the most vulnerable people in this country, but didn’t ask the wealthiest people, who are becoming much wealthier, to contribute one penny in shared sacrifice.” I don’t think it’s out of line to ask the wealthy to start contributing their fair share.They’ve been raking it in at the expense of everyone else for over a decade.
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It’s not like they’re creating jobs…

Bernie Sanders has a great idea:

Under Sanders’ legislation, a 5.4 percent tax on income of more than $1 million a year would yield up to $50 billion annually for the U.S. Treasury.

The same legislation would end tax breaks for big oil and gas companies. That provision would yield about $3.5 billion a year in new revenue.

Sanders voted yesterday against a House-passed spending bill that slashed Head Start, Pell grants, community health centers, LIHEAP, the Social Security Administration and many other programs that are vitally important to millions of middle-class families.

“The Republicans wanted to move toward a balanced budget solely on the backs of the middle class and some of the most vulnerable people in this country, but didn’t ask the wealthiest people, who are becoming much wealthier, to contribute one penny in shared sacrifice.”

I don’t think it’s out of line to ask the wealthy to start contributing their fair share.They’ve been raking it in at the expense of everyone else for over a decade.

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