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Saturday, August 02, 2014

The Power Elite

According to the academic study, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizen” by Martin Gilens, a Princeton professor and Benjamin Page of Northwestern,  “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests (that) have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. ” This claim of policy implementation by powerful groups follows in the tradition of the Winner Takes All Politics of Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson.

The elite are the CEOs of major financial institutions, like Jamie Dimon of J.P.Morgan Chase  and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs. They are the band of Private Equity plutocrats like Apollo’s Leon Black, who took home $560 million last year, or Blackstone’s Steve Schwartzman or KKR’s Henry Kravis or Carlyle’s David Rubinstein. Not to speak of the dozens of Hedge Fund billionaires like George Soros and the activist investor band, about whom the financial media are positively giddy. They are the very top echelon of the 300,000 wealthy investors who make up the 1/10th of 1% of America who collect each year over 60% of the capital gains, taxed at far less than ordinary income. They use their influence to block attempts to limit the leverage of large financial institutions and to maintain the favorable carried interest tax treatment.

From here

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