{"id":142028,"date":"2014-11-17T16:25:53","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T16:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=142028"},"modified":"2014-11-17T16:25:53","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T16:25:53","slug":"super-rich-sordid-tales-selfishness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/money\/super-rich-sordid-tales-selfishness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Super-Rich and Sordid Tales of Selfishness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Buchheit <\/em><\/p>\n

If the mainstream media made the effort to analyze and report the facts, the whole country would know about a level of selfishness that has spiraled out of control since the economists of the Reagan era convinced the wealthiest Americans that greed is good for everyone. Here are four extreme examples of that selfishness.<\/p>\n

1. Ebola’s Not Worth the Money If Only Africans Get Infected\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Dr. Margaret Chan recently\u00a0stated<\/a>: “Ebola emerged nearly four decades ago. Why are clinicians still empty-handed, with no vaccines and no cure? Because Ebola has historically been confined to poor African nations. The R&D incentive is virtually non-existent. A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay.”<\/p>\n

So we turn to philanthropy. But rich donors don’t compensate for the flaws of capitalism. The Gates Foundation, among others, may appear noble and praiseworthy for all its charitable giving, but Dr. Chan\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0that “My budget [is] highly earmarked, so it is driven by what I call donor interests.” Little of that ‘earmarking’ is toward diseases of the poor. A study in\u00a0The Lancet<\/a>\u00a0of medical products registered in 2000-11 revealed that “Only four new chemical entities were approved for neglected diseases (three for malaria, one for diarrhoeal disease), accounting for 1% of the 336 new chemical entities approved during the study period.”<\/p>\n

A related problem with philanthropy is\u00a0summarized<\/a>\u00a0by Stacy Palmer, editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy: “Wealthy people tend to give to colleges, art museums, opera and hospitals very generously…Food banks depend more on lower income Americans.”<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Chronicle of Philanthropy<\/a>\u00a0confirmed that Americans with annual earnings under $100,000 increased their post-recession giving by 4.5 percent. Americans who earned over $200,000\u00a0reduced their giving\u00a0by 4.6 percent over the same time period.<\/p>\n

2. Going To Their Graves Without Paying What They Owe\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Charles Koch, who is very much alive, said “I want my fair share – and that’s all of it.”<\/p>\n

His dream is coming true.\u00a0$30 trillion<\/a>\u00a0has been taken\u00a0since the recession<\/a>, most of it\u00a0financial gains<\/a>, almost\u00a0all of it<\/a>\u00a0by the richest 1%, one-hundred thousand of whom made an estimated\u00a0$18 million<\/a>\u00a0each in three years, and most of whom are so rich that they can let their portfolios sit nearly tax-free until they die, at which point an almost non-existent estate tax ensures\u00a0nearly tax-free<\/a>\u00a0fortunes for their fortunate sons and daughters (only about\u00a0one out of a thousand<\/a>\u00a0estates are taxed).<\/p>\n

Yet these are the people who benefit most from national security, infrastructure, tax laws, and patent and copyright laws. They’re protected by police who stop and frisk and harass and arrest anyone who threatens the status quo of their wealthy society. But they don’t want to pay for all the benefits, even after they’re dead.<\/p>\n

3. Inventing Rules That Take Money from the Poor\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A collection of contrived laws and policies effectively transfer money from the middle class to the rulemakers:<\/p>\n