Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
More than three quarters of those worth $1 million to $10 million plan to vote for Sen. McCain. Only 15% plan to vote for Sen. Obama (the rest are undecided). Of those worth more than $30 million, two-thirds support Sen. Obama, while one third support Sen. McCain.
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
15 Comments:
The other reason (left out in the article)?
The super-rich want to prevent the merely rich from catching up and encroaching on their status.
That comment is so dumb that it is probably being repeated by economists everywhere.
The super rich who support Sen. Obama are secularist like their "secular Messiah" or the "Chosen One." They detest Christianity and traditional morality MORE than they care about an extra $2,000,000 (they are super rich, remember).
Doesn't this say more about the ultrarich and their philantrophic focus? Bill & Melinda Gates, the Hewletts, the Kennedy clan, the McArthurs, the Mellons, etc.
The preoccupations of these people does not tend to scratching your way to the top but giving back to society. Is it any wonder that social issues predominate among a group of philantropists?
The Rochefellers trying to shift the agenda to environmental, non-starters at highly profitable Exxon brought the difference in values into high relief. The concerns of the majority of shareholders or the management on financial performance and return on equity vs. the Rochefellers' ideas for saving the planet.
One can call it a "higher purpose" but more accurately, it is a difference in priorities.
> Doesn't this say more about the ultrarich and their philantrophic focus? Bill & Melinda Gates, the Hewletts, the Kennedy clan, the McArthurs, the Mellons, etc.
Get a clue.
The people of whom you speak have their money in, as you suggest but apparently fail to grasp, "Philanthropic Foundations".
You know what else is notable about such foundations?
C'mon. Guess.
You getting it?
Right -- They're TAX FREE.
The US Income tax went into effect in 1913.
Guess when the Rockefeller Foundation was formed?
C'mon. You can guess it.
Right. 1913.
Tax free "philanthropic" foundations, while they almost certainly do good works, are designed entirely to take the wealth of the super-rich -- the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, the Gates' --- and make them immune to taxation.
Why should the super-rich care about income taxes?
THEY DON'T HAVE "incomes" IN THE "INCOME TAX" SENSE.
The passage of the Sixteenth Amendment was sold to the public on a "soak the rich" scam. The plebes were never supposedly going to be a part of it. I mean, what would the government do with billions of dollars?
So the rich rigged it so that they wouldn't get touched, but the plebes would, before long, enjoy the hand of the IRS tapping on their shoulders for the Fed's cut.
The super-rich support Obama because they don't give a rat's ass about taxation because they've buried it, hidden it, and/or placed it outside the Fed's reach, in one way or another.
QED.
> That comment is so dumb that it is probably being repeated by economists everywhere.
Are you actually doubting bret's comment?
Proof, once more, what a useless idiot arman is.
Even arman's marxist buddies know that one of the principles of capitalism (which marxism isn't far off on) is that the rich use the government to rip off the middle class to pay off and hold down the lower class.
Given that the "middle class" don't really pay that large a percentage of taxes in the usa, that means that the "rich" get taken by the "super-rich" for the same function.
Someone's gotta keep those bums from rioting.
"The Rochefellers trying to shift the agenda to environmental, non-starters at highly profitable Exxon brought the difference in values into high relief"...given that the Rockefellers have a lot of money, why don't they just sell their Exxon stock, combine it with their other assets, and start their own energy company?
Most of today's "progressives" would much rather beat up on someone else to do something than actually do something themselves. It's a variant of the old aristocratic prejudice against getting one's hands dirty.
"Doesn't this say more about the ultrarich and their philantrophic focus? Bill & Melinda Gates, the Hewletts, the Kennedy clan, the McArthurs, the Mellons, etc."...
Well it sure does qt, it shows how some very smart people haven't learned the lesson of even recent history...
Consider the billions of dollars supposedly spent over the last ten years in some sort of misguided attempt to alleviate poverty and disease in Africa for instance and what do these philanthropists have to show for it besides assauging their own self imposed guilt?
Juandos,
Got to agree with you that most of the efforts in Africa have not been particularly successful although there are some notable exceptions.
Innovations like the "Life straw" or the discovery that a simple mixture of salts, and sugar mixed with water could prevent death from diarrehea (giving a child water will actually kill them) are helping to change the dynamics on the ground.
Some headway has also been made in the area of disease ie. AIDS, malaria, river blindness. The human misery and economic cost of these diseases is phenominal.
Africa has largely not experienced the green revolution which was led by Norman Borlaug. The Rockefeller Foundation has been working on developing disease resistant, higher yield varieties for decades helping to fund the work of Dr. Borlaug and many other scientists. Extensive crop breeding work have transformed wheat, corn and rice. Researchers even developed a variety of corn which had higher protein content to improve dietary nutrition.
Engineers without Borders and microloans are other practical approaches that are helping.
A little historical perspective here might be useful, believe it or not.
....
1) The American super-rich and just plain-rich have always been unusual on a cross-country scale.
Back in the late 19th century, billionaires like Andrew Carnegie developed the Gospel of the Rich: starting out as a poor Scottish immigrant before the Civil War, he became a giant in the steel industry and the richest man in America at the time.
.
Later, in 1889, he wrote a famous article "The Gospel of Wealth" in which he set out his views that what a person gains from society --- especially lots of wealth --- obligates him to spread the wealth around for good causes.
.,,,,,
2) Here is a well-known paragraph from it:
Man does not live by bread alone. I have known millionaires starving for lack of the nutriment which alone can sustain all that is human in man, and I know workmen, and many so-called poor men, who revel in luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires to reach.
"It is the mind that makes the body rich. There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else. Money can only be the useful drudge of things immeasurably higher than itself. Exalted beyond this, as it sometimes is, it remains Caliban still and still plays the beast.
"My aspirations take a higher flight. Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of the toilers of Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest possible use of wealth." buggy paragraphing.
....
3) Faced with populism and the prospects of socialism in America, the American super-rich generally subscribed to the Carnegie-ethos. The should spread their wealth around to help society --- oops! a non-Ayn Rand non- non-objectivist concept; Stalinist to the hilt. So forgive me.
.
Hence the remarkable diffusion of money for libraries --- Carnegie funded thousands! --- universities like Carnegie-Mellon, Stanford (Stanford family), Chicago (Rockefeller), Vanderbilt (Vandebilt), Brandeis, Harvard --- and great research institutes like the Rockefeller Foundation and philantrophic ones like Ford and Rockefeller.
......
4) This admirable tradition --- with no equivalent in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, or Latin America --- continues to this date with the Gates Foundation and Warren Buffet's contributions of nearly all his $32 billion to it.
......
5) The one exception in Europe: Britain.
When I studied and taught at one of its ancient universities, some very successful Jewish entrepreneurs --- those who had created Marks&Spencer (the biggest discount dept. store in the British Isles) and big furniture businesses and the like --- were the only ones to build new colleges at Oxford and Cambridge or fund expensive renovation of some of the early medieval ones that needed it.
.
I met some of these highly successful men and their families . . . admirable to the core. They were all the first or second generations of Jewish refugees fleeing Czarist pogroms and later Nazism.
.
And you know what? When I told some of my colleagues, a couple -- smirking --- said, "Just like the Yids. Wanna throw their money around to impress you."
.....
6) Oh, don't forget my fellow posters.
Had you or your parents or grandparents invested $10,000 in the 1929 stock market at its low --- $10,000 in 2000 dollars --- you'd have $350,000 cumulative in the era of Democratic Presidents since then, and $50,000 under Republicans if you substract Hoover's liquidation-years. (You'd have a pretty $11,000 if you add in Hoover.)
Buggy tip: buy low at the stock market now; ignore the volatility. You will likely flourish in an Obama era . . . at any rate, once his administration starts digging out our economy from the George Bush-W ruins.
If, however, McCain gets elected, you might want to consider gold as the best investment . . . at any rate, to judge by the record of the last 79 years.
.
(Oh,by way of clarification: In 1946, Truman faced a Republican Congress --- Democrats took control again in 1948; Eisenhower had a Republican COngress between 1953 and 1955 (start); Democrats dominated then until 1994, but Reagan had a 6-year Senate Majority in the 1980s. In 1994, of course, the Republican dominance of Congress emerged, lasting until 2006's election.)
...
7)A possible conclusion?
Well --- I'm thinking of the Ayn-Rand pledge-takers here --- you might just find some deep half-conscious impulse among the super- super-rich that they know their billions of dollars worth of investments will flourish much more in an Obama-era than they have in the George-W era, and so their philantrophy --- interpreted in ways similar to those envious anti-Semites in Britain I mentioned --- might just be motivated by aggrandizing self-interest after all.
.....
Hope these last few comments reassure the flustered Ayn-Rand throngs.
.....
Michael Gordon, AKA, the buggy professor
A little historical perspective here might be useful, believe it or not.
....
1) The American super-rich and just plain-rich have always been unusual on a cross-country scale.
Back in the late 19th century, billionaires like Andrew Carnegie developed the Gospel of the Rich: starting out as a poor Scottish immigrant before the Civil War, he became a giant in the steel industry and the richest man in America at the time.
.
Later, in 1889, he wrote a famous article "The Gospel of Wealth" in which he set out his views that what a person gains from society --- especially lots of wealth --- obligates him to spread the wealth around for good causes.
.,,,,,
2) Here is a well-known paragraph from it:
Man does not live by bread alone. I have known millionaires starving for lack of the nutriment which alone can sustain all that is human in man, and I know workmen, and many so-called poor men, who revel in luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires to reach.
"It is the mind that makes the body rich. There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else. Money can only be the useful drudge of things immeasurably higher than itself. Exalted beyond this, as it sometimes is, it remains Caliban still and still plays the beast.
"My aspirations take a higher flight. Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of the toilers of Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest possible use of wealth." buggy paragraphing.
....
3) Faced with populism and the prospects of socialism in America, the American super-rich generally subscribed to the Carnegie-ethos. The should spread their wealth around to help society --- oops! a non-Ayn Rand non- non-objectivist concept; Stalinist to the hilt. So forgive me.
.
Hence the remarkable diffusion of money for libraries --- Carnegie funded thousands! --- universities like Carnegie-Mellon, Stanford (Stanford family), Chicago (Rockefeller), Vanderbilt (Vandebilt), Brandeis, Harvard --- and great research institutes like the Rockefeller Foundation and philantrophic ones like Ford and Rockefeller.
......
4) This admirable tradition --- with no equivalent in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, or Latin America --- continues to this date with the Gates Foundation and Warren Buffet's contributions of nearly all his $32 billion to it.
......
5) The one exception in Europe: Britain.
When I studied and taught at one of its ancient universities, some very successful Jewish entrepreneurs --- those who had created Marks&Spencer (the biggest discount dept. store in the British Isles) and big furniture businesses and the like --- were the only ones to build new colleges at Oxford and Cambridge or fund expensive renovation of some of the early medieval ones that needed it.
.
I met some of these highly successful men and their families . . . admirable to the core. They were all the first or second generations of Jewish refugees fleeing Czarist pogroms and later Nazism.
.
And you know what? When I told some of my colleagues, a couple -- smirking --- said, "Just like the Yids. Wanna throw their money around to impress you."
.....
6) Oh, don't forget my fellow posters.
Had you or your parents or grandparents invested $10,000 in the 1929 stock market at its low --- $10,000 in 2000 dollars --- you'd have $350,000 cumulative in the era of Democratic Presidents since then, and $50,000 under Republicans if you substract Hoover's liquidation-years. (You'd have a pretty $11,000 if you add in Hoover.)
Buggy tip: buy low at the stock market now; ignore the volatility. You will likely flourish in an Obama era . . . at any rate, once his administration starts digging out our economy from the George Bush-W ruins.
If, however, McCain gets elected, you might want to consider gold as the best investment . . . at any rate, to judge by the record of the last 79 years.
.
(Oh,by way of clarification: In 1946, Truman faced a Republican Congress --- Democrats took control again in 1948; Eisenhower had a Republican COngress between 1953 and 1955 (start); Democrats dominated then until 1994, but Reagan had a 6-year Senate Majority in the 1980s. In 1994, of course, the Republican dominance of Congress emerged, lasting until 2006's election.)
...
7)A possible conclusion?
Well --- I'm thinking of the Ayn-Rand pledge-takers here --- you might just find some deep half-conscious impulse among the super- super-rich that they know their billions of dollars worth of investments will flourish much more in an Obama-era than they have in the George-W era, and so their philantrophy --- interpreted in ways similar to those envious anti-Semites in Britain I mentioned --- might just be motivated by aggrandizing self-interest after all.
.....
Hope these last few comments reassure the flustered Ayn-Rand throngs.
.....
Michael Gordon, AKA, the buggy professor
I apologize for the repeat of the post. It was my browser (Opera) and the repeated demand for word verification that caused the foul-up.
--Michael
FYI,
Most of us under the age of 50 are not Ayn Randians.
Agree that the U.S. is the foremost philanthropic nation in the world. One should also recognize contributions to the arts and to museums. No country has the level of endowments that are found in the U.S. ie. the Smithsonian Institution.
Greg Mankiw on Democrats vs. Republicans. Reminds one of the disclaimer on most mutual fund literature "Past performance is not a guarantee of future fund performanc".
What no comments on Senator Obama's statements regarding Columbia see link above?
"Are you actually doubting bret's comment?"
What part of "dumb" do you not understand? That you would allow bret to declare the wants of the super rich without any evidence or rational further displays your narrow minded ignorance. Marxism, as an extension of Adam Smith is more propaganda than psychological analysis. You again buy into the lies.
>"what do these philanthropists have to show for it besides assauging their own self imposed guilt?"<
Results of philanthropic activity are not evidence of the motivation for philanthropic activity. Only the super rich themselves would be able to explain at all their motivation, and when they did, I would have to take the explanation with a huge grain of salt. Brets declaration of evil intent is in itself an evil declaration. It defames a group of people for no other reason than that they disagree with Bret on political choice. Such hyperbola is shameful, and again DUMB!
Hey qt...
"Some headway has also been made in the area of disease ie. AIDS, malaria, river blindness. The human misery and economic cost of these diseases is phenominal"...
Ahh, regarding that AIDS thingie qt, a fair percentage of that might be smoke & mirrors...
You bring up good points qt regarding some of the projects that are ongoing in Africa but if the always questionable CBS is to be believed the points you bring up are making little if any headway at all...
"Results of philanthropic activity are not evidence of the motivation for philanthropic activity"...
Who said they did arman?
"Brets declaration of evil intent is in itself an evil declaration. It defames a group of people for no other reason than that they disagree with Bret on political choice"...
Hmmm, and you know this how arman?
Hey arman, have you ever considered perusing the 38 page paper by Paul Gomberg titled The Fallacy of Philanthropy?
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