American cities and the ultra wealthy

[brickell]

Originally Posted by Gerrard

And still many others do it solely for show without contributing anything in real dollars. Brad Pitt and Angelina Joli while not extremely rich, often pledge money to charities but never actually donate it. But it makes People magazine etc. and everyone loves them for their alleged philanthropy. While many others, give huge amounts of income but shy away from the publicity.

Do you have any proof for that?

[SLO]

We all know about the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, but Warren Buffett the worlds second richest man is in the process of giving away 85% of his fortune to charity, most of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation doubling its endowment....


http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/25/maga...rity1.fortune/

[Attrill]

There is a great graphic of wealthiest Americans ever here.

Out of the top 30 only Bill Gates, Sam Walton, Henry Ford, and Warren Buffet earned their fortunes in the 20th century. The wealthiest earned their fortunes in the Gilded Age. I don't think it was just taxes that explains the differences from today (tho' it does play a part). Unions and the break up of monopolies played a larger role.

[SLO]

^^Not sure how they are measuring, theyre talking about wealth as a percentage of the overall economy, but the economy is so much larger & more diverse now than it was then, so Im not sure how that works.

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by SLO

^^Not sure how they are measuring, theyre talking about wealth as a percentage of the overall economy, but the economy is so much larger & more diverse now than it was then, so Im not sure how that works.

Yeah - it is difficult to compare different centuries to each other. Using straight up dollar amounts (corrected for inflation) doesn't really work, since the value of the dollar, and how it is valued, has changed so much over time. Percentage of the GDP is probably the best way to measure it, but making direct comparisons is difficult.

[leftopolis]

Originally Posted by Gerrard

A lot of that early wealth was pre income tax. So they were unbelievably wealthy compared with the wealth generated today.

Also with the advent of income tax and the welfare state many extremely wealthy people don't feel the push to donate their money to civic or social projects like they once did.

And still many others do it solely for show without contributing anything in real dollars. Brad Pitt and Angelina Joli while not extremely rich, often pledge money to charities but never actually donate it. But it makes People magazine etc. and everyone loves them for their alleged philanthropy. While many others, give huge amounts of income but shy away from the publicity.

Presumably, you meant "The Corporate Welfare State".

Also, Jolie and Pitt are poor examples --if you're trying to make a claim that celebrities/philanthropists are doing it to boost image or career. They are not going around calling people mag and pre-announcing an effort. Why not pick on the thousands of wealthy celebs who make no effort to better other people's lives? These two stand out as having done quite a bit.

As for Warren Buffet(mentioned in another post), he's a strong advocate for greatly increased taxation of the wealthy. He believes billionaires are in a position to get the highest percentage taxation, yet people in his finacial position typically pay little to no taxes.