Ask yourself, given the history of wealth concentration in the US, who better represents the best interests of you and your family, democrats and Pres. Obama, or John Fund's partisan GOP propaganda sponsored by the WSJ? The info that will provide you with the most accurate answer is availale if you look:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/
Currents and Undercurrents: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth, 1989–2004
January 30, 2006
Abstract
page 27- 28
...Ownership shares. For some assets, the distributions of the amounts held are far more disproportionate than the differences in ownership rates. MOST STRIKING is the 62.3 percent share of business assets OWNED BY THE WEALTHIEST 1 percent of the wealth distribution in 2004 (table 11a); the NEXT-WEALTHIEST 4 percent OWNED ANOTHER 22.4 percent of the total. Other key items subject to capital gains also show strong disproportions: THE WEALTHIEST 5 PERCENT OF FAMILIES OWNED 61.9 percent of residential real estate other than principal residences, 71.7 percent of nonresidential real estate, and 65.9 PERCENT OF DIRECTLY- AND INDIRECTLY HELD STOCKS. For bonds, 93.7 PERCENT OF THE TOTAL WERE HELD BY THIS GROUP....
SO,IN 2004 FIVE PERCENT OF US HOUSEHOLDS OWNED 93.7 PERCENT OF ALL CORPORATE BONDS(see above sentence)
http://hussmanfunds.com/...
September 22, 2008
An Open Letter to the U.S. Congress Regarding the Current Financial Crisis
John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
...This week, Congress is being asked to hastily consider a monstrous bailout plan on a scale nearly equivalent to the existing balance sheet of the Federal Reserve.
As an economist and investment manager, I am concerned that the plan advocated by Treasury is essentially a plan to bail out the bondholders of financial institutions that made bad lending decisions, with little help to homeowners that are actually in financial distress. It is difficult to believe that the U.S. government is contemplating taking on the bad assets of these institutions at probable taxpayer loss and effectively immunizing the bondholders (and shareholders) of these companies. ....
...Why on earth would Congress put the U.S. public behind these bondholders? ...
http://www.time.com/...
Thirteen Families
Monday, Oct. 28, 1940
Last week the Securities and Exchange Commission published its report to null a 121-page study of "The Distribution of Ownership in the 200 Largest Non-Financial* Corporations."...
...Of an estimated 8,500,000 U. S. stockholders, less than 75,000 (.06% of the population) own fully one-half of all corporate stock held by individuals....
The 13 most potent family groups' holdings were worth $2,700,000,000, comprised over 8% of the stock of the 200 corporations:...
....» Three groups—Du Fonts, Mellons, Rockefellers—have shareholdings valued at nearly $1,400,000,000, control, directly or indirectly, 15 of the 200 corporations....
http://www.4president.org/...
Birch Bayh for President 1976 Campaign Brochure
...Our economy is at a crucial turning point. The problems of skyrocketing energy and food costs and the inability of the free market to function effectively have led me to conclude that recent policy failures are the result of an outdated view of the American economy. Therefore, I am proposing the establishment of a Temporary National Economic Committee -- similar to the Committee established by President Roosevelt in 1938 -- to publicly investigate the concentration of economic power in America today....
To this day....68 years later....the SEC records are still sealed:
http://www.archives.gov/...
Records of the Temporary National Economic Committee [TNEC]
Search ARC for Entries from this Record Group
* 144.1 ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY
* 144.2 RECORDS OF THE COMMITTEE 1938-41 967 lin. ft.
144.1 ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY
Established: As a joint Congressional-Executive branch committee, composed of members of both houses of Congress and representatives of several Executive departments and commissions, by joint resolution of Congress, June 16, 1938 (52 Stat. 705). Functions: Studied monopoly and concentration of economic power, and made recommendations for legislation.
Abolished: April 3, 1941, by expiration of extension granted by joint resolution, December 16, 1940 (54 Stat. 1225). Liquidation deadline of December 31, 1941, set by Additional Urgent Deficiency Appropriation Act of 1941, May 24, 1941 (55 Stat. 200).
144.2 RECORDS OF THE COMMITTEE
1938-41
967 lin. ft.
...Specific Restrictions: As specified by the SEC, no one, except government officials for official purposes, may have access to records created and filed by the SEC on behalf of the TNEC
http://www.peterkang.com/...
Brandeis and Wall Street:
The Crafting of the Securities Act of 1933
Page 3
During the summer of 1932, Roosevelt made it clear in a campaign speech given in Columbus, Ohio, that the regulation of securities and the ways in which the investment banking community conducted business would be central to the Democratic platform....
Page 4
The publication of Other People’s Money in 1914 came as a result of the findings of the Pujo committee hearings in 1912. The hearings were called by Congressman Charles Lindbergh of Minnesota (father of the famed aviator) and named after Arsene Pujo, a Democratic Congressman from Louisiana. The Pujo committee charged J.P. Morgan, National City, First National and three smaller banks of using interlocking
directorships to exert control over the supply of money and the way it was used.
The term "money trust" was used to label these powerful banks, and the perception that a handful of banks controlled over $22 billion of resources ("three times the assessed valueof all the real estate in the City of New York")...
Page 19
the antimonopoly faction of the New Deal, the Temporary National Economic Committee (TNEC) was created to investigate monopolistic practices across various industries, including investment banking.
38
The decision to investigate Wall Street once again
confirmed two things: (1) the New Deal securities legislation had helped to restore the dominance of a handful of banks that had suffered through competition during the 1920s and (2) the fear of a "money trust" in the similar vein of the Pujo committee and Pecora investigations persisted.
38
Geisst, Wall Street: A History, 258.
GOVERNMENT: Twilight of TNEC - TIME
Quietly last week there passed out of existence the most remarkable Government investigating committee in US history. The Temporary National Economic Committee...
http:\www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,932259,00.html
Once upon a time, we had a president by the people and for the people:
http://findarticles.com/...
I. THE NEW DEAL AND ANTITRUST
ANTITRUST LEGACY OF THURMAN ARNOLD
...IV. THE TEMPORAEY NATIONAL ECONOMIC COMMISSION
April 1938 brought the planning for Roosevelt's antimonopoly message to Congress, with which Arnold, Cummings, and Jackson
assisted, along with Donald Richberg, the head of the NRA, and Ben Cohen, the author of the Utility Holding Company Act. It was a stark illustration of the balance of power between the planners and the advocates of competition. It was apparent to all that Roosevelt finally intended to make a real attack on the problem of monopoly. Predictably, only Richberg dissented from the plan.77
The message itself was symbolically important but rather mild in actual content. The President decried the "concentration of economic power" in the country and deplored the "concealed cartel system" and "the disappearance of price competition."78 The President thundered: "[T]he liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself . . . ."79
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,813379,00.html
No Worries?
Monday, Sep. 25, 1950
When U.S. industry mobilizes for war production, the antitrust laws are among the first casualties. Reason: industrywide
production allocations and patent pools, which are taboo in peacetime, are essential for the close integration of industries
needed for big-scale war production. Last week came the first sign that antitrust prosecutions would again be eased up—or perhaps
shelved completely—as they were during World War II. Lanky, eager Herbert Bergson, 44, the U.S.'s most vigorous trustbuster since
the early New Deal days of Thurman Arnold, resigned his job.
In two years as head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, Bergson had filed 135 suits, including those against Aluminum
Co. of America, E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (TIME, Sept. 26 et seq.). He has won 80 of
his cases, lost only seven. The rest, including the big ones, are still pending. But lately there have been hints that Bergson
would have less & less to do.
One hint: When the Government decided to build the hydrogen bomb, it handed the big job to Du Pont. Washington no longer seemed to be worried that Du Pont, which the trustbusters had said was too big, would have to grow much bigger to build the bomb.
In places like France, the history documented above would have incited open revolt. In the US, we elect the establishment's candidate, Obama, and we quibble about a healthcare "reform" bill designed to keep the reform to the absolute minimum!