Ah, the 1%: the moguls and oligarchs who currently rule the roost from on high in the United States. They control the majority of the wealth and assets of the country, buy our politicians with the flick of a few bucks and have the ability to hold sway over the legislative process to their own advantage. They are the few against the many, but because of their wealth and influence, they hold the reins on the monopoly.
But who are they?
The Bravenew Foundation has launched an ad campaign detailing their misdeeds in short, one minute exposes to educate us all on how they exploit the rest of the citizenry. Some of the names will be familiar, while some might not be.
So let’s meet them, shall we?
1. Rob Walton, Chairman of Walmart
Most of us are familiar with the Walmart chain and shudder when they move into the neighborhood. They have an unsettling history of putting small businesses out of business because of their ability to undercut the competition at the knees. They’re also the nation’s largest employer, with over 1.39 million employees as of 2005. Despite raking in over $400 billion in annual revenue, the company has refused to provide health insurance to its employees, which forces those employees to depend on federal and state funded health care programs, like Medicaid, shifting the biggest cost of running their business onto the American taxpayers, as the AFL-CIO documented in a report from 2006:
“Wal-Mart’s refusal to pay decent wages and provide affordable health insurance to its workers puts it atop the list in at least 19 of the 23 states surveyed here. This abuse of poverty health care programs means Wal-Mart is directly contributing to the nation’s Medicaid crisis.”
Meet Rob Walton:
2. Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs, the company that maintains a revolving door with Washington and the White House even today under President Obama, has been Public Enemy #1 for years. They were one of the major players in the financial meltdown and mortgage crisis of 2008, and yet, their CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, remains free as a bird. Maybe it’s because he said this about his company in 2009:
“We’re very important. We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It’s a virtuous cycle,” adding that he’s just a banker “doing God’s work.”
Yeah, because Jesus loved those money-changers bankers so very, very much!
Meet God’s holy worker, Lloyd Blankfein:
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- Meet the 0.01 Percent: War Profiteers
- The 1 Percent Indifferent to Their Indebtedness
- Monsanto Declared Worst Company of 2011
- The One Percent
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