Conservatives believe that enriching individuals will eventually enrich society, and that government should not get in the way of the process. This is what happens as a result:

(1) The tax loss from one scheming businessman could have paid the salaries of 30,000 nurses

The lack of regulation in the financial industry allowed hedge fund manager John Paulson to conspire with Goldman Sachs in a plan to create packages of risky subprime mortgages and then short-sell (bet against) the sure-to-fail financial instruments. The ploy paid him $3.7 billion. Deregulation in the tax code allowed him to call his income "carried interest," which is taxed at a 15% rate. More deregulation allowed him to defer his profits indefinitely.

The lost taxes of $1.3 billion (35% of $3.7 billion) could have paid the salaries of 30,000 LPNs, 10 nurses for every county in the United States. Instead, one clever businessman took it all.

(2) The 10 richest Americans made enough money last year to feed every hungry person on earth for a year

The richest 10 Americans increased their wealth by over $50 billion in one year. That's enough, according to 2008 estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN's World Food Program, to feed the 870 million people in the world who are lacking sufficient food.

But should anyone be blamed for this imbalance? Didn't the rich people EARN their money through hard work and innovation? No, they didn't. 60 percent of the income for the Forbes 400 came from capital gains. A lot more of it came from other forms of deregulatory subterfuge. CEOs have used carried interest, performance-related pay, stock ...

In a 1994 science-fiction novel called Interface, a Presidential candidate has an electronic chip in his brain that links his mind to real-time polling data. His words, deeds, even his thoughts are immediately responsive to the public mood. Mitt Romney seems a lot like that - except that Romney's chip is connected to money.

That money's Romney's own, along with that of his contributors and his entire financial class. His economic arguments may be incomprehensible but his motives are easily understood. In the words of Snoop Dogg, "he's got his mind on his money and his money on his mind."

To know the man you must know his money. That means a new report listing his chief campaign contributors can also give us insight into Romney's mind, and those of his powerful backers.

Backers

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Friday, Governor Mitt Romney had breakfast with billionaires.

JOHN PAULSON, Paul Singer and Ken Langone have dropped more than a million dollars each into the Romney “Super-PAC” Restore Our Future. As Butch said to Sundance, “Who ARE these guys?”

Singer's known as "The Vulture" on Wall Street. Langone's database company came up with the list of innocent Black voters that Katherine Harris wiped off the voter rolls of Florida in 2000. But who is Paulson, a guy so dark and devious he doesn't even have a nick-name?

I tried to join them ("Sorry, sir") just to ask why Romney was chowing down with the nation's most notorious billionaires and ballot bandits.

Here is just a bit about Breakfast Billionaire #3: John Paulson from my new book, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps—An investigation of Karl Rove, the Koch Gang and their Buck-Buddies. There's a comic book inside by Ted Rall with an introduction by Bobby Kennedy Jr. Get it here now.

It was just released today and already hit NUMBER ONE NON-FICTION PAPERBACK in the USA. (Barnes & Noble)

In August 2007, billionaire John Paulson walked into Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, with a billion-dollar idea. Paulson’s brainstorm had all the elements that Goldman found enchanting: a bit of fraud, a bit of flimflam, and lots and lots of the ultimate drug: OPM—Other Peoples’ Money.

Paulson’s scheme was simple. ...

An excerpt from Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps. Greg Palast investigates Karl Rove, the Koch Gang and their Buck Buddies. Includes a comic book by Ted Rall and an introduction by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Charles Manson can’t vote, but Manson Inc., al-Qaeda LLC, and Putin & Co. can run negative campaign ads on the Fox network.

And maybe they have.

In ancient times, before the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United, the maximum amount you could give a candidate for president, legally, was two thousand dollars. And, until 2010, to legally donate to a candidate, you had to 1) have a first and last name, 2) be a citizen of the United States, and 3) breathe oxygen.

Then, in 2010, the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision (followed by a lower-court decision, SpeechNow.org v. FEC) blew the doors off the limit on secret political campaign contributions. “Unnatural” persons—headless, heartless creatures called corporations—could now spend in election campaigns. And, unlike us mere mortals, these corporate creatures are not limited to two thousand dollars.

As soon as Citizens came down, billionaires pulled out their debit cards and went on a shopping spree.
In 2012, Paul “The Vulture” Singer, a billionaire, gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, the super-PAC behind Mitt Romney. So did The Vulture’s buddies John Paulson (also a billionaire), Julian Robertson (billionaire), Bill Koch (billionaire). Half a dozen ...

A super PAC supporting Mitt Romney has paid one of the Republican candidate’s veteran fundraisers a fee of $1.9 million for his work during a period when the super PAC raised about $24 million, according to new FEC filings.

The fee went to Podium Capital Group — a company that the super PAC’s treasurer said is Steve Roche’s. Roche is the top fundraiser for the principal outside group — "Restore Our Future" — that’s backing Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

Charlie Spies, the treasurer of the super PAC, confirmed in a telephone interview with iWatch News that Podium Capital is “Roche’s company.”

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Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney called the federal government’s 2009 bail-out of the auto industry, “nothing more than crony capitalism, Obama style... a reward for his big donors to his campaign."  In fact, the biggest rewards ­­– a windfall of more than two billion dollars care of U.S. taxpayers ­­­–– went to Romney's two top contributors. 

John Paulson of Paulson & Co and Paul Singer of Elliott International, known on Wall Street as “vulture” investors, have each written checks for one million dollars to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC supporting Romney’s candidacy.

Gov. Romney last week asserted that the Obama Administration’s support for General Motors was a, “payoff for the auto workers union.” However, union workers in GM’s former auto parts division, Delphi, the unit taken over by Romney’s funders, did not fair so well.  The speculators eliminated every single union job from the parts factories once manned by 25,200 UAW members. 

The two hedge fund operators turned a breathtaking three-thousand percent profit on a relatively negligible investment by using hardball tactics against the U.S. Treasury and their own employees.

Under the control of the speculators, Delphi, which had 45 plants in the U.S. and Canada, is now reduced to just four factories with only 1,500 hourly workers, none of them UAW members, despite the union agreeing to cut contract wages by two thirds.

It wasn’t supposed to be quite so bad.  The Obama Administration and GM had arranged for a private equity investor to provide half a billion dollars in new capital for Delphi, but that would have cut the pay-out to Singer and Paulson.  The speculators blocked the Obama-GM plan, taking the entire government bail-out hostage.  Even ...

Who's the most befuddled Wall Streeter of all? The richest guy on the Street.

In assessing the spreading public protest against the rampaging greed of today's financial elite, John Paulson turns out to be as confused as a goat on Astroturf.

Oh, he gets that the people's anger is directed at hedge fund profiteers like him, but he claims they are simply confused on the virtue of accumulated wealth. Although he raked in nearly $5 billion in personal pay last year (the largest single haul in Wall Street history) from rigged Wall Street casino games, he asserts that the amassing of wealth itself serves the public good.

It's unfair, Paulson scolds, that protesters demonstrated in front of his 28,000-square-foot, $15-million mansion on New York's Upper East Side, targeting him as an example of plutocratic excess. Taxes from billionaires like him, he says, are "providing huge benefits to everyone in our city."

Besides, he points out that he's not merely a billionaire, but also a "job creator," as Republican leaders prefer to call corporate chieftains these days. Paulson brags that his hedge fund "has created over 100 high-paying jobs in New York City since its formation." Wow — 100 jobs in a city of over 8 million people.

Thanks, John. Our economy wouldn't be the same without you.

When it comes down to it, all that Paulson's clique really wants is a little love, a small show of gratitude for all that the richest 1 percent is doing for us 99 percent of Americans by making themselves ever-richer.

In a plaintive press release, he recently wrote that, "Instead of vilifying our most successful businesses, we should be supporting them and encouraging them."

Isn't it sad to hear John cry? But, then, he does have $15 billion in net worth to dry those tears.

Astonishingly, some Wall Streeters continue to be clueless about what the Occupy Wall Street movement is protesting. Yoo-hoo, Streeters: Note that the movement's name has the term "Wall Street" in it.

While there is a plethora of particular issues being raised by the protesters — from the corrupting power of corporate money in our elections to the demise of middle-class wages — the unifying theme is that each one adds to the rising tide of economic inequality that's enriching the most privileged few ...

Hedge fund billionaire John Paulson is upping the ante on his already huge bet on Mitt Romney, opening his palatial Southampton home for a late August fundraiser.

Paulson has already donated $1 million to Restore Our Future PAC, a Super PAC created by three top allies from Romney’s abortive 2008 campaign to help him cement the 2012 nomination. The PAC can accept unlimited funds but is legally required to operate separately from the campaign.

A big bundler for Romney’s campaign, Paulson—who made billions betting on the decline of the housing bubble—is emblematic of how wealthy individuals often wear two fundraising hats in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’sCitizens United ruling last year. That decision gave the green light for donors (including corporations and unions) to give unlimited sums to independent groups that advocate expressly for candidates.

Paulson’s fundraising is one of a few instances where the fundraising operations of the campaign and the Super PAC appear to overlap and may benefit each other.

• Romney has shown his appreciation for the Super PAC by attending several of its fundraising events including a dinner in New York on July 19 that drew about two dozen potential and current donors, including Paulson, according to fundraisers familiar with the PAC.
• Lisa Spies, who runs PAC fundraising and Jewish outreach for the Romney campaign, is married to Charles Spies, a founder of the PAC who serves as its treasurer and was general counsel to Romney’s 2008 campaign.

In an interview with iWatch News , Charles Spies said there was no conflict ...