AndrewHoff.com

Specimen Specialists of America – Profiting Off of Your Hard Work

andrew — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:43:56 +0000

Admittedly I am not a business man. The business world bothers me in a deep way. It doesn’t sit right with my soul. There always seems to be someone getting screwed and taken advantage of.

I felt like I was being taken advantage of by my former employer, Specimen Specialists of America, Inc. My situation was unique though. I worked full time basically (30 hours). That being the case, I was not as screwed as most of their employees who work once a week for only a few hours.

I was paid $11.00 an hour to do DNA collections at Shelby County Child Support.

So why did I feel I was getting screwed?

Well, for one I was busting my ass to make sure I kept up with the number of people coming in for tests. I would go home exhausted at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, my employer, who is in California, really contributed nothing to what I did. Even though I worked every week day, they still required me to call or email them every day to confirm that I would in fact be there tomorrow. Every now and then, I would email them a list of supplies needed, and they would pass that along to DDC. When the Randstad management people felt I was taking too many smoke breaks and was untidy, SSI would call me to talk about it. Anyone displeased at the Memphis office certainly didn’t make their displeasure known to me. I felt that SSI was an unnecessary middle man who wasn’t just getting a little piece of the pie, but the majority of the pie seemed to be going to them.

Why did I feel I deserved more?

Shelby County Child Support (in Memphis) is the busiest site in the nation. I was the main collector and was there every week day.
I was in charge of supplies and making sure there was enough to do the tests.
I took the place of two collectors.
I created a PDF document to make the chain of custody easier, quicker, and prettier. Before, I had to hand write tons. There is no way someone who was hand writing them could have kept up on my busy days.
I was reliable (company policy required me to email them every day to confirm that I would in fact be there tomorrow). I was always there and on time.

So did you ever ask for a raise?

I most certainly did:

Who would I talk to about getting a raise?

I think I deserve one considering two collectors used to be employed prior to my taking the job.

I am reliable and get the clients in and out.

Not only that, the volume of collections has been increasing lately.

And did you get it?

Hell no…Ms. Cassandra Ramsey of SSI replied:

Andrew,

We absolutely appreciate the work you do and agree that you have always been professional and reliable. Our current pay rates are based on National Wage Data for the type of work being performed, and unfortunately, we do not offer wage increases for years of experience or tenure. Please let me know if you have any further questions on this matter.

Was I happy with her response?

Not at all…

I understand that the type of work may normally merit a wage of 11 dollars an hour. However, before I was hired, you were basically paying 22 dollars an hour for the same amount of work. Every day I work, you are basically saving 11 dollars a day. I did 35 collections today with the majority of those coming between 1 and 4. Most collectors would not have been able to keep up and would have had clients waiting.Without a doubt, if I were not there, you would need a second collector there. I developed a pdf file where I can type each name dob and ssn into the form and print it onto the chain custody instead of hand writing it. This makes it quicker and is easier for ddc to read. If you can, look at some of my chain of custodies. Anyways, I am not trying to argue or anything. I just know I am worth more than what I am getting paid.

I never got a response to the above email.

So after getting shot down, I figured I would look into the contract the DDC (the lab used for testing) has with the state of TN. Just to see if I could get an idea of what everyone was making thanks to my work.

What I found was that the DDC bills the state of TN $6 more for every sample that I collect as opposed to child support staff.

So what? They have to make money.

SSI make money for doing what exactly? Having me email them every day to say I will be there.

So a few weeks after asking for a raise, a rare event happened in Memphis….

We had an ice storm. The collector that handles northern Mississippi called SSI to say that she wouldn’t be able to do collections that day because of the weather. Cassandra called me to see if I might be willing to drive 2 hours south and make multiple stops to do collections. I told her I would if I had a four wheel drive vehicle and working heat in my car. She even asked if I could be bribed. When I said I couldn’t, she ended the conversation with the passive aggressive, ” Well I guess I will just have to tell DDC that we won’t be able to help them today.” Sorry I value my life and safety above all else. I’m not about to put myself at risk in inclement weather while she sits in sunny CA.

A few weeks after the icy weather, Cassandra called me to bring to my attention some complaints that the Randstad (the temp agency that hires all employees for Shelby County Child Support, why they felt the need to complain is still beyond me) people had made: the untidiness of my office and the number of smoke breaks that I was taking.

I was not very receptive admittedly. If I am working, and I see that no one is waiting, I don’t see any harm in taking a smoke break, especially if it enables me to work better afterwards. As for the tidiness of the room, I am not a neat freak. Every sample collected required opening multiple swab packets and using a pair of gloves. Not only that, supplies for future collections were kept in the room. Since I’m not a neat freak, the room looked as if someone was working in it. To me, the an untidy room is a pretty petty thing to complain about. There are bigger problems at hand that should be tackled before complaining about a messy room. Not to some I suppose.

On that phone conversation, I asked Cassandra how they were paid. She took this to mean how she in particular was paid and responded, “I get paid hourly. So if I get to work and three collectors do not show up, and I am on the phone all morning, I get paid just the same as when I get to work and all collectors are there.”

I said, “No, I mean how does DDC pay the company. Do you get paid for each sample I collect?”

She said that is indeed how they were paid.

When I found out that DDC pays Specimen Specialists per collection I made, I offered to change the way I am paid to one where I would get paid per sample.

Cassandra said, “The president of the company wouldn’t entertain such an idea. We’ve been a business for twenty years.”

She told me time and again that a collector should be able to do a party of three (mother, child, and father) in 15 minutes.

So what do they expect to make every hour?

$ per Sample	$1	$2	$3	$4	$5	$6
4*3 samples	12	12	12	12	12	12
Amount Earned Per Hour	12	24	36	48	60	72

The Memphis site goes against their business model because it requires a collector there regularly – so someone could come any day of the week between 10 AM and 4 PM. SSI prefers occasional busy days where the child support enforcement agencies schedule everyone to come on a certain day of the week.

Take our Saturday’s for instance. For a while, we would do the collections with 4 collectors from 9 to 12. All collectors made $11.00 an hour. So SSI was going to pay $132 ($33 a piece) to the collectors for their work. I would guess that the average for a Saturday collection at about 150 collections.

Regardless of what DDC pays SSI per sample, these days are profitable unless something goes wrong.

Assuming SSI is paid anywhere from 4$ to 6$ per sample, their profits (after paying the collectors) is anywhere from $468-$768. And they couldn’t entertain the idea of giving me a raise?

That one day alone, SSI was making what it would take me to get in two weeks. And I was doing the work.

So why am I writing this?

Well, for one, just to illustrate the employer – employee relationship at Specimen Specialists. Had I known that I didn’t have a chance for a raise, I’m not sure I would have taken the job. If you are offered a job through SSI to work at a child support office, find the DDC contract with your state and see how much DDC is charging for each sample.

Eventually, I was fired because I failed to remedy my untidy office and took smoke breaks when I had no one waiting. In the end, a lady in Memphis made the call, but that’s a post for another day.

After being fired on a Tuesday, I immediately applied for unemployment. Friday around 5:00 I receive a phone call from Cassandra. I didn’t want to hear from her so I let it go to voicemail. Listen to how passive aggressive she is on this message. She doesn’t come out and say it, but she definitely seems to think that I screwed with the samples to get back for being fired. HA!

cassandra voice mailmap :: {skin:’black’, animate:true, width:’400′, volume:1, autoplay:false, loop:false, showVolumeLevel:true, showTime:true, showRew:true, downloadable:false, downloadablesecurity:false, id3: false}

I didn’t screw with the samples by the way. The people in Memphis who I used to work with never got an email from the DDC regarding missing pictures. What Cassandra was talking about is still a mystery.

Bushmaster .233 Weapon of Choice in Connecticut Slaughter

andrew — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:56:10 +0000

Friday’s mass shooting of a kindergarten class in Connecticut left twenty 6 to 7 old children without their lives. The weapon used to shoot each victim multiple times was the Bushmaster 233. Looking at this gun, one doesn’t think self defense. One thinks military. In America, purchasing such weapons is perfectly legal. That is how the gun used Friday was obtained. Up until that Friday, I’m sure the Lanza’s were considered by others and themselves as responsible gun owners. Funny how a span of probably an hour can change things.

AR15 Rifle Bag (Photo credit: mrbill)

Conservatives and gun advocates argue that guns don’t kill people; people kill people. They argue that more people die in cars every year than are victims to gun crimes. All of this may very well be true, but the argument is not strong. What are guns intended to do? What are they made for? They are killing machines. They are made to kill. People kill others more easily, lethally, and often when guns are available.

Gun crimes at home are more likely to happen when guns are in the home. It seems that more people suffer from gun violence than defend themselves using guns.

We at the very least need a long term ban on assault rifles. Such guns serve no practical defense purpose.

Adam Lanza, the shooter in Friday’s massacre, attempted to purchase a gun days before the killing spree. He didn’t have the required paperwork and was not able to complete his purchase. Luckily for him, his mom had a well stocked arsenal at home. Had she not had the guns, Friday may not have happened.

The Artfully Phrased Right to Work

andrew — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 19:25:56 +0000

The manner in which Michigan passed legislation this week is sickening. They bar the collection of union dues as a condition of employment. That sounds dandy because no one wants to pay for something they don’t want. However, who are the ones who don’t want it? Is it union members? Doubtful. Unions may have a bad rep for whatever reasons, but they serve as one of the few checks on corporate power over its employees. No one enjoys having to bargain with his or her boss for higher wages and benefits. When it is just one lone individual, he holds little power at the bargaining table. Unions bring everyone together under one tent to fight together. It’s easy for corporations to let one person go and still carry on business. It’s a lot scarier when the possibility of all work coming to a halt is on the horizon. I would like to meet the individuals who were offered union jobs and declined because they didn’t want to pay union dues. They aren’t out there. And if they are in fact out there, they are ignorant because the only reason they are being paid so well is because there is a union there. The facts don’t lie. Union workers make more money.

What right to work laws do is give employees the option of opting out of paying dues to the union that has negotiated on their behalf. They think to themselves that by opting out they will make more money. As more and more employees opt out, the strength of the union dwindles as does employee pay. It took the Michigan legislature a week to pass legislation in both the state house and senate. Hardly enough time to publicly debate the issue. On top of that, they added the right to work law inside an appropriation bill so that a public referendum on the law couldn’t repeal it. This is just one more example of the corporate world wanting to pay less and less to their employees. The fact that the right wing advocates such laws shouldn’t be surprising. The way they word the damn thing is straight out of a business advertising school. Who wouldn’t want a right-to-work? The public doesn’t look into what it really is and takes the phrase hook line and sinker.

Conservatives Should Be Championing NYC Freelance Camera Man

andrew — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 06:14:45 +0000

When Ki-Suck Han stood directly in the path of an oncoming subway train in NYC, freelance camera man, R. Umar Abbasi, knew he had struck gold. He suggests that 20 or so seconds elapsed before the train slammed into Han. Like any rational person, he decided he would do his part and try to halt the subway train by getting the conductors attention from the flash of his camera while capturing pictures of the man facing eminent death. While his attempts at saving the man failed, he had managed to stay steady enough for a great picture.

Abassi shows the entrepreneurial fervor and dedication to hard work that conservatives love. He didn’t see man whose life would end in a matter of seconds. He saw a chance to make a buck. And he did just that by selling the photo to the new York post who I’m sure sold a lot of newspapers after they sprawled the photo across the front page.

Abassi had nothing to gain in helping the man. From his perspective, he would have lost in the end because he wouldn’t have been able to sell the photo. He was just doing his job. Every man for himself. Dog eat dog.

Forbes 400 – Wealthiest Individuals in America 2009

andrew — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 05:53:40 +0000

Individual	Net Worth	Source of Income
Bill Gates	$50,000,000,000	Microsoft
Warren Buffett	$40,000,000,000	Berkshire Hathaway
Larry Ellison	$27,000,000,000	Oracle
Charles Koch	$16,000,000,000	manufacturing, energy
David Koch	$16,000,000,000	manufacturing, energy
Christy Walton	$21,500,000,000	Wal-Mart
Jim Walton	$19,600,000,000	Wal-Mart
Alice Walton	$19,300,000,000	Wal-Mart
S. Robson Walton	$19,000,000,000	Wal-Mart
Michael Bloomberg	$17,500,000,000	Bloomberg
Jeff Bezos	$8,800,000,000	Amazon
Sheldon Adelson	$9,000,000,000	casinos, hotels
Sergey Brin	$15,300,000,000	Google
Larry Page	$15,300,000,000	Google
George Soros	$13,000,000,000	hedge funds
Forrest Mars, Jr.	$11,000,000,000	candy, pet food
Jacqueline Mars	$11,000,000,000	candy, pet food
John Mars	$11,000,000,000	candy, pet food
Steve Ballmer	$13,300,000,000	Microsoft
Paul Allen	$11,500,000,000	Microsoft, investments
Carl Icahn	$10,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Michael Dell	$14,500,000,000	Dell
Phil Knight	$9,500,000,000	Nike
Donald Bren	$12,000,000,000	real estate
Len Blavatnik	$5,000,000,000	Access Industries
Ronald Perelman	$10,000,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Abigail Johnson	$11,500,000,000	Fidelity
John Paulson	$6,800,000,000	hedge funds
James Simons	$8,500,000,000	hedge funds
Jack Taylor	$7,000,000,000	Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Anne Cox Chambers	$9,000,000,000	Cox Enterprises
Ray Dalio	$4,000,000,000	hedge funds
George Kaiser	$9,500,000,000	oil & gas, banking
Harold Hamm	$5,800,000,000	Continental Resources
Richard Kinder	$3,200,000,000	pipelines
Rupert Murdoch	$6,000,000,000	News Corp
Mark Zuckerberg	$2,000,000,000	Facebook
Charles Ergan	$4,900,000,000	EchoStar
Steve Cohen	$6,400,000,000	hedge funds
Andrew Beal	$4,500,000,000	Beal Bank, real estate
Pierre Omidyar	$5,500,000,000	Ebay
Leonard Lauder	$3,000,000,000	Estee Lauder
Philip Anschutz	$6,000,000,000	investments
Eric Schmidt	$5,500,000,000	Google
Samuel Newhouse, Jr.	$4,500,000,000	publishing
James Goodnight	$6,800,000,000	SAS Institute
Patrick Soon-Shiong	$4,000,000,000	generic drugs
Harold Simmons	$3,700,000,000	investments
Charles Butt	$4,000,000,000	supermarkets
Donald Newhouse	$4,000,000,000	publishing
Edward Johnson, III	$8,000,000,000	Fidelity
Ralph Lauren	$4,200,000,000	fashion
Ira Rennert	$5,000,000,000	investments
Eli Broad	$5,400,000,000	investments
John Menard, Jr.	$5,000,000,000	home improvement stores
David Geffen	$5,000,000,000	movies, music
John Malone	$2,300,000,000	cable television
Jeffrey Hildebrand	$1,500,000,000	Oil
David Tepper	$3,000,000,000	hedge funds
Blair Perry-Okeden	$4,500,000,000	Cox Enterprises
Ray Lee Hunt	$3,000,000,000	oil, real estate
Richard Lefrak	$4,000,000,000	real estate
Stephen Schwarzman	$4,700,000,000	investments
Dennis Washington	$4,200,000,000	construction, mining
Richard DeVos	$4,200,000,000	Alticor
Micky Arison	$4,300,000,000	Carnival Cruises
Robert Rowling	$4,100,000,000	oil & gas, investments
Gordon Moore	$3,700,000,000	Intel
Charles Johnson	$4,000,000,000	Franklin Resources
Rupert Johnson, Jr.	$3,700,000,000	Franklin Resources
Thomas Peterffy	$1,500,000,000	Interactive Brokers Group
David Green	$2,500,000,000	Hobby Lobby
Anne Walton Kroenke	$2,900,000,000	Wal-Mart
Trevor Rees-Jones	$1,500,000,000	Oil
Stephen Ross	$2,900,000,000	real estate
Bruce Kovner	$3,500,000,000	hedge funds
Daniel Ziff	$4,000,000,000	inheritance, hedge funds
Dirk Ziff	$4,000,000,000	inheritance, hedge funds
Robert Ziff	$4,000,000,000	inheritance, hedge funds
S. Truett Cathy	$1,500,000,000	Chick-fil-A
Leonard Stern	$3,600,000,000	real estate
Sumner Redstone	$2,000,000,000	Viacom
John Paul Dejoria	$4,000,000,000	hair products, tequila
Thomas Frist Jr.	$2,000,000,000	HCA Healthcare
Barbara Carlson Gage	$1,200,000,000	Gap
Bruce Halle	$2,000,000,000	Discount Tire
William Koch	$1,500,000,000	oil, investments
Henry Kravis	$3,800,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Marilyn Carlson Nelson	$1,200,000,000	energy, sports
Nancy Walton Laurie	$2,600,000,000	Wal-Mart
Patrick McGovern	$2,600,000,000	IDG
George Roberts	$3,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Edward Roski Jr.	$1,500,000,000	real estate
Charles Schwab	$4,700,000,000	discount stock brokerage
Malcom Glazer	$2,400,000,000	sports teams, real estate
Paul Tudor Jones, II	$2,900,000,000	hedge funds
John Sall	$3,400,000,000	SAS Institute
John A. Sobrato	$2,500,000,000	real estate
Roger Wang	$2,000,000,000	retail
Leon Black	$2,000,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Henry Ross Perot, Sr.	$3,500,000,000	computer services, real estate
Lynn Schusterman	$1,500,000,000	oil & gas, investments
Sheldon Solow	$1,700,000,000	real estate
Ronald Lauder	$2,500,000,000	Estee Lauder
Mitchell Rales	$2,500,000,000	Danaher Corp
Barbara Piasecka Johnson	$2,800,000,000	inheritance
George Lucas	$3,000,000,000	Star Wars
Steven Rales	$2,500,000,000	Danaher Corp
Steven Udvar-Hazy	$2,500,000,000	International Lease Finance
Edward Lampert	$2,500,000,000	investments
Karen Pritzker	$1,500,000,000	hotels, investments
Steven Spielberg	$3,000,000,000	movies
Ken Griffin	$2,000,000,000	hedge funds
Haim Saban	$2,800,000,000	television
Donald Trump	$2,000,000,000	real estate
John Arnold	$3,400,000,000	hedge funds
John Catsimatidis	$1,650,000,000	oil, real estate, supermarkets
Charles Dolan	$2,300,000,000	Cablevision Systems
Archie Aldis Emmerson	$1,900,000,000	timberland, lumber ls
Pauline MacMillan Keinath	$4,300,000,000	inheritance
Whitney MacMillan	$4,300,000,000	inheritance
Jerry Speyer	$1,800,000,000	real estate
Riley Bechtel	$3,000,000,000	engineering, construction
Stephen Bechtel, Jr.	$3,000,000,000	engineering, construction
Victor Fung	$2,600,000,000	distribution
Diane Hendricks	$2,000,000,000	ABC Supply
Kirk Kerkorian	$3,000,000,000	investments, casinos
David Shaw	$2,500,000,000	hedge funds
Alfred Taubman	$1,400,000,000	real estate
James Jannard	$2,800,000,000	Oakley, Red Digital Cinema
Robert Bass	$4,000,000,000	oil, investments
Edward DeBartolo, Jr.	$1,250,000,000	Home Depot
Stanley Druckenmiller	$3,500,000,000	hedge funds
Israel Englander	$1,700,000,000	hedge funds
Martha Ingram	$2,000,000,000	Ingram Industries
Jeremy Jacobs, Sr.	$1,300,000,000	DirecTV
H. Fisk Johnson	$1,950,000,000	SC Johnson & Sons
Imogene Powers Johnson	$1,950,000,000	SC Johnson & Sons
S. Curtis Johnson	$1,950,000,000	SC Johnson & Sons
Helen Johnson-Leipold	$1,950,000,000	SC Johnson & Sons
Winnie Johnson-Marquart	$1,950,000,000	SC Johnson & Sons
Jerry Jones	$1,800,000,000	Dallas Cowboys
Bernard Marcus	$1,450,000,000	Home Depot
David Rockefeller Sr.	$2,200,000,000	Standard Oil, banking
Warren Stephens	$3,000,000,000	Stephens Inc.
Joan Tisch	$2,600,000,000	Loews
Oprah Winfrey	$2,300,000,000	television
David Bonderman	$1,700,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Robert Holding	$3,300,000,000	energy, resorts, ranching
Amos Hostetter, Jr.	$2,000,000,000	cable television
Herbert Kohler, Jr.	$3,000,000,000	plumbing fixtures
James Leprino	$2,300,000,000	cheese
Julian Robertson, Jr.	$2,200,000,000	hedge funds, wine
David Sun	$2,500,000,000	computer memory
John Tu	$2,500,000,000	computer memory
Peter Buck	$1,500,000,000	Subway
Fred DeLuca	$1,500,000,000	Subway
John Doerr	$1,400,000,000	venture capital
Tom Gores	$2,200,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Timothy Headington	$2,000,000,000	oil & gas, investments
Anthony Pritzker	$1,600,000,000	hotels, investments
Jay Robert Pritzker	$1,600,000,000	hotels, investments
Phillip Ruffin	$1,850,000,000	casinos, real estate
Ronda Stryker	$2,200,000,000	Stryker Corp.
Steve Wynn	$2,300,000,000	casinos, hotels
Austin Cargill, II	$1,600,000,000	Cargill Inc.
James Cargill, II	$1,600,000,000	Cargill Inc.
Jack Dangermond	$2,000,000,000	mapping software
Ray Dolby	$2,600,000,000	Dolby Laboratories
Phillip Frost	$2,000,000,000	pharmaceuticals
Randal Kirk	$1,550,000,000	pharmaceuticals
Marianna Liebmann	$1,600,000,000	Cargill, Inc.
Mary Alice Dorrance Malone	$2,200,000,000	inheritance
David Murdock	$3,700,000,000	Dole, real estate
Igor Olenicoff	$1,500,000,000	real estate
A. Jerrold Perenchio	$2,100,000,000	Univision
Robert Rich Jr.	$1,900,000,000	Rich Foods
Ty Warner	$3,200,000,000	Beanie Babies
Mortimer Zuckerman	$1,500,000,000	real estate, media
Nicolas Berggruen	$2,000,000,000	Investments
Mark Cuban	$2,400,000,000	Broadcast.com
John Fisher	$1,200,000,000	hedge funds
William Randolph Hearst, III	$1,600,000,000	Hearst Corp
Robert Kraft	$1,500,000,000	New England Patriots
Michael Milken	$2,000,000,000	investments
Daniel Och	$2,800,000,000	hedge funds
Isaac Perlmutter	$1,550,000,000	Marvel
Richard Rainwater	$2,500,000,000	real estate, energy, insurance
Wilbur Ross, Jr.	$1,800,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Kelcy Warren	$1,350,000,000	Pipelines
Marc Benioff	$1,100,000,000	Colony Capital
Jeff Greene	$1,250,000,000	shopping centers
Henry Hillman	$2,100,000,000	industrialist
Min Kao	$1,800,000,000	navigation equipment
George Lindemann	$1,450,000,000	investments
Thomas Pritzker	$1,800,000,000	hotels, investments
Herbert Simon	$1,250,000,000	computer services, real estate
William Wrigley, Jr.	$2,100,000,000	chewing gum
Neil Bluhm	$1,500,000,000	real estate
James Coulter	$1,400,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Jim Davis	$1,700,000,000	New Balance
David Duffield	$1,100,000,000	Construction
Stanley Hubbard	$1,300,000,000	Hearst Corp
Walter Scott, Jr.	$1,950,000,000	construction, telecom
Albert Ueltschi	$1,650,000,000	FlightSafety
Edward Bass	$1,500,000,000	oil, investments
Lee Bass	$2,000,000,000	oil, investments
Bharat Desai	$1,650,000,000	Syntel
Gordon Getty	$2,000,000,000	inheritance, oil
George Mitchel	$2,000,000,000	Mitchell Energy
Richard Peery	$1,500,000,000	real estate
J. Christopher Reyes	$1,500,000,000	Reyes Holdings
Jude Reyes	$1,500,000,000	Reyes Holdings
Ted Turner	$1,800,000,000	cable television
George Argyros	$1,500,000,000	real estate, investments
John Arrillaga	$1,400,000,000	real estate
William Conway, Jr.	$2,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Phoebe Hearst Cooke	$1,300,000,000	Hearst Corp
Daniel D’Aniello	$2,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Bennett Dorrance	$2,000,000,000	inheritance
Alec Gores	$1,600,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Austin Hearst	$1,300,000,000	inheritance
David Hearst, Jr.	$1,300,000,000	Hearst Corp
Michael Jaharis	$1,900,000,000	pharmaceuticals
Richard Marriott	$1,200,000,000	hotels
Clayton Mathile	$1,700,000,000	Iams
Michael Moritz	$1,400,000,000	venture capital
Jean Pritzker	$1,500,000,000	hotels, investments
David Rubenstein	$2,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Romesh T. Wadhwani	$1,400,000,000	Software
S. Daniel Abraham	$1,400,000,000	Slim-Fast
Sid Bass	$2,000,000,000	oil, investments
Barry Diller	$1,150,000,000	hedge funds
Ken Fisher	$1,350,000,000	Money management
Drayton McLane, Jr.	$1,450,000,000	Wal-Mart, logistics
Robert McNair	$1,200,000,000	hotels
John Pritzker	$1,500,000,000	hotels, investments
Penny Pritzker	$1,700,000,000	hotels, investments
Leandro Rizzuto	$1,200,000,000	hotels, investments
Henry Samueli	$1,650,000,000	Broadcom
Thomas Siebel	$1,700,000,000	Siebel Systems
Frederick Smith	$1,650,000,000	FedEx
Dean White	$1,750,000,000	lboards, hotels
Gerald J. Ford	$1,350,000,000	banking
Glenn Dubin	$1,300,000,000	hedge funds
Robert Fisher	$1,100,000,000	PeopleSoft
William Fisher	$1,000,000,000	leisure craft
Thomas Friedkin	$1,600,000,000	Gulf States Toyota
David Gottesman	$1,350,000,000	investments
Jonathan Nelson	$1,400,000,000	Leveraged buyouts
Daniel Pritzker	$1,500,000,000	hotels, investments
Glen Taylor	$2,200,000,000	printing
Joe Mansueto	$1,150,000,000	IAC/InterActiveCorp
Stephen Bisciotti	$1,550,000,000	outsourcing, football
Norman Braman	$1,200,000,000	healthcare
Tom Golisano	$1,350,000,000	Paychex
Johnelle Hunt	$1,100,000,000	salsa
Gary Magness	$1,000,000,000	Bloomberg LP
Bill Marriott, Jr.	$1,200,000,000	Carlson Cos.
Linda Pritzker	$1,500,000,000	hotels, investments
Stewart Rahr	$1,950,000,000	Kinray
Kavitark Ram Shriram	$1,450,000,000	Venture capital, Google
Ron Baron	$1,300,000,000	money managment
Arthur Blank	$1,300,000,000	insurance
Ray Davis	$1,000,000,000	Intuit
James Irsay	$1,100,000,000	transportation
Irwin Jacobs	$1,600,000,000	Qualcomm
Joe Jamail, Jr.	$1,500,000,000	lawsuits
Thomas Lee	$1,250,000,000	Urban Outfitters
Craig McCaw	$1,650,000,000	McCaw Cellular
James Pritzker	$1,500,000,000	hotels, investments
Richard Schulze	$3,000,000,000	Best Buy
Scott Cook	$1,000,000,000	Stryker Corp.
James Dinan	$1,200,000,000	art, car dealerships
Richard Hayne	$1,250,000,000	real estate, investments
Vinod Khosla	$1,100,000,000	Indianapolis Colts
Gary Michelson	$1,300,000,000	radio, oil, real estate
Henry Ross Perot, Jr.	$1,250,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Michael Price	$1,400,000,000	investments
Pat Stryker	$1,350,000,000	Stryker Corp
Wilma Tisch	$1,550,000,000	Loews
Christopher Goldsbury	$1,100,000,000	cable television
Louis Bacon	$1,500,000,000	hedge funds
Gary Burrell	$1,100,000,000	Salesforce.com
Robert Friedlan	$1,650,000,000	mining
Alan Gerry	$1,100,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Marc Lasry	$1,350,000,000	hedge funds
Billy Joe McCombs	$1,300,000,000	sports concessions
Richard Scaife	$1,100,000,000	energy investments
Thomas Secunda	$1,200,000,000	fertilizer
Evgeny Shvidler	$1,000,000,000	real estate
Edmund Ansin	$1,300,000,000	Sunbeam Broadcasting
Leon Charney	$1,300,000,000	Real estate
Richard Chilton Jr.	$1,300,000,000	hedge funds
James Clark	$1,100,000,000	navigation equipment
David Filo	$1,300,000,000	Yahoo
Stephen Mandel, Jr.	$1,500,000,000	hedge funds
Nelson Peltz	$1,050,000,000	oil
Peter Peterson	$2,000,000,000	Blackstone Group
T. Boone Pickens	$1,150,000,000	Morningstar
Patrick Ryan	$1,300,000,000	cars
Jon Stryker	$1,450,000,000	Stryker Corp.
Henry Swieca	$1,100,000,000	real estate
Kenny Troutt	$1,000,000,000	supermarkets
Todd Wagner	$1,200,000,000	Bloomberg
Charlotte Colket Weber	$1,100,000,000	hedge funds
Kenneth Adams, Jr.	$1,200,000,000	Ebay
Alexander Rovt	$1,200,000,000	Conair
Peter Sperling	$1,250,000,000	real estate
Peter Lewis	$1,050,000,000	Blackstone Group
William Macaulay	$1,100,000,000	CDW Corp
Dan Snyder	$1,100,000,000	investments
John Kluge	$6,500,000,000	Metromedia
Dan Duncan	$8,000,000,000	energy
James Kennedy	$4,500,000,000	Cox Enterprises
Samuel Zell	$3,800,000,000	real estate, private equity
Steven Jobs	$5,100,000,000	Apple Computer, Pixar
William Cook	$3,500,000,000	medical devices
Lester Crown & family	$4,000,000,000	investments
Paul Milstein & family	$3,800,000,000	Emigrant, real estate
Bradley Hughes	$3,500,000,000	Public Storage
Ronald Burkle	$3,200,000,000	supermarkets, investments
Edgar Bronfman Sr	$2,500,000,000	liquor
Peter Kellogg	$3,000,000,000	investments
Donald Schneider	$2,500,000,000	trucking
Clemmie Spangler Jr	$1,650,000,000	investments
Cargill MacMillan Jr	$4,300,000,000	inheritance
Marion MacMillan Pictet	$4,300,000,000	inheritance
T Denny Sanford	$1,000,000,000	TD Ameritrade
Leslie Wexner	$2,000,000,000	Limited Brands
Roger Penske	$1,300,000,000	Transportation
H Wayne Huizenga	$2,100,000,000	investments
Theodore Lerner	$3,000,000,000	real estate
Thomas Barrack	$1,150,000,000	New York Yankees
William Hilton	$2,300,000,000	hotels, casinos
Carl Lindner Jr & family	$1,750,000,000	investments
Henry Nicholas III	$1,500,000,000	Broadcom
Nicholas Pritzker II	$1,200,000,000	Carlson Cos
Jess Jackson	$1,850,000,000	Jackson Fay Wines
E Stanley Kroenke	$2,700,000,000	sports, real estate
Alfred Mann	$1,400,000,000	medical devices
John Anderson	$1,700,000,000	investments
Aubrey McClendon	$1,000,000,000	Kohl’s
John Morgridge	$1,550,000,000	Cisco
Alan Casden	$1,850,000,000	real estate
James Kim & family	$1,500,000,000	microchips
Frederik GH Meijer	$5,000,000,000	supermarkets
Donald Hall	$1,000,000,000	commodities
Jerry Yang	$1,250,000,000	Apollo Group
William Connor II	$1,500,000,000	supply-chain services
Michael Krasny	$1,100,000,000	Sun Microsystems, venture capital
John Abele	$1,250,000,000	Yahoo
Marguerite Harbert	$1,300,000,000	Gap
Michael Ilitch	$1,400,000,000	pizza
Nancy Lerner	$970,000,000	lboards
Norma Lerner	$960,000,000	inheritance
Randolph Lerner	$960,000,000	inheritance
Carl Berg	$1,300,000,000	real estate
Hamilton James	$1,100,000,000	inheritance
William Moncrief Jr	$1,050,000,000	84 Lumber
David Rich	$1,500,000,000	Rich Foods
Marc Rich	$1,500,000,000	commodities
Tamir Sapir	$1,400,000,000	real estate
John Sperling	$1,500,000,000	Apollo Group
Hope Hill van Beuren	$990,000,000	cable, investments
Margaret Whitman	$1,200,000,000	Broadcast.com
John Brown	$1,050,000,000	Investments
William Gross	$2,000,000,000	bonds
Michael Heisley Sr	$1,500,000,000	manufacturing
Thomas Hicks	$1,000,000,000	Hallmark
William Kellogg	$1,000,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Walter Shorenstein & family	$1,000,000,000	Proprietary Trading
George Steinbrenner III	$1,150,000,000	oil & gas, investments
Brad Kelley	$1,500,000,000	tobacco
Charles Munger	$1,550,000,000	Berkshire Hathaway
Margaret Magerko	$1,050,000,000	Progressive Corp
Bruce Wasserstein	$2,200,000,000	Wasserstein Perella, Lazard
Philip Falcone	$2,000,000,000	hedge funds
Mary Janet Morse Cargill	$1,600,000,000	Cargill Inc.
Raj Rajaratnam	$1,500,000,000	hedge funds
Donald Fisher	$1,300,000,000	Gap
George Randolph Hearst Jr.	$1,300,000,000	Hearst Corp
Manuel Moroun & family	$1,300,000,000	medical patents
Leon Cooperman	$1,150,000,000	Oil
Theodore Forstmann	$1,100,000,000	Gap
Alexander Spanos & family	$1,100,000,000	Washington Redskins
John Orin Edson	$1,000,000,000	Pipelines
John Gordon & family	$1,000,000,000	Gap
Pincus Green	$1,000,000,000	Gordon Food Service
Malone Mitchell III	$1,000,000,000	natural gas
Jeffry Picower	$1,000,000,000	oil & gas
Joseph Ricketts	$1,000,000,000	investments
Steven Schonfeld	$1,000,000,000	Banking, credit cards
Joyce Raley Teel	$1,000,000,000	Millhouse LLC
Charles Zegar	$1,000,000,000	Excel Communications
Jeffrey Lurie	$990,000,000	inheritance
Arte Moreno	$980,000,000	Philadelphia Eagles
Dwight Schar	$960,000,000	inheritance
Sam Wyly	$950,000,000	NVR Inc.

Forbes 400 Wealthiest Individuals for 2007

andrew — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 01:53:45 +0000

Individual	Net Worth	Source of Income
Bill Gates	$59,000,000,000	Microsoft
Warren Buffett	$52,000,000,000	Berkshire Hathaway
Sheldon Adelson	$28,000,000,000	casinos, hotels
Larry Ellison	$26,000,000,000	Google
Larry Page	$18,500,000,000	Oracle
Sergey Brin	$18,500,000,000	Google
Kirk Kerkorian	$18,000,000,000	venture capital
Michael Dell	$17,200,000,000	Dell
David Koch	$17,000,000,000	oil, commodities
Charles Koch	$17,000,000,000	oil, commodities
Paul Allen	$16,800,000,000	Microsoft, investments
Christy Walton	$16,300,000,000	Wal-Mart inheritance
S. Robson Walton	$16,300,000,000	Wal-Mart
Jim Walton	$16,300,000,000	Wal-Mart
Alice Walton	$16,100,000,000	Wal-Mart
Steve Ballmer	$15,200,000,000	Microsoft
Abigail Johnson	$15,000,000,000	Fidelity
Carl Icahn	$14,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Forrest Mars, Jr.	$14,000,000,000	candy, pet food
Jack Taylor	$14,000,000,000	Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Jacqueline Mars	$14,000,000,000	candy, pet food
John Mars	$14,000,000,000	Hedge Funds
Donald Bren	$13,000,000,000	real estate
Anne Cox Chambers	$12,600,000,000	Cox Enterprises
Michael Bloomberg	$11,500,000,000	Bloomberg
George Kaiser	$11,000,000,000	oil & gas, banking
Charles Ergan	$10,200,000,000	EchoStar
Ronald Perelman	$10,000,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Edward Johnson, III	$10,000,000,000	Fidelity
Phil Knight	$9,800,000,000	Nike
John Kluge	$9,500,000,000	hotels
Pierre Omidyar	$8,900,000,000	Ebay
Rupert Murdoch	$8,800,000,000	News Corp
George Soros	$8,800,000,000	hedge funds
Jeff Bezos	$8,700,000,000	Amazon
James Goodnight	$8,700,000,000	SAS Institute
Samuel Newhouse, Jr.	$8,500,000,000	publishing
Donald Newhouse	$8,500,000,000	publishing
Dan Duncan	$8,200,000,000	energy
Stephen Schwarzman	$7,800,000,000	investments
Sumner Redstone	$7,600,000,000	Viacom
Philip Anschutz	$7,600,000,000	investments
Harold Simmons	$7,400,000,000	investments
John Menard, Jr.	$7,300,000,000	hotels, investments
Leonard Blavatnik	$7,200,000,000	Access Industries
Eli Broad	$7,000,000,000	investments
Steve Cohen	$6,800,000,000	hedge funds
Eric Schmidt	$6,500,000,000	Google
Robert Rowling	$6,400,000,000	oil & gas, investments
James Kennedy	$6,300,000,000	Cox Enterprises
Blair Perry-Okeden	$6,300,000,000	Cox Enterprises
Samuel Zell	$6,000,000,000	real estate, private equity
David Geffen	$6,000,000,000	movies, music
Charles Johnson	$6,000,000,000	Franklin Resources
Micky Arison	$5,800,000,000	Carnival Cruises
Steven Jobs	$5,700,000,000	Apple Computer, Pixar
James Simons	$5,500,000,000	hedge funds
Henry Kravis	$5,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Robert Bass	$5,500,000,000	oil, investments
George Roberts	$5,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Charles Schwab	$5,500,000,000	discount stock brokerage
Rupert Johnson, Jr.	$5,200,000,000	Franklin Resources
Robert Holding	$5,000,000,000	energy, resorts, ranching
Min Kao	$4,700,000,000	navigation equipment
Ralph Lauren	$4,700,000,000	fashion
Patrick McGovern	$4,700,000,000	IDG
David Murdock	$4,700,000,000	investments
Gordon Moore	$4,500,000,000	Intel
William Davidson	$4,500,000,000	glass
Lester Crown & family	$4,500,000,000	investments
William Cook	$4,500,000,000	medical devices
James Sorenson	$4,500,000,000	medical devices, real estate
Stephen Ross	$4,500,000,000	real estate
Edward Lampert	$4,500,000,000	investments
Paul Milstein & family	$4,500,000,000	Emigrant, real estate
Henry Ross Perot, Sr.	$4,500,000,000	computer services, real estate
Joan Tisch	$4,400,000,000	Loews
John Sall	$4,400,000,000	Apollo Group
Leonard Stern	$4,200,000,000	real estate
Leon Black	$4,100,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Steven Udvar-Hazy	$4,100,000,000	International Lease Finance
Ty Warner	$4,100,000,000	Beanie Babies
Ray Hunt	$4,000,000,000	oil, real estate
Herbert Kohler, Jr.	$4,000,000,000	plumbing fixtures
George Lucas	$4,000,000,000	Star Wars
Richard DeVos	$4,000,000,000	Alticor
Ray Dalio	$4,000,000,000	Hedge Funds
Riley Bechtel	$3,900,000,000	engineering, construction
Stephen Wynn	$3,900,000,000	casinos, hotels
Bradley Hughes	$3,700,000,000	Public Storage
Stephen Bechtel, Jr.	$3,600,000,000	engineering, construction
John Simplot & family	$3,600,000,000	computer memory
Ira Rennert	$3,500,000,000	investments
Kenneth Hendricks	$3,500,000,000	Excel Communications
Ronald Burkle	$3,500,000,000	supermarkets, investments
Haim Saban	$3,500,000,000	television
Robert Ziff	$3,500,000,000	inheritance, hedge funds
Daniel Ziff	$3,500,000,000	inheritance, hedge funds
Richard Schulze	$3,500,000,000	Best Buy
Richard Rainwater	$3,500,000,000	real estate, energy, insurance
Bruce Kovner	$3,500,000,000	hedge funds
Stanley Druckenmiller	$3,500,000,000	hedge funds
Dirk Ziff	$3,500,000,000	inheritance, hedge funds
David Bonderman	$3,400,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Dennis Washington	$3,400,000,000	construction, mining
Paul Tudor Jones, II	$3,400,000,000	hedge funds
Charles Dolan	$3,300,000,000	Cablevision Systems
Harold Hamm	$3,300,000,000	Continental Resources
Matthew Bucksbaum & family	$3,300,000,000	real estate
A. Jerrold Perenchio	$3,200,000,000	Univision
Peter Kellogg	$3,200,000,000	investments
Edgar Bronfman Sr	$3,200,000,000	liquor
Leonard Lauder	$3,200,000,000	Estee Lauder
Ronald Lauder	$3,200,000,000	Estee Lauder
Gary Burrell	$3,200,000,000	navigation equipment
Lee Bass	$3,100,000,000	oil, investments
Sid Bass	$3,100,000,000	oil, investments
Carl Pohlad	$3,100,000,000	banking
Thomas Pritzker	$3,000,000,000	hotels, investments
Richard Kinder	$3,000,000,000	pipelines
Victor Fung	$3,000,000,000	distribution
Donald Trump	$3,000,000,000	real estate
Steven Spielberg	$3,000,000,000	movies
Ken Griffin	$3,000,000,000	building supplies
Mitchell Rales	$3,000,000,000	Danaher Corp
T. Boone Pickens	$3,000,000,000	oil & gas, investments
Richard Lefrak	$3,000,000,000	real estate
Henry Hillman	$3,000,000,000	industrialist
John Sobrato & family	$3,000,000,000	chemicals
Donald Schneider	$3,000,000,000	trucking
Patrick Soon-Shiong	$3,000,000,000	generic drugs
Clemmie Spangler, Jr.	$2,900,000,000	investments
Ronda Stryker	$2,900,000,000	Stryker Corp.
Melvin Simon	$2,900,000,000	real estate
James Coulter	$2,900,000,000	leveraged buyouts
T Denny Sanford	$2,800,000,000	Banking, credit cards
Maurice Greenberg	$2,800,000,000	American International Group
Marion MacMillan Pictet	$2,800,000,000	inheritance
Cargill MacMillan Jr	$2,800,000,000	inheritance
Leslie Wexner	$2,800,000,000	Limited Brands
Craig McCaw	$2,800,000,000	McCaw Cellular
Amos Hostetter, Jr.	$2,800,000,000	cable television
George Mitchel	$2,800,000,000	Mitchell Energy
Whitney MacMillan	$2,800,000,000	inheritance
Penny Pritzker	$2,800,000,000	hotels, investments
Steven Rales	$2,800,000,000	Danaher Corp
Ray Dolby	$2,800,000,000	Dolby Laboratories
John MacMillan III	$2,800,000,000	candy, pet food
Pauline MacMillan Keinath	$2,800,000,000	inheritance
Roger Penske	$2,700,000,000	cars
David Rockefeller Sr.	$2,700,000,000	Standard Oil, banking
Anthony Pritzker	$2,700,000,000	hotels, investments
Mark Cuban	$2,700,000,000	Broadcast.com
Glen Taylor	$2,700,000,000	printing
Karen Pritzker	$2,700,000,000	Google
Jean Pritzker	$2,700,000,000	hotels, investments
Jay Robert Pritzker	$2,700,000,000	hotels, investments
James Pritzker	$2,700,000,000	hotels, investments
Daniel Pritzker	$2,700,000,000	hotels, investments
Barbara Piasecka Johnson	$2,700,000,000	inheritance
Linda Pritzker	$2,700,000,000	hotels, investments
Wilma Tisch	$2,600,000,000	Loews
John Pritzker	$2,600,000,000	real estate
J Joseph Ricketts	$2,600,000,000	investments
Edward Bass	$2,600,000,000	oil, investments
David Sun	$2,500,000,000	computer memory
Anne Walton Kroenke	$2,500,000,000	Wal-Mart
Mary Alice Dorrance Malone	$2,500,000,000	inheritance
Michael Milken	$2,500,000,000	investments
John Paulson	$2,500,000,000	potatoes, microchips
Peter Peterson	$2,500,000,000	Blackstone Group
Robert Rich Jr.	$2,500,000,000	nondairy creamer
David Rubenstein	$2,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Lynn Schusterman	$2,500,000,000	Oil and gas
Malcom Glazer	$2,500,000,000	sports teams, real estate
Evgeny Shvidler	$2,500,000,000	Millhouse Capital
John Tu	$2,500,000,000	condos
Oprah Winfrey	$2,500,000,000	television
Bennett Dorrance	$2,500,000,000	inheritance
Jim Davis	$2,500,000,000	New Balance
David Gottesman	$2,500,000,000	investments
Daniel D’Aniello	$2,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
William Conway, Jr.	$2,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
David Shaw	$2,500,000,000	hedge funds
Leonore Annenberg	$2,500,000,000	publishing
Charles Brandes	$2,500,000,000	money management
H Wayne Huizenga	$2,500,000,000	investments
Theodore Lerner	$2,500,000,000	real estate
Gordon Getty	$2,400,000,000	inheritance, oil
Charles Butt	$2,400,000,000	supermarkets
Mortimer Zuckerman	$2,400,000,000	real estate, media
Frederick Smith	$2,400,000,000	FedEx
John Malone	$2,400,000,000	home improvement stores
William Randolph Hearst, III	$2,400,000,000	Hearst Corp
Martha Ingram	$2,400,000,000	Ingram Industries
William Hilton	$2,300,000,000	hotels, casinos
Thomas Barrack	$2,300,000,000	Colony Capital
Henry Nicholas III	$2,300,000,000	Broadcom
Nicholas Pritzker II	$2,300,000,000	hotels, investments
Ted Turner	$2,300,000,000	cable television
Carl Lindner Jr & family	$2,300,000,000	investments
Edward Roski Jr.	$2,300,000,000	real estate
Phillip Frost	$2,300,000,000	Ivax
Henry Samueli	$2,300,000,000	Broadcom
Winnie Johnson-Marquart	$2,200,000,000	SC Johnson & Sons
Barbara Carlson Gage	$2,200,000,000	Carlson Cos.
Tom Gores	$2,200,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Imogene Powers Johnson	$2,200,000,000	SC Johnson & Sons
Helen Johnson-Leipold	$2,200,000,000	SC Johnson & Sons
Nancy Walton Laurie	$2,200,000,000	Wal-Mart
Marilyn Carlson Nelson	$2,200,000,000	Carlson Cos
S. Daniel Abraham	$2,200,000,000	Slim-Fast
S. Curtis Johnson	$2,200,000,000	SC Johnson & Sons
John Marriott Jr	$2,200,000,000	Cisco
Alfred Mann	$2,200,000,000	inventor, entrepreneur
E Stanley Kroenke	$2,200,000,000	sports, real estate
H Fisk Johnson	$2,200,000,000	SC Johnson & Sons
Omid Kordestani	$2,200,000,000	Google
Jess Jackson	$2,200,000,000	Jackson Fay Wines
Franklin Booth Jr	$2,200,000,000	Berkshire Hathaway
Phoebe Hearst Cooke	$2,100,000,000	Hearst Corp
James Leprino	$2,100,000,000	cheese
John Morgridge	$2,100,000,000	SAS Institute
Ernest Rady	$2,100,000,000	banking, insurance
Neil Bluhm	$2,100,000,000	real estate
John Catsimatidis	$2,100,000,000	Metromedia
Tom Ward	$2,100,000,000	Chesapeake Energy
Jon Stryker	$2,100,000,000	Morningstar
Archie Aldis Emmerson	$2,100,000,000	timberland, lumber ls
Austin Hearst	$2,100,000,000	Hearst Corp
Aubrey McClendon	$2,100,000,000	Oil
William Wrigley, Jr.	$2,100,000,000	chewing gum
Phillip Ruffin	$2,100,000,000	casinos, real estate
Clayton Mathile	$2,100,000,000	Iams
Richard Marriott	$2,100,000,000	hotels
John Anderson	$2,100,000,000	real estate
David Hearst, Jr.	$2,100,000,000	Hearst Corp
George Hearst Jr	$2,100,000,000	Hearst Corp
Herbert Allen, Jr.	$2,100,000,000	investment banking
Harry Macklowe	$2,000,000,000	real estate
B Thomas Golisano	$2,000,000,000	Paychex
Frank Batten Sr	$2,000,000,000	Landmark
Alan Casden	$2,000,000,000	real estate
James Kim & family	$2,000,000,000	microchips
Leslie Lampton	$2,000,000,000	oil and chemicals refining
Frederik GH Meijer	$2,000,000,000	Supermarkets
Thomas Siebel	$2,000,000,000	Siebel Systems
Charles Munger	$2,000,000,000	Berkshire Hathaway
Sheldon Solow	$2,000,000,000	real estate
Margaret Magerko	$2,000,000,000	84 Lumber
R Allen Stanford	$2,000,000,000	Stanford Financial Group
George Lindemann	$2,000,000,000	investments
Michael Jaharis	$2,000,000,000	pharmaceuticals
Thomas Frist Jr.	$2,000,000,000	HCA Healthcare
Jerry Speyer	$2,000,000,000	real estate
Bernard Marcus	$2,000,000,000	Home Depot
Joe Mansueto	$2,000,000,000	investments
Thomas Lee	$2,000,000,000	leveraged buyouts
William Koch	$2,000,000,000	oil, investments
James Jannard	$2,000,000,000	Oakley
Joshua Harris	$2,000,000,000	money management, wine
J. Christopher Flowers	$2,000,000,000	TD Ameritrade
David Filo	$2,000,000,000	Yahoo
David Tepper	$2,000,000,000	hedge funds
Edward DeBartolo, Jr.	$1,900,000,000	shopping centers
John Doerr	$1,900,000,000	inheritance
Ken Fisher	$1,900,000,000	hedge funds
Albert Ueltschi	$1,900,000,000	FlightSafety
George Argyros	$1,900,000,000	real estate, investments
John Calamos & family	$1,900,000,000	Gap
Paul Foster	$1,900,000,000	Western Refining
Donald Hall	$1,900,000,000	Hallmark
Jon Huntsman	$1,900,000,000	lawsuits
Jerry Yang	$1,900,000,000	Yahoo
Igor Olenicoff	$1,800,000,000	real estate
Amar Bose	$1,800,000,000	Bose
William Connor II	$1,800,000,000	supply-chain services
Theodore Waitt	$1,800,000,000	Gateway
Arthur Williams Jr	$1,800,000,000	insurance
Bharat Desai	$1,800,000,000	Syntel
Louis Bacon	$1,800,000,000	hedge funds
Edmund Ansin	$1,800,000,000	Sunbeam Broadcasting
Alfred Taubman	$1,800,000,000	real estate
Pat Stryker	$1,800,000,000	Stryker Corp
Kavitark Ram Shriram	$1,800,000,000	Money management
Michael Price	$1,800,000,000	investments
Jorge Perez	$1,800,000,000	Leucadia National Corp
David Green	$1,800,000,000	Hobby Lobby
Sanford Weill	$1,800,000,000	Citigroup
Louis Gonda	$1,700,000,000	International Lease Finance
Michael Krasny	$1,700,000,000	CDW Corp
Alan Gerry	$1,700,000,000	cable television
Stewart Rahr	$1,700,000,000	Kinray
Wilbur Ross, Jr.	$1,700,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Walter Scott, Jr.	$1,700,000,000	construction, telecom
Dean White	$1,700,000,000	lboards, hotels
Peter Buck	$1,700,000,000	Subway
Fred DeLuca	$1,700,000,000	Subway
Thomas Friedkin	$1,700,000,000	Gulf States Toyota
Ernest Stempel	$1,700,000,000	insurance
Marguerite Harbert	$1,600,000,000	inheritance
John Abele	$1,600,000,000	Hedge Funds
Norma Lerner	$1,600,000,000	inheritance
Nancy Lerner	$1,600,000,000	inheritance
Robert Day	$1,600,000,000	money management
Wesley Edens	$1,600,000,000	Fortress Investment Group
Michael Ilitch	$1,600,000,000	pizza
Stanley Stub Hubbard	$1,600,000,000	DirecTV
John Arrillaga	$1,600,000,000	mutual funds
Randolph Lerner	$1,600,000,000	inheritance
Phyllis Taylor	$1,600,000,000	Taylor Energy
Brad Kelley	$1,600,000,000	tobacco
Andrew Beal	$1,600,000,000	Beal Bank, real estate
John Arnold	$1,600,000,000	Stryker Corp.
Bernard Saul, II	$1,600,000,000	banking, real estate
Richard Peery	$1,600,000,000	real estate
Billy Joe McCombs	$1,600,000,000	radio, oil, real estate
Randal Kirk	$1,600,000,000	New River Pharmaceuticals, Third Security
Irwin Jacobs	$1,600,000,000	Qualcomm
Arthur Blank	$1,600,000,000	Home Depot
Thomas Marsico	$1,500,000,000	mutual funds
Dennis Albaugh	$1,500,000,000	Pesticides
Roland Arnall	$1,500,000,000	Mortgages
Ronald Baron	$1,500,000,000	Money Management
Carl Berg	$1,500,000,000	real estate
Peter Briger Jr	$1,500,000,000	Fortress Investment Group
James France	$1,500,000,000	auto racing
Tamir Sapir	$1,500,000,000	real estate
Jerome Kohlberg Jr	$1,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
James Dinan	$1,500,000,000	Hedge Funds
William Moncrief Jr	$1,500,000,000	Oil
Michael Novogratz	$1,500,000,000	Fortress Investment Group
David Rich	$1,500,000,000	non-dairy creamer
Marc Rich	$1,500,000,000	Commodities
Hamilton James	$1,500,000,000	Blackstone Group
Timothy Headington	$1,500,000,000	oil, investments
William Fisher	$1,500,000,000	Gap
Gary Michelson	$1,500,000,000	medical patents
Robert McNair	$1,500,000,000	energy, sports
Marc Lasry	$1,500,000,000	Hedge funds
Vinod Khosla	$1,500,000,000	Sun Microsystems, venture capital
Jerry Jones	$1,500,000,000	Dallas Cowboys
Joe Jamail, Jr.	$1,500,000,000	Boston Scientific
Trevor Rees-Jones	$1,500,000,000	Oil
Jeffrey Hildebrand	$1,500,000,000	Oil
Marc Rowan	$1,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Alec Gores	$1,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Christopher Goldsbury	$1,500,000,000	Salsa
Robert Friedlan	$1,500,000,000	Mining
Gerald J. Ford	$1,500,000,000	Banking
John Fisher	$1,500,000,000	cable television
Israel Englander	$1,500,000,000	hedge funds
Barry Diller	$1,500,000,000	InterActiveCorp
Jeremy Jacobs, Sr.	$1,500,000,000	sports concessions
Herbert Simon	$1,500,000,000	real estate
Peter Sperling	$1,500,000,000	Apollo Group
Todd Wagner	$1,500,000,000	Broadcast.com
James Clark	$1,500,000,000	Netscape
O Bruton Smith	$1,500,000,000	Speedway Motorsports
Robert Fisher	$1,500,000,000	Gap
Steven Roth	$1,500,000,000	real estate
Fayez Sarofim	$1,500,000,000	money management
Joseph Steinberg	$1,500,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Daniel Och	$1,500,000,000	hedge funds
Margaret Whitman	$1,400,000,000	Ebay
Roy Disney	$1,400,000,000	Walt Disney
Richard Egan	$1,400,000,000	EMC Corp
Leslie Gonda	$1,400,000,000	International Lease Finance
Anne Windfohr Marion	$1,400,000,000	inheritance, oil
Robert Naify	$1,400,000,000	movie theaters
Hope Hill van Beuren	$1,400,000,000	Inheritance
Patrick Ryan	$1,400,000,000	Insurance
John Sperling	$1,400,000,000	Stryker Corp.
Leandro Rizzuto	$1,400,000,000	Conair
Bruce Karsh	$1,400,000,000	money management
Robert Kraft	$1,400,000,000	New England Patriots
Stephen Bisciotti	$1,400,000,000	outsourcing, football
Nelson Peltz	$1,400,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Michael Moritz	$1,400,000,000	venture capital
Charlotte Colket Weber	$1,400,000,000	Inheritance
S. Truett Cathy	$1,400,000,000	Chick-fil-A
Glenn Dubin	$1,400,000,000	hedge funds
Howard Marks	$1,400,000,000	money management
George Steinbrenner III	$1,300,000,000	New York Yankees
Thomas Hicks	$1,300,000,000	leveraged buyouts
Roger Wang	$1,300,000,000	Retail
Herbert Siegel	$1,300,000,000	Television
Walter Shorenstein & family	$1,300,000,000	real estate
Barry Rosenstein	$1,300,000,000	Hedge Fund, Jana Partners
William Kellogg	$1,300,000,000	Kohl’s
Michael Heisley Sr	$1,300,000,000	Manufacturing
William Gross	$1,300,000,000	Bonds
Lorenzo Fertitta	$1,300,000,000	casinos, Ultimate Fighting Championship
Frank Fertitta III	$1,300,000,000	casinos, Ultimate Fighting Championship
John Brown	$1,300,000,000	Oil, real estate, supermarkets
Timothy Blixseth	$1,300,000,000	timberland, real estate
Kenny Troutt	$1,300,000,000	investments, casinos
Henry Swieca	$1,300,000,000	hedge funds
Julian Robertson, Jr.	$1,300,000,000	hotels, investments
Richard Scaife	$1,300,000,000	investments

Stalling Economy from a Lack of Demand

andrew — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:26:05 +0000

Lowering government spending in ’93 boosted the economy because of the economic conditions at the time.

Very high capital costs
Very high interest rates
Businesses operating with very high utilization of capacity (But still not investing more because capital costs were so high.)

The thinking was that if government stopped borrowing, interest rates would come down. If interest rates came down, people would begin to invest in more capital and the economy’s capacity would increase. Then output would increase, and the economy would grow. So deficit reduction was a vital part of the economy’s growth after 93.

What’s different now?

Factories are sitting around empty (low utilization of capacity)

Capital costs and interest rates are low (10 year money today is at 2.85 percentage points) 2.85 percentage points is not preventing people from investing. They are failing to invest for other reasons. Why build a new factory today when your old factory is empty.

If Hitler had not come along, FDR would had left office in 1941 with unemployment rates in excess of 15% and a failed economic recovery strategy. The public investment programs forced by a need for a military buildup is what saved the American economy. We do not need such investment programs today, however. We need more demand in the economy today.

Policy makers should focus on what the problem is today. Some are concerned about the errors of the 1970′s (too much liquidity, too big deficits, too much inflation). These errors led to the stagflation at the end of Carter’s administration.

Others are concerned about the mistakes of the late 1930′s or those of Japan in the 1990′s (an economy basically stalling out because there isn’t enough demand despite removing any barriers to invest).

In Lawrence Summer’s opinion, the United States is much more likely to go the way of Japan.

So how do we create demand?

Invest in infrastructure
Give employees or employers tax relief (puts more money in their pockets so they spend more)
Provide support to parts of the economy that would otherwise be laying people off on a huge scale (auto bail out, support to state and local governments)
Provide unemployment insurance and support for workers who have lost their jobs (otherwise they will cut off their spending)
Promote the purchase of American products

Doing these five things, we will brighten the prospects for higher employment and we have a better chance at reducing the deficit because an economy growing more rapidly will collect more in taxes.

Stalling Economy from a Lack of Demand

andrew — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:25:48 +0000

Lowering government spending in ’93 boosted the economy because of the economic conditions at the time.

Very high capital costs
Very high interest rates
Businesses operating with very high utilization of capacity (But still not investing more because capital costs were so high.)

What’s different now?

Factories are sitting around empty (low utilization of capacity)

In Lawrence Summer’s opinion, the United States is much more likely to go the way of Japan.

So how do we create demand?

Invest in infrastructure
Give employees or employers tax relief (puts more money in their pockets so they spend more)
Provide support to parts of the economy that would otherwise be laying people off on a huge scale (auto bail out, support to state and local governments)
Provide unemployment insurance and support for workers who have lost their jobs (otherwise they will cut off their spending)
Promote the purchase of American products

Doing these five things, we will brighten the prospects for higher employment and we have a better chance at reducing the deficit because an economy growing more rapidly will collect more in taxes.

Highlights from Jeffrey Sachs’ The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity

andrew — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 02:24:36 +0000

I have recently been reading Jeffrey Sachs’ The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity. I figured instead of trying to paraphrase, I would do a post of a selection of my highlights. Here they are thus far:

A society of markets, laws, and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty, and compassion toward the rest of society and toward the world.

Sachs, Jeffrey D. (2011-10-04). The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity (Kindle Locations 139-140). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Without restoring an ethos of social responsibility, there can be no meaningful and sustained economic recovery.

(Kindle Locations 141-142)

Most important, we need to be ready to pay the price of civilization through multiple acts of good citizenship: bearing our fair share of taxes, educating ourselves deeply about society’s needs, acting as vigilant stewards for future generations, and remembering that compassion is the glue that holds society together.

(Kindle Locations 163-165)

Our greatest national illusion is that a healthy society can be organized around the single-minded pursuit of wealth. The ferocity of the quest for wealth throughout society has left Americans exhausted and deprived of the benefits of social trust, honesty, and compassion.

(Kindle Locations 229-230)

Even before the current crisis, the 2000s had the lowest growth of jobs of any decade since World War II. 10 The job-market pain is not felt evenly. The unemployment rate is by far the highest among lower-skilled workers, reaching 15 percent among workers with less than a high school education and 10 percent of those with a high school diploma or some college.

(Kindle Locations 291-294)

This widespread financial distress is the end stage of a generation-long decline in Americans’ propensity to save.

(Kindle Locations 306-307)

The decline of net national saving has also meant a decline of funds available for domestic investment to build capital stock.

(Kindle Locations 335-336)

The most serious threat is to our human capital. The quality of the labor force will be the most important single determinant of American prosperity in the decades to come. The evidence, therefore, that America’s public schools are falling behind those of the rest of the world in core attainments in reading, science, and math is a harbinger of a deepening crisis.

(Kindle Locations 349-351)

The working class has been caught in the pincers of low-wage competition from abroad combined with the technological obsolescence of many traditional low-skilled jobs.

(Kindle Locations 371-372)

While top CEO pay has been soaring, the median take-home pay of male full-time workers (adjusted for inflation) has stagnated since the early 1970s.

(Kindle Locations 378-379)

The extent of riches at the top of the income and wealth distributions is unimaginable to most Americans, especially at a time when one in eight Americans depends on food stamps. 21 The wealthiest 1 percent of American households today enjoys a higher total net worth than the bottom 90 percent, and the top 1 percent of income earners receives more pretax income than the bottom 50 percent.

(Kindle Locations 387-391)

Many of those at the top of the heap have come to look upon the rest of society with disdain.

(Kindle Locations 397-398)

Our challenges lie not so much in our productivity, technology, or natural resources but in our ability to cooperate on an honest basis.

(Kindle Locations 433-434)

Samuelson’s great synthesis called on market forces to allocate most goods in the economy, while calling on governments to perform three essential tasks: redistributing income to protect the poor and the unlucky; providing public goods such as infrastructure and scientific research; and stabilizing the macroeconomy.

(Kindle Locations 468-470)

Economics as an academic discipline was turned on its head by the ascendancy of a new school of thought led by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, one that deemphasized the mixed economy and played up the functioning of the market system.

(Kindle Locations 487-489)

The main effect of the Reagan Revolution, however, was not the specific policies but a new antipathy to the role of government, a new disdain for the poor who depended on government for income support, and a new invitation to the rich to shed their moral responsibilities to the rest of society. Reagan helped plant the notion that society could benefit most not by insisting on the civic virtue of the wealthy, but by cutting their tax rates and thereby unleashing their entrepreneurial zeal. Whether such entrepreneurial zeal was released is debatable, but there is little doubt that a lot of pent-up greed was released, greed that infected the political system and that still haunts America today.

(Kindle Locations 496-501)

The key idea of Adam Smith, the late-eighteenth-century founder of economic science, is that the market equilibrium is reached without a central planner and that it has desirable results for the nation, notably in the forms of high productivity and wealth.

(Kindle Locations 509-511)

Unfortunately, free markets by themselves are not able to ensure the efficiency of the economy. Governments are needed to provide certain public goods, such as highways, that markets by themselves will either not provide or not provide to the right scale. Private markets work well when there are many suppliers and consumers, as is the case for goods and services such as clothing, furniture, automobiles, hotel services, restaurants, and the like. They begin to misfire when economic logic calls for a single supplier, for example to operate the police force, fire department, army, court system, highway network, or electricity distribution system.

(Kindle Locations 527-531)

Free markets also fail when producers cause adverse spillovers to the rest of society, such as by polluting the rivers with toxic chemicals or emitting climate-changing carbon dioxide into the air from a coal-fired power plant.

(Kindle Locations 534-535)

We say that the market needs “corrective pricing,” such as a tax levied on the pollutant, in order to reduce negative spillovers. Private markets fall short in the case of scientific research as well, where spillovers of knowledge occur. Scientists don’t— and shouldn’t— own the rights to their basic scientific discoveries. Imagine if Isaac Newton’s estate held a patent or copyright on the gravity equation. The implication is that one of humanity’s most important activities— scientific discovery— needs to be promoted in ways other than the pure profit motive.

(Kindle Locations 536-541)

Free markets also need governments to help regulate the marketplace when information between buyers and sellers is “asymmetric.”

(Kindle Locations 543-544)

Though efficiency is a great virtue, it is not the only economic goal of interest to the society.

(Kindle Locations 567-568)

The rebelling American colonists in 1776 did not object to taxation per se, but to taxation without representation. Fairness entails not only the distribution of income within society at a point in time but also the distribution of income across generations, a concept that economists also call “sustainability.”

(Kindle Locations 578-580)

Those future generations can’t defend their interests today, since they’ve not even been born.

(Kindle Locations 582-583)

In that philosophy, known as libertarianism, individuals have absolutely no responsibility to society other than to respect the liberty and property of others.

(Kindle Locations 590-591)

According to libertarians, America should be governed not by social responsibilities but by free-market forces and voluntary private contracts, with the government devoted solely to maintaining law and order, including the protection of private property. Taxes should be slashed to the minimum, as there is little or no legitimate role of government beyond the bare bones of the military, police, prisons, and courts.

(Kindle Locations 594-597)

If we have to choose between the liberty of a billionaire to avoid paying taxes and the needs of a poor and hungry child in need of food that would be supplied by those taxes (through food stamps, for example), most of us would choose the needs of the hungry child over the “liberty” of the billionaire to avoid helping the child.

(Kindle Locations 612-614)

The majority of Americans support the idea that America should aim for three goals— efficiency (prosperity), fairness (opportunity for all), and sustainability (a safe environment for today and the future)— rather than the single-minded libertarian objective of tax cuts and a shrinking government.

(Kindle Locations 620-622)

Specifically, most Americans subscribe to the view that market-determined gaps between the rich and poor should be softened by government. The rich should be taxed, and the poor should be helped. But how much should the government intervene? One common argument is that there is a trade-off between efficiency and fairness. If the rich are taxed and the poor are helped through transfers, the hard work of the rich is punished and the idleness of the poor is rewarded. The rich cut back on their effort— for example, by not opening a new business— while the poor use their windfall to support their leisure, for example by not taking an available job. The result, say the critics of income redistribution, is that society squanders much more than $ 1 of income for each $ 1 of government help that actually reaches the poor. Redistribution, they believe, should be severely limited, used to address only the most extreme problems of poverty and hunger.

(Kindle Locations 678-684)

First, in productive sectors of many producers and consumers, and therefore where strong market competition applies, we should rely on market forces.

(Kindle Locations 705-706)

Second, we should turn to government to ensure the fairness and sustainability of market outcomes, including the broad distribution of income in the society.

(Kindle Locations 711-712)

Third, we should recognize that the knowledge of science and technology is a public good that should be promoted actively by government alongside the private sector.

(Kindle Locations 717-718)

Fourth, as economic life becomes more complex, we should expect the role of government to become more extensive. Therefore, expecting to find good twenty-first-century economic answers in a constitution that dates back to 1789 is unrealistic.

(Kindle Locations 723-725)

During the 1980s and onward, the instruments of federal power were increasingly handed over to vested corporate interests to be used for private advantage. The new corporatocracy was under way. And the economy, now guided by narrow interests, quickly became divided, unstable, and ultimately vulnerable to the kind of collapse that ensued in 2008.

The overarching reversal of Washington’s role, from defender of the common man to the enabler of narrow interests, is the most important political change during the eight decades since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

(Kindle Locations 761-765)

Clinton was especially the enabler of Wall Street power, which gained enough leeway to win tens of billions of dollars per year of bonuses and cost the world tens of trillions of dollars of financial losses in the great crash of 2008. After Clinton, the United States no longer had a center-right Republican Party and a center-left Democratic Party, but rather two center-right parties whose heated differences on the surface mask a common agenda at the core.

(Kindle Locations 776-779)

The two most important events were the collapse of the post— World War II global exchange-rate system in 1971 and the sharp increases in oil prices in 1973– 1974 and again in 1979– 1980.10 Rather than see the events of the 1970s as temporary aberrations requiring specific problem solving, conservative politicians, with Reagan as spokesperson, argued that they were signs of fundamental failures of the public sector and its role in the economy.

(Kindle Locations 843-847)

The larger shift from Reagan onward was across the categories of domestic spending. 15 As we saw in Figure 4.2, discretionary civilian spending declined from 5.2 percent of GDP in 1980 to around 3.6 percent of GDP in 2007 (before a temporary recession-related boost). Mandatory spending, mainly transfer programs to individuals such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and veterans’ benefits, grew slightly, from 9.6 percent of GDP in 1980 to around 10.4 percent of GDP in 2007. Thus the Reagan Revolution set into motion a squeeze on government investments in areas such as education, infrastructure, energy, science and technology, and other productivity-enhancing areas, while leaving mostly untouched the growth of transfers to individuals for health care and retirement.

(Kindle Locations 885-891)

It is a mark of the lasting legacy of Reagan that the top marginal tax rate has not again reached even 40 percent since then. Obama entered office with the top rate at 35 percent.

(Kindle Locations 907-908)

Reagan’s diagnosis that the federal government needed to be reined in led to sharp cuts in marginal tax rates, widespread deregulation and privatization of government services, and essentially a ceiling on tax revenues at around 18 percent of GDP.

(Kindle Locations 998-1000)

Earnings stagnated. The deficit widened. Only inflation showed a marked improvement compared with the 1970s. The conclusion is really unmistakable: the Reagan Revolution failed to put America back on its previous path of growth, high employment, and shared prosperity.

(Kindle Locations 1011-1012)

America’s Wealth Distribution (or Lack Thereof)

andrew — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 21:05:12 +0000

Imagine America as a big pizza party. There is one big pizza with 100 slices and 100 people. This party divvies the pizza up according to net worth. The wealthiest person in the room collects 35 slices. The next four wealthiest take 28 slices.
The next five wealthiest get 14 slices. The following ten get 12. That leaves a total of 11 slices for the remaining 80 people.

So what would happen if we took equity in one’s home out of the equation. The pizza party looks something like this. The wealthiest person would get 41 slices. The next four wealthiest would have 30 slices. The next five would get 13 slices. The following ten would get 11 slices. That leaves 5 slices for the 80 people left.

That pizza party is analogous to how wealth is distributed in america.

I’m not suggesting that everyone should get a slice. That would never happen anyhow. As prosperous as America is, there is an undeniable and indefensible concentration of that prosperity at the top. Even if the wealthy make jobs, they aren’t good jobs and usually just make the wealthy wealthier while the employee just scrapes by week to week. Corporations and the wealthy have proven over the past 25 years that they cannot be trusted to grace us with some semblance of fairness.

Source: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html