Would it be beneficial to get together some kind of list of who they actually are?
There should be plenty of information available on most of them. It would be interesting to see the diversity of the group. Which ones are self made. Which ones are actually in bed with the state.
Elizabeth Warren, for starters.
/irony
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Here's the wealthiest individuals:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/
Most of them are involved in conservative Think-Tanks.
That is a nice start BP. But 1% of 300 million is 3 million. Now that number would be high because not all of the 300 million people that live in the US work. If only one third of the population works then the list should be about a miilion names long. I am really curious to know who these "evil rich greedy bastards" are...
I would like to see what the wealth disparity of the 1% looks like.
The wealth disparity has never been higher than it is today. It is not because of capitalism, but likely because of the nature of the fiat money system. "This fiat system, in which governments and banks have the power to create money, benefits those closest to the issuance of money - those who get it first - at the expense of those furthest away - those who get it last."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx16a72j__8&feature=player_embedded
I don't blame them. The thief who steals slightly less is preferable (at least on the face of it--both thieves steal with inflation).
You asked for names, and the top 400 is the most common list of individuals, and the easiest to find. As far as looking at the wealth disparity, look no further:
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
As you can see, the top 1% controls almost half of the nation's financial wealth, and almost half of the nation's investment assets. The wealth disparity as shown in Table three shows that the wealth disparity now is siilar to that of the 20's and 30's.
Now if you want every single name of the top 1%, then I applaud you're taking on this task. It'll be a long time.
I am specifically interested in the wealth disparity within the 1%. By my napkin math there should be about one million of them. I would like to see how the top 400 compare to the bottom 400.
Yes, because most wealth in the world is held by self-made individuals, not long-established, powerful families. Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Windsor, et. al.
The Forbes list is disinformation. Wake up.
Clayton -
@OP: We can't really know. It is hard to tell who holds the reins of power in the new "democratic" world we live in. Instead of monarchs, we have CEOs, permanent bureaucracies and their secretaries, political parties and their establishments, industrial magnates and their lobbies, and so on. But the root source of power has always flowed from the sceptre:
The sceptre is the symbol of the power to punish. Whoever controls the system of punishment has the final say and it is they who control the vast majority of the world's resources. The iron triangle is the military, the courts and the police.
My current view is that most of this is controlled through a private, international network that connects various intelligence agencies. CIA, MI6, Mossad, et. al. are the operational arm of a largely invisible private network of power that, I believe, centers primarily around the usual suspects (European nobility, ultra-wealthy American industrial and political familes, etc.) People call it a "conspiracy" but this is a misnomer as it implies some kind of final goal (such as, "world power", "global government" or whatever). It's not a conspiracy with some final goal so much as a living, breathing network whose purpose is to maintain the status quo, that is, keep those who ought to be in power, in power.
For those who play within bounds, punishment is meted through the government courts. But if you play out of bounds, you are choosing to subject yourself to a higher, swifter form of justice. Dealing drugs and prostitutes or becoming a high-ranking public official or helming a very large corporation puts you in the "out of bounds" category. If you are in this group, you are in the 1% and you have two choices: either play ball (promote the status quo) or the entire weight of the global network of intelligence agencies, news press, tax agencies, and so on will be brought to bear upon you. If you are making waves and materially damaging the status quo, you will be brought to heel one way or the other or you will be reduced to room temperature.
This is what the public does not generally understand. At the highest echelons of wealth and power, the world is run very much like a bunch of Mafia families but with a lot better PR and none of the associations with vice that the Mafia always had. Politicians - such as Eliot Spitzer - give off a squeaky-clean image while renting prostitutes like they're hot cakes. This is the difference between Mafia and Politics. It's the only difference.
Who are the 1% (more like 0.001%)? They're the people "behind the scenes" who own and control everything. If you think you're going to find their names between the covers of Forbes, you're as deluded as an FBI g-man who thinks he's going to find the names of the Mafia's membership printed in a public roster somewhere. Good luck with that!