Too Much: Top Ten Greediest Americans

[Joanne98]

The amazing year we're now completing presents some enormous challenges for anyone bold enough to rank the greedy. With so much greed out there, how could we possibly limit our Too Much top ten greediest list to a mere ten?

The latest greed explosion to hit the headlines - the $50 billion Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme - illustrates just how difficult a task ranking the greedy can be.

To whom in this scandal should we award the most greed points? Bernie Madoff himself, the 70-year-old financier who scammed his wealthy friends and charities to keep up his credentials as a Wall Street investing "genius"- and maintain a $6 million pad in Manhattan, a waterfront mansion in Palm Beach, and a weekend getaway on Long Island?

Or should those greed points go instead to the ever-so-sophisticated hedge fund "middlemen" like Walter Noel, who built a five-manse fortune by steering clients to Madoff and charging them tens of millions in fees for the steering.

Or should the greed points go to Madoff's investors themselves, the swells who pay $250,000 a year for the privilege of belonging to a swanky country club?

So many choices! How about James Cayne, the Bear Stearns CEO who rode toxic securities into billionairedom? Or Angelo Mozilo, who took the same ride at Countrywide, spreading suffering to subprimed families all along the way?

In the end, we came to realize, the size of the fortune alone doesn't determine greed. It's the thought that counts. In that holiday spirit, we hope you find our top ten greedy list of some interest - and greed-busting inspiration.

10: Dwight Schar

Any list of 2009's greediest has to start, of course, with the power-suits who pumped up - and profited ever so lavishly from - the now-burst housing bubble. In November, Wall Street Journal researchers scoured the records of firms that build and finance housing and found 15 top executives who have pocketed, "in cash compensation and proceeds from stock sales," at least $100 million over the past five years.

Among the fortunate 15: Dwight Schar, the chair of homebuilding giant NVR Inc. The 66-year-old Schar has cleared $625 million since 2002. In 2004, he spent a good chunk of that buying an ocean-facing mansion in Florida's Palm Beach for $70 million, the highest price up to then ever paid for a U.S. residential property. The seven-bedroom home came with a walk-in humidor for cigars.

Schar's legal residence, a gated estate just north of Washington, D.C., sits on 10 acres overlooking the Potomac. NVR stock has dropped over 60 percent since its housing bubble peak, but neither of Schar's two main residences figures to foreclose anytime soon.

9: Patrick Soon-Shiong

Why does health care in the United States cost so much? Maybe somebody should ask Patrick Soon-Shiong, the Los Angeles drug developer who this September saw his personal fortune - $3 billion last year - take a giant first step toward more than doubling.

Continued>>>
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Too-Much-Top-Ten-Greedies-by-the-web-081231-752.html

[izquierdista]

1. Also rans

They overlooked the master, the greediest man of the 20th century and probably the 21st as well -- Bill Gates. Someone whose wealth is based on selling a product, of which a free version is better (Linux), not just once, but getting people to subscribe to it an buy it again and again when they buy a new computer, again when they upgrade the computer, again when he makes the product obsolete, and again for their home use of the product.

[Donnachaidh]

2. but but but -- he's a PHILANTHOPIST!!!!!!!!1111

We've got lots of Gates apologists that will cite all the money he's given to charity. All that wealth, accumulated on the broken backs of smaller software firms. :puke:

[Baby Snooks]

4. And his non-profit makes lots of money also..

The few who have managed to find a way to look into the maze of the Gates Foundation have found that in many of the countries where Gates has "shared his wealth" the foundation, and probably Gates himself, has actually made investments and the investments of course have offered a good return and some believe he is merely giving back only part of what he has actually made. He has become like the Rothschilds. His actual wealth is really hard to determine. But without doubt he is the king of the entrepeneurs. It still amazes me how people would invest in a company that never paid a dividend. Which for the longest time Microsoft didn't.

Reality is that the Republican "Contract with America" was really a "Contract with Corporate America" and there is little that wasn't deregulated as a result including oversight of the corporate sector.

But keep in mind that Bill Clinton signed it all into law. And has been "cashing in" his "stock options" ever since.

[tbyg52]

13. And never forget that he single-handedly killed Netscape, and got away with it cold. nt

[Rebubula]

16. Does that make...

...him greedy or the general public suckers?

It can be both...

However, as someone that makes his living on the backs of MS software...I am ambivalent about Gates and his cabal

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Absolutely stomach turning. The unmitiagated gall of these self-centered fat-cats.

It is amazing how many people they convinced to give them what they wanted. It all brings to mind a spoiled three-year-old who throws a tantrum, and holds his breath until Mommy gives him what he wants. What the kid should get is a good whack across the butt.

These assholes should have been laughed out of town with the ridiculous requests.

[nxylas]

5. Know who's really greedy?

Workers who want the minimum wage increased. </republican>

[Joanne98]

7. You know, we do have a sarcasm icon?

:sarcasm:

[nxylas]

9. I like my Republican tag better

The sarcasm icon is overused.

[Deja Q]

11. I found it novel too.

(Though there are some Republicans who would agree with your sarcasm as well... :) )

[Joanne98]

6. KICK

[Joanne98]

8. A 50 million dollar payoff! COMCAST Nest of gluttons!

7 James Mulva

Back last spring, with motorists turning purple with rage every time they pulled in for a fill-up, one Big Oil CEO tried to assure Americans he shared their pain. Declared ConocoPhillips chief exec James Mulva: "High oil prices have not been our friend" - because, as he explained later to reporters, higher per-barrel prices for crude have resource-rich countries demanding more control over their own oil.

On the other hand, the run-up in crude oil prices over recent years hasn't exactly left Big Oil broken-hearted. The industry's profits, the Consumer Federation of America noted this fall, have soared over 600 percent since 2002.

Few have enjoyed more rewards for that success than the 62-year-old Mulva. He reaped a $50.5 million personal payoff in 2007, according to federal Securities and Exchange Commission figures. He'll be collecting, when he retires, at least a $2.6 million annual pension.

6 Ralph Roberts

On January 1, 2008, the Comcast cable TV empire put into effect the ultimate in executive incentive pay plans: a new deal that guaranteed the company's founder and executive committee chair, Ralph Roberts, $1.85 million in basic annual salary for five years after he dies, with the after-death payout going to whoever Roberts names as his beneficiary.

In 2007, Roberts, now 88, actually pocketed $24.7 million in total compensation. His son, current Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, collected $20.8 million.

Some shareholders, in early 2008, took a bit of umbrage to all this largesse. Some even began demanding Brian's resignation. In February, under fire, the Roberts clan backed down. They agreed to ax Ralph's death benefit and drop his annual salary to $1 a year. But Comcast will continue to pay Ralph's various benefits, including his life insurance. In 2006, the premiums ran $10.5 million.

Meanwhile, in November, news reports revealed that federal and state cable TV regulators fear that Comcast, amid the consumer confusion over the transition to all-digital over-the-air broadcasts, is pushing low-income cable TV subscribers into more expensive monthly cable packages.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Too-Much-Top-Ten-Greedies-by-the-web-081231-752.html

[machI]

10. .

[martymar64]

12. Re: Steve Jobs

Jobs being on the list reinforces my opinion that the primary conflict in this country is not left v right but capital v labor. It always has been a class struggle, the "investor" class has been engaging in class warfare against working people since this country was founded. They use the left/right and the racial divide to keep working people disorganized and thus ineffective to engage the true enemy.

[tbyg52]

14. Word. nt

[BlancheSplanchnik]

15. also word. n/t

[Blue_Tires]

17. no Scott Boras or Drew Rosenhaus?

granted they didn't make as much as those on the list, but they are at least as greedy, imo

[fasttense]

18. We really need to start eating the uber wealthy.

Figuratively of course. Like taxing the hell out of them. NO ONE has a right to accumulate more money than a small country. It's obscene and disgusting.

If a really fat person were to walk down the street, most people would look at them as a disgrace because they can't control their glutinous desires. Of course that is not always the case, but it is the stereotype we have of fat people.

When an excessively wealthy person flaunts their wealth with multi-million dollar homes, huge limos, dozens of overpriced cars, furs and jewels, we simply think they are blessed. But the truth is they are even more glutinous and greedy then the stereotype of the obese.

The uber wealthy feed off our country like leaches in a child's intestines.