http://divisionoflabour.com/archives/005188.php
According to Forbes, the 400 richest people had a combined net worth of $1.57
trillion. Let's simply assume the next 135 richest people had the same net
worth, though they surely didn't, as the 400th person--$1.3 billion each. That
brings our estimate of the combined net wealth of the richest 535 Americans to
$1.75 trillion.
But wait, this is net worth, which is a stock, not income, which is a flow. So
let's figure the annual income flow from the ownership of $1.75 trillion to be
10% of that amount. (I don't know if this number is high or low. On the one
hand really rich folks probably are good at making high rates of return. On the
other hand much of that $1.75 in net worth is likely to be speculative,
consumptive, and/or illiquid assets like real estate, yachts, artwork, etc
where the return is difficult to determine without selling the item. It turns
out, you could double or triple this estimated return and still make the point
I'm going to make.) Our estimate therefore is that the richest 535 Americans
have about $175 billion (10% of $1.75 trillion) to spend on an annual basis.
Ok, let's compare this group with the 535 members of the US Congress. According
to the latest Economic Report of the President, the annual outlays of the
federal government amounted to $2.73 trillion in fiscal year 2007.
So I estimate that the 535 members of the US Congress enjoy over 15 times the
financial power of the 535 richest Americans.
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