Meet America's 25 Richest Politicians

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/17/2011 15:51 -0500

Per the just released OpenSecrets list of top 25 wealthiest politicians in America, there are 12 republicans and 12 democrats (and Hillary, whatever she is). While we applaud the diversity among the country's richest "representatives", we can't help but wonder if these people actually "represent" the common man, or the man (such as themselves) having a minimal average net worth of $28 million...
Some further amusing commentary from Before Its News:

I believe it was Emma Goldman who said, "Voting is the opium of the masses." Pitting us regular folk against each other over petty ideologies is how the elite in Congress perpetuate the illusion that we have real choice between the Democrats and the Republicans. It was true in Emma Goldman's time; it's true in our time.

Comedian Chris Rock, when asked during the last presidential election if he was supporting Barack Obama because he is black, replied that he was supporting Obama because he was the only "one-millionaire" running for office. The other candidates were all multi-millionaires. While Obama probably appears further down the list, Rock's point is well-made.The best Americans can do now is vote for the poorest millionaire.

The Center for Responsive Politics has posted the estimated minimum and maximum possible net worth of every single member of Congress and the Administration (from 2008 data) at their website OpenSecrets.org. Here are the top 25. If you want to be shocked, look only at the "Minimum Net Worth" column. If you want to be appalled, look at the "Maximum Net Worth" column.

Full list of America's finest. The fact that Nancy Pelosi' minimum net worth has been disclosed at ($7) Million does not really surprise us: all that facial self-improvement does not come cheap.

Rank	Name	Minimum Net Worth	Average	Maximum Net Worth
1	Darrell Issa (R-Calif)	$156,050,022	$303,575,011	$451,100,000
2	Jane Harman (D-Calif)	$151,480,522	$293,454,761	$435,429,001
3	John Kerry (D-Mass)	$182,755,534	$238,812,296	$294,869,059
4	Mark Warner (D-Va)	$65,692,210	$174,385,102	$283,077,995
5	Jared Polis (D-Colo)	$36,694,140	$160,909,068	$285,123,996
6	Herb Kohl (D-Wis)	$89,358,027	$160,302,011	$231,245,995
7	Vernon Buchanan (R-Fla)	$-69,434,661	$148,373,160	$366,180,982
8	Michael McCaul (R-Texas)	$73,685,086	$137,611,043	$201,537,000
9	Jay Rockefeller (D-WVa)	$61,446,018	$98,832,010	$136,218,002
10	Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif)	$46,055,250	$77,082,134	$108,109,018
11	Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ)	$49,083,204	$76,886,611	$104,690,018
12	Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif)	$-7,356,915	$58,436,537	$124,229,990
13	Alan Mark Grayson (D-Fla)	$31,411,044	$54,966,522	$78,522,000
14	James E. Risch (R-Idaho)	$19,468,057	$54,517,026	$89,565,995
15	Gary Miller (R-Calif)	$19,365,053	$51,833,526	$84,302,000
16	Bob Corker (R-Tenn)	$9,778,047	$50,717,522	$91,656,998
17	Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)	$19,898,179	$43,797,589	$67,697,000
18	Nita M. Lowey (D-NY)	$14,900,036	$39,012,518	$63,125,000
19	Kenny Ewell Marchant (R-Texas)	$13,303,385	$38,204,868	$63,106,351
20	Brian P. Bilbray (R-Calif)	$25,143,635	$37,819,629	$50,495,623
21	Harry Teague (D-NM)	$21,119,041	$37,102,019	$53,084,997
22	Denny Rehberg (R-Mont)	$6,598,014	$31,421,505	$56,244,997
23	Hillary Clinton	$10,727,014	$31,243,506	$51,759,999
24	Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine)	$12,556,055	$28,612,527	$44,669,000
25	Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn)	$11,342,046	$28,116,022	$44,889,998

Ex-Swiss banker to give Wikileaks 2,000 "celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers from US, UK who secreted away money for tax-evasion purposes"

Ex-Swiss banker to give Wikileaks 2,000 "celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers from US, UK who secreted away money for tax-evasion purposes" Posted: 17 Jan 2011 12:25 PM PST Yahoo!Finance reports Ex-Swiss banker to hand account files to WikiLeaks. A former Swiss banker was on Monday due to hand over files to WikiLeaks which he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments. Rudolf Elmer, a former employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, told Britain's Observer newspaper on Sunday that the documents include details of about 2,000 accounts held in offshore financial centers. He says the account holders include "high net worth" celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers from the U.S., Britain and Asia. Elmer's press conference comes two days before he is due to appear before a Zurich regional court to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland's strict banking secrecy laws. He told the Observer newspaper he planned to disclose the new set of files to expose activities in offshore financial centers. "The one thing on which I am absolutely clear is that the banks know, and the big boys know, that money is being secreted away for tax-evasion purposes," he was quoted as telling the newspaper. Fox News has a few additional quotes in Ex-banker says he's giving Wikileaks files on rich Rudolf Elmer, an ex-employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, said there were 2,000 account holders named in the documents, but refused to give details of the companies or individuals involved. He has previously offered files to WikiLeaks on financial activities in the Cayman Islands and faces a court hearing in Zurich on Wednesday to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland's strict banking secrecy laws. "I do think as a banker I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," said Elmer, who addressed reporters at London's Frontline Club alongside WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. "I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. From that point of view, I wanted to let society know what I know. It is damaging our society," Elmer said. Britain's tax authority declined to comment when asked about Assange's plan to supply details of alleged wrongdoing. Under the terms of his release on bail, Assange must live at the mansion home of Vaughan Smith, the owner of the Frontline Club. He has compared the regime to "high-tech house arrest," but has recently promised that the flow of leaked documents published by his organization would increase. If true, and depending who is on the list, this could get interesting in a hurry. So far however, we have seen very little from Wikileaks since the house arrest of Assange. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Recession-Related Dreams (Nightmares) on the Upswing; Some Personal Experiences

Posted: 17 Jan 2011 05:18 PM PST The LA Times says that worries about financial security have begun to manifest themselves in dreams. Please consider Recession-related dreams on the upswing House foundations are crumbling in our dreams. Instead of the proverbial sheep guiding our sleep journey, dangerous thugs lurk in the shadows of our minds, and barriers block escape. Some people, laid off or fearing job loss, dream they're suddenly clueless about familiar work tasks or tortured by competitive co-workers who have morphed into monsters. It's inevitable, says Deirdre Barrett, a clinical psychologist who teaches at Harvard Medical School and is the editor of Dreaming, the leading professional journal in the field. "We dream about what concerns us when we're awake. In bad times, that is likely to be about financial security." Recession-related dreams feature cracked foundations and walls in homes, and interlopers moving in. Los Angeles psychiatrist Judith Orloff describes a patient who panicked after her husband — breadwinner for her and their three young children — was laid off in 2009. The couple got far behind in mortgage payments and other bills. The woman dreamed she found strangers living in her house, and she couldn't get in. "Then the strangers turned into aliens. Walter Berry, who leads a weekly dream group in West Los Angeles, says he's seen these leaps occur overnight. A member of the group, a middle-aged secretary who'd been laid off, described a recurring dream in 2009 about former co-workers deriding and torturing her. Her tormenters turned into monsters, and in one dream she asked them, "Why are you here?" They said, "We just want to show you where to go." The monsters led her into a long corridor that ended in a desert with beautiful cacti and a nice house for her to live in. She began to think of leaving L.A. for the first time. After greatly expanding her online job search, she landed a job in Phoenix that was better than the one she'd lost. "The dream expanded her horizons," Berry says. Despite the lack of hard scientific evidence, dream researchers think dreams could hold a trove of insights for people battered by the economy. Wakeful attention and overnight dreaming "are collaborative and interdependent," says Rosalind Cartwright, professor emeritus at the Rush University Medical Center's graduate program in neuroscience. Recurring Dreams Please see the article for more dream stories. My most frequent recurring dream for decades after I graduated from college was that my engineering degree was invalid because I was one credit-hour short. I had that dream hundreds of times in spite of the fact that at no point ever in either my brief 2-year stint as an engineer or in a lengthy 20-year programming career was I ever in danger of losing my job as a company employee. I did change careers a second time in the wake of 911 and Y2K after computer consulting jobs dried up. It's been a while since I have had that dream, but it does still happen on rare occasions still, even though I cannot recall for certain the last time. The origin of the dream is most certainly the fact that I was 1 hour short heading into the last semester. An engineering professor offered an extra hour credit for anyone willing to complete an extra-credit assignment. I jumped at it given the alternative was another 3-hour engineering course. The assignment was a computer project that helped land my first programming job. It also helped that my free elective was not archery, but an advanced programming class. My first job after graduation was engineering job. I landed that job based on one class: computer methods in civil engineering. However, I lasted all of two years as an engineer. Ever wake up in the middle of your senior year in college realizing you got your degree in the wrong thing? I did. I hated engineering all along but when I graduated high school, programming was still in its infancy. Guidance counselors at high school did not know anything about programming other than 2 year associates degrees for data entry. Those good in math and science were herded into engineering. In 1973, the university of Illinois had one of the largest computers in the world, an IBM 360-75. The cheapest laptop today can beat it. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/ Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.