From the technological Olympus of Silicon Valley to the urban canyons of Wall Street, a narrow club of vastly wealthy plutocrats sits on a ballooning share of the nation’s resources. One percent of Americans at the apex of the economy are hoarding over 31% of the nation’s total wealth, a cool $55tn in net worth.
Getting them to share with the rest of society, to fund redistribution or pay for public goods, is proving pretty much impossible. Their ability to move resources around, hide profit across jurisdictions, and minimize income to hoard wealth until they die appears to put them beyond the reach of taxation.
One recent research paper found that the country’s richest 384 oligarchs paid only 24% of their economic income in 2025, compared with 30% for the average taxpayer. And not all of them are getting top notch tax advice. Reporting by ProPublica revealed that some of the richest Americans – like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Michael Bloomberg – live largely tax free.
I only learned of it myself a month or so ago, from people speculating about why a kid tried to gas his school with cyanide. Turns out the FBI found references to 764 on the kid’s phone. I never heard of that before, so I looked it up, and found all sorts of nasty things that group did.
AFAIK, Kash Patel coined the term. It’s surprising, but there’s actually a case of Trump’s FBI doing what they should be doing and putting bad people away. Everyone wants these guys gone, so I figure Trump views it as no stakes publicity for actually doing something good.
Not sure why there aren’t more awareness campaigns about these groups. They are dangerous people parents would want at least some understanding about. Maybe it’s to suppress copycats?