Super-rich prepare to leave UK 'within minutes' if Labour wins election

The super-rich are preparing to immediately leave the UK if Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister, fearing they will lose billions of pounds if the Labour leader does “go after” the wealthy elite with new taxes, possible capital controls and a clampdown on private schools.

Lawyers and accountants for the UK’s richest families said they had been deluged with calls from millionaire and billionaire clients asking for help and advice on moving countries, shifting their fortunes offshore and making early gifts to their children to avoid the Labour leader’s threat to tax all inheritances above £125,000.

Have the Rich Become “Super Citizens”?

Modern philanthropy was born in the early 20th century, with the birth of the Russell Sage Foundation. In 1907, the foundation was founded with a $10 million gift from Margaret Sage, the widow of Russell, a railroad tycoon. While its mission was broad (“the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States”), the foundation adopted an innovative formula of grant making and sustained involvement in its initiatives that ushered in a new model of institutional charity. But philanthropy faced criticism from the beginning. After Sage, John D. Rockefeller, the oil magnate, tried to get a foundation charter, only to face pushback from then-president Theodore Roosevelt. “No amount of charity in spending such fortunes can compensate in any way for the misconduct in acquiring them,” he said. The idea was that if there were not such tremendous inequality, there would be no need for charity at all. But that did not stop the founding of the Carnegie Corporation in 1911 and the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913. At the height of the Gilded Age, a time characterized by superficial glamour and deep corruption, these foundations, imbued with vague missions to improve general welfare, seemed benevolent enough. In fact, many have long histories of playing key roles in the advancement of causes like cancer research and urban development. And while they drew detractors, they eventually became a part of American society, and the fears that philanthropies would perpetuate inequality subsided.

Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich

Steve Huffman, the thirty-three-year-old co-founder and C.E.O. of Reddit, which is valued at six hundred million dollars, was nearsighted until November, 2015, when he arranged to have laser eye surgery. He underwent the procedure not for the sake of convenience or appearance but, rather, for a reason he doesn’t usually talk much about: he hopes that it will improve his odds of surviving a disaster, whether natural or man-made. “If the world ends—and not even if the world ends, but if we have trouble—getting contacts or glasses is going to be a huge pain in the ass,” he told me recently. “Without them, I’m fucked.”

Inequality Is So Bad Even The Super-Rich Are Getting Left Behind

Believe it or not, 99 percenters, the 1 percent feels your pain: It suffers from inequality, too. An extremely comfortable inequality. But still, inequality.

The incomes of the very, very wealthiest Americans -- the top 0.01 percent -- have exploded since the 1980s, even more dramatically than the incomes of the next-wealthiest Americans -- the top 0.1 percent and 1 percent.

France's 75 Percent Tax On The Super Rich Smacked Down By Country's High Court

PARIS — Embattled French President Francois Hollande suffered a fresh setback Saturday when France's highest court threw out a plan to tax the ultrawealthy at a 75 percent rate, saying it was unfair.

In a stinging rebuke to one of Socialist Hollande's flagship campaign promises, the constitutional council ruled Saturday that the way the highly contentious tax was designed was unconstitutional. It was intended to hit incomes over (EURO)1 million ($1.32 million).

In defence of Goldman Sachs: boat

Perhaps you’ve read the uplifting tale of the man who quit his lucrative job at Goldman Sachs because “it makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off.” Or the story of the Bay Street trader who walked away from a huge salary because the industry had become “one hell of a mess” where the “culture was rotten.”

Emboldened by these acts of courage—inspired by these elegies to what truly matters in life—I’ve decided to use my column this week to speak directly to the soulless, faceless, money-grubbing financial firms of the world.

Dear super-greedy, ethically barren parasites of pure evil: um, have you filled those two vacancies yet? Because I have searched deep within myself—especially the wallet part of myself—and I am totally willing to get paid a ridiculous amount of money to work for you. P.S. Remember: ridiculous.

Don’t let all my jubilant high-fiving of random strangers fool you: this hasn’t been an easy decision. On one hand, I value the serenity of a balanced lifestyle, the nobility of honest work and the ability to sleep at night with a clear conscience. On the other hand, I want a boat.

21 CEOs With $100 Million Golden Parachutes

For some CEOs, the easiest way to get rich is to quit.

Increasingly, corporations offer their chief executives fantastically generous severance packages—retirement bonuses, extended stock options, and pensions that can add up to $100 million or more. Call 'em platinum parachutes. These deals are supposed to benefit shareholders by encouraging CEOs to take a long-term view of corporate profits, but some compensation experts have their doubts. "Too many golden parachutes and too many retirement packages are of a size that clearly seems only in the interest of the departing executive," says a new report by GMI, a corporate governance consultancy.

By way of example, the report singles out 21 CEOs whose severance packages are worth more than the median US earner would make in 49 lifetimes. In the case of GE's John Welch Jr., the figure would be 203 lifetimes. But you could still argue that the most outrageous example is Viacom's Thomas Freston, who put in just one year of work for his $100-million-plus sendoff.




GMI, "Largest Severance Packages of the Millennium"

Original Article
Source: Mother Jones 

Super-rich buying ever-larger yachts

The world’s super-rich, led by Gulf sheiks and Russian tycoons, are taking delivery of ever larger and more luxurious European-made motor yachts this year, according to the latest superyacht ranking.

Financial and economic crisis in the West has crippled some European yacht makers. Ferretti, the debt-laden Italian manufacturer, is selling itself to China’s Shandong Heavy Industry Group for a fraction of its 2007 value of €1.7-billion ($2.2-billion). But demand from international billionaires at the very top end of the market has remained robust despite the economic crisis.

Superyachts.com, the luxury yachting web portal, says 11 new vessels, some the size of cruise liners, will join its annual top 100 ranking by length this year, compared with nine new entries last year.

This year’s largest entry is Topaz, a 147-metre yacht built by Germany’s Lurssen Yachts for an unknown owner, possibly a member of the ruling al-Nahyan family of Abu Dhabi.

Superyacht projects are often shrouded in secrecy, and research groups vie with each other to publish the first photographs and provide details of the latest additions to the fleet. Prices and customers’ names are frequently kept secret to shield owners from accusations of ostentatious living. The largest vessels cost well over $100-million and can cost more than $1-million a week to charter.