The U.S. Population = 322M. The Presidential Election is Being Bought by Just 158 Families

Indian Creek Island Road in Florida,
the most expensive street in the U.S.

"The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election...are overwhelmingly white, wealthy, older and male, in a nation that is being remade by the young, by women, and by black and brown voters...

...Now they are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena, providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.  Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign...

...The families investing the most in presidential politics overwhelmingly lean right (and) support Republican candidates who have pledged to pare regulations, cut taxes on income, capital gains and inheritances; and shrink entitlements...

...'It's a lot of families around the country who are self-made who feel like over-regulation puts these burdens on smaller companies,' said Doug Deason, a Dallas investor.'"

eye'm thynkin':  It's a classic example of "I've got mine. You're on your own."   (And do I need to point out that these "self-made" families apparently did just fine despite the regulations, taxes, inheritance burdens and entitlements they now want to eliminate?)  Their magnanimous claim that they're only trying to give the little guy a chance at success rings hollow.

One of the points made in this article is how insulated the wealthy are from the rest of us; how they live in cloistered neighborhoods where they neither see, hear, nor interact--on anything even approaching a personal level--with anyone except people as wealthy as themselves.  It also points out that one donor, who "earns about $68.5 million a month has given $300,000 to Republican candidates--"the equivilant of only $21.17 for a typical American household."  

This just confirms my opinion that the richest people can afford to buy the biggest microphones--can not only afford them, but can buy them with the change they find in their sofa cushions.

Read more at The New York Times (The interactive picture at the beginning of the article helps imagine what millions look like--in Monopoly pieces.)