“Between 2007 and 2010, the wealth of the Walton family members rose from $73.3 billion to $89.5 billion. In 2007, it was reported that the Walton family wealth was as large as the bottom 35 million families in the wealth distribution combined, or 30.5 percent of all American families.
And in 2010 … the Walton family wealth is as large as the bottom 48.8 million families in the wealth distribution (constituting 41.5 percent of all American families) combined.”
– Pat Garofalo

“The Walton family of Walmart own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America.”
– Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, 2012

“The billionaire Koch brothers who habitually rail against government’s unfair burden on the wealthy, have almost doubled their net worth to a combined $68 billion. On March 10, 2010, Forbes listed the net worth of Charles and David Koch at $17.5 billion each. This year, Forbes says the Koch brothers are individually worth $34 billion.”
– Pam Martens, 2013

“Charles Koch who is worth over $43 billion says that eliminating the minimum wage is a solution to America’s poverty woes.
… The Charles Koch Foundation launched a $200,000 media blitz in Wichita, Kansas, Koch’s home state, saying that the minimum wage is the major obstacle to economic growth in America.”
– Thom Hartmann, 2013

“It is no secret that the Koch brothers and others of the super-rich seem to have undertaken a final push to consolidate control through the conversion of a marginally democratic to an essentially fascist state; extreme right-wing, authoritarian, and demagogic. This kind of government is ideal for control of a populace by the moneyed elite. To carry this out requires the employment of many ‘kept’ politicians to excite and misdirect scared and angry ­ and ignorant ­ voters. Lest the citizenry realize who stole their money and storm their castles with torches, the rapacious elite need politicians who will carry out the work of re-directing anger at teachers, or labor unions, or the poor.”
– David Schwartz

“Water is the most important raw material we have today in the world. The question is should we privitize the normal water supply of the population. And there are two different options on the matter. The one opinion which I think is extreme is represented by the NGOs who declare water is a public right. That means that as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution. And the other view says that water is a foodstuff like any other, and like any other foodstuff it should have a market value. Personally I believe it is better to give a foodstuff a value so that we are all aware that it has its price.”
– Peter Brabeck, CEO of Nestle, in a 2005 documentary ‘We feed the world’

“Today’s modern transnational corporate CEOs reflect the dysfunctional cultural belief that wealth is proof of goodness, and that that goodness then justifies taking more of the wealth.”
– Thom Hartmann

“U.S. CEOs earn three times the average of CEOs in the 13 other advanced countries for which there are comparable data. Only in one country, Switzerland, are 7 CEOs paid even as much as 50 percent of what the average U.S. CEO makes.”
– Economist Ravi Batra, 2007

“If you leave the failed CEOs in place, it isn’t just that they’re terrible business people, though they are. It isn’t just that they lack integrity, though they do. Because they were engaged in these frauds. But they’re not going to disclose the truth.”
– William K. Black, former Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention, 2009

“In late October of 2012, the CEOs of 80 major corporations and banks in the United States banded together in order to pressure Congress to pursue an agenda of harsh austerity measures and structural reforms… Among the demands are to reform Medicare and Medicaid, healthcare, Social Security, increase taxes, and generally reduce spending. All of this amounts to a large federal program of austerity, to cut social spending and increase taxes on the population, thus impoverishing the population.”
– Andrew Gavin Marshall

“Why shouldn’t we want to [psychologically] screen CEOs? We screen police officers. Why not someone who is going to handle billions of dollars?”
– Dr Robert Hare

“An “unregulated” marketplace is like an “unregulated” football game — chaos. And chaos is a state perfectly exploited by sociopaths, be they serial killers, warlords, or CEOs.”
– Thom Hartmann