By Douglas V. Gibbs
In my article, Capitalist Wealthy versus Socialist Wealthy, I explained how despite conventional wisdom, the wealthiest politicians, and the wealthiest people in general, are more likely to be democrats than republicans. The fact that democrats claim to hate the wealthy, and wish to redistribute their wealth, would seem to be a contradiction to their positions, if that is the case. But the wealth the leftists have is a different kind of wealth. Theirs is wealth taken from the hated capitalists, making it perfectly all right in their eyes.
Yahoo Finance published an article by 24/7 Wall Street, and I wonder if the writer, during his research, found what he had hoped for. I am thinking that the writer fully expected, when researching the richest presidents in history, to come up with a bunch of mean ol' plutocrat republicans, and then was shocked when aside from Hoover (who was actually quite the progressive in his own right) all of the presidents from the last one hundred years on his list were hard left liberal democrats (okay, and one democrat that might be a republican on some issues if he were alive today - John F. Kennedy).
In other words, the mean ol' rich politicians aren't a bunch of fat cats from the GOP, but members of the socialist wealthy crowd.
But the mostly rich on the list aren't those liberals. Instead, we have three founding fathers, and the hated (by the left) Andrew Jackson. This was strange to me seeing Madison, Jefferson, and Washington listed as having been more wealthy than their more modern counterparts. Especially, when you consider that Jefferson, for example, when he died, was not in good economic shape, and was mired in debt despite all of his property holdings, and did not have enough in his estate to pay for, under Virginia law, the freedom of his slaves as he had hoped, in life.
George Washington, which tops the list, may or may not have been worth the $525 Million the list claims. He did own a lot of property, a lot of which he inherited, but as a surveyor he was a person that also knew how to pursue a great deal. It is also indicated on the list that a lot of his worth was in the large number of slaves he owned, all of which he arranged to become free upon his death. His wealth was not something we should look down our nose at, but accumulated by the fact that he was an excellent businessman when it came to farming, and owning land.
James Madison is number five on the list, and was also a large land owner, and in fact the largest land owner in Orange County, Virginia. He lost a lot of it before he died, however, due to the financial collapse of his plantation. Again, this was wealth gained by shrewd business practices, not taking wealth as we see with the socialist wealthy.
The second republican on the list, aside from Hoover, was Teddy Roosevelt, another celebrated progressive from the GOP.
So, aside from a few founders, who were rich primarily due to land holdings, of which was easy enough to accomplish during a time when land was in great abundance, and Andrew Jackson, all of the remaining presidents on the list are progressives. Socialist wealthy. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Bill Clinton and Kennedy. Do you think the writer was stunned. Was he surprised. Does he even know the difference between capitalist wealthy and socialist wealthy? Or perhaps the writer is a right-of-center guy and he was happy to reveal the truth.
Of course, there is one more possibility, no matter how unlikely. It is entirely possible he could not have cared politically how the list turned out, and just thought it would be interesting to make a list about the richest ten presidents. Stranger things have happened.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
The ten richest U.S. Presidents - Yahoo! Finance
The Net Worth of the American Presidents: From Washington to Obama to . . . - Business Insider
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