[zozbot234]

This is pure conspiracy thinking, it sounds just like those people who obsess over Bill Gates and George Soros. Please explain how the ultra-wealthy can be so powerful if they aren't spending down much of any wealth, and a lot of what they do spend is on charitable grants made in the public interest to 501(c)3 organizations, which must be politically neutral as a matter of law.

[kristopolous]

Really?

They use 501s as kobashi schemes for tax dodges through donor advised funds. It's a shell game. That's why they take the $1 salary as well.

As far as the other one, if you think, say, Peter Thiel or Jamie Dimon has the exact same access to the political process to influence policy as the guy fishing for bottles in the recycling dumpster out in my alley, I don't know what to say.

Money doesn't "buy" power and influence, power and influence is an ancillary structural artefact of the money. It comes with rights and privileges. We'd call them oligarchs if they lived in any other country.

[danaris]

It's not conspiracy to say that the ultra-rich use and abuse their wealth to work to tilt the system further in their favor.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that "many people with a common characteristic working in ways that mutually benefit the whole group" is necessarily a conspiracy. Sometimes it is, sure, but very rarely. It's much, much more common for members of a group—like, say, the very wealthy—to individually recognize "hey, if I do X, it makes things better for me!"

That's what happens with massive wealth inequality.

[noyoudumbdolt]

501(c)3's are some of the most political organizations out there. The only thing they can't do is be directly involved in electoral politics. But social influence and ideologically driven work, that's totally fine.