October 22, 2009

How many of the Forbes 400 are Jewish?

Since the early 1980s, Forbes has been publishing its list of the 400 richest Americans. Periodically, various people have tried to estimate the percentage who are Jewish. My recollection is that they usually come up with about 22% to 25%, although of course that varies as different sectors of the economy boom and bust. For example, Texans were heavily represented on the first list during the early 1980s oil boom, but quickly diminished and were replaced by New York real estate tycoons, who gave way to Silicon Valley tech prodigies, and so on.

Jacob Berkman of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, who specializes in reporting on Jewish philanthropy, spent a couple of days on Google with the 2009 Forbes 400, and came up with a list of Jewish Forbes 400 members for use by Jewish charities:
At least 139 of the Forbes 400 are Jewish

But that's just one man's estimate. For example, he includes Meg Whitman of E-bay, who is running for the GOP nomination for governor of California, but most of what I see about her suggests she is largely Boston Brahmin. And some of his "maybes" on his overall list of 149 possibilities are definitely not Jewish, such as the two Bechtels, who have made billions out of Saudi Arabia. (One of Bechtel's key executives in Ibn Saud's kingdom was Cornelius Stribling "Strib" Snodgrass, whom I'm going to guess wasn't Jewish.)

Note the helpful comments from Santos L. Halper below Berkman's posting for recommended changes, some of which Berkman has gone back and incorporated. And, of course, there are the usual issues of how to count people with one Jewish parent, converts, and so forth.

So, I don't know exactly where Berkman stands at this point. The most accurate number might not be 139 anymore. But it's definitely at least 30% (120), and "about one-third" would appear to be a reasonable approximation.

Part of the increase in Jewish numbers is due to the proliferation of Pritzkers of Chicago (there are now 11 on the Forbes 400). They've been rich a long time (an old friend of mine was their nanny in Europe in the 1970s). Presumably they are multiplying due to inheritance.

But the increasing importance of Wall Street in the economy in recent years no doubt played a major role in this increase over the historic baseline.

If the Forbes 400 is about one-third Jewish, that's less than the one-half Jewish Atlantic 50 of most influential pundits. Tom Friedman's chances of someday being on both lists took a hit this year when his father-in-law Matthew Bucksbaum, who was #205 on the Forbes 400 in 2008, dropped off the list in 2009 when his shopping mall company filed for bankruptcy. He must not have been reading his son-in-law's economics advice books closely enough.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

80 comments:

Anonymous said...

There were quite a few mistakes, soeme of which were caught in the comments by others. I don't think Bill Gross of PIMCO is Jewish, and Warren Stephens is not. I doubt Whitman is.

Anonymous said...

because jews like women have a strong sense of collective spirit

of helping each other and banding together

Anonymous said...

This is slightly off topic but boy do I miss that show. Santos l. Halper indeed.

Anonymous said...

and we still can't discuss their influence on immigration, foreign policy, etc ,without being branded 'anti semitic' when do we stop caring what they label us?

Anonymous said...

didn't whitman end up adapting a chinese girl or something? So much for anglo bloodlines.

Obama is Lord said...

So Steve Sailer, what has ignited this interest in the "JEWS"!!! Is it because you have read some Kevin Macdonald lately. Are you finally turning Nazi on us. Seriously, is this the new Nazi Steve Sailer. That you have become tried of being called a Nazi, so you have decided to become one. Is it due to "Inglourios Basterds" showing you the evil of the "JEWS"!!! I mean Eli Roth role in that movie could make anybody into a Nazi, including you, Sailer. Please Sailer do not become a Nazi. Human Biodiversity already has enough problems with Nazis.

LOL: It is a joke, please do not take this comment seriously. However Nazis are a genuine problem for the Human Biodiversity community, so the last sentence in my comment was not a joke.

n/a said...

"For example, he includes Meg Whitman of E-bay, who is running for the GOP nomination for governor of California, but most of what I see about her suggests she is largely Boston Brahmin."

Bizarre. If you Google "meg whitman jewish", she also shows up on a few "great Jewish women" lists. There's absolutely no basis for this.

Noah Smith said...

I don't get it...what's the reason for this Jew-counting?

Why aren't we counting how many billionaires, or pundits, or whatever, belong to America's other traditional "elite minority" - the Scottish?

Or we could count Mormons, America's other prominent religious minority.

Unknown said...

Another interesting question: How many are White Anglo Saxon Protestants? I would not be at all surprised to learn that there are fewer of them than of Jews.

Quentin said...

There's actually a software program for estimating the proportion of Jewish names on a list. It can be found here.

There's an interesting PDF that accompanies the release titled "Counting Jews: An Onomastics Challenge." It contains some background information and methodological details.

Anonymous said...

Part of the increase in Jewish numbers is due to the proliferation of Pritzkers of Chicago (there are now 11 on the Forbes 400). They've been rich a long time (an old friend of mine was their nanny in Europe in the 1970s). Presumably they are multiplying due to inheritance.

The Pritzker Foundation gave $100,000 to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge [Obama, William "Bill" Ayers, Michael "Mike" Klonsky, etc], and then the Chicago Annenberg Challenge set up Penny Pritzker on the board of the Chicago Public Education Fund.

Penny Pritzker, in turn, was involved up to her eyeballs in the subprime loan debacle, and as the finance chair of the Obama campaign, she turned off the security checks on credit card donations so that [among other things] they could launder foreign money into the Obama campaign coffers.

albertosaurus said...

Presumably becoming rich takes brains. Jews are known to have IQs about one standard deviation above the norm.

So why is anyone surprised?

OhioStater said...

I think there are key cultural differences. I propose some propositions:

1. In northern European Protestant culture, status comes first, then money. In other cultures, its the other way around.

2. Northern Europeans are also collectivist, and work well in teams such as corporations, whereas entrepreneurs are the ultimate individualists. You've talked about moral superiority, and a person saying they don't want to work for someone else, or I deserve to be rich, is the ultimate in moral superiority.

Clark said...

One of these figures, Bruce Wasserstein, died recently.

From various obituaries:

NY Daily News
"During the go-go 1980s, the rumpled, taciturn Wasserstein became a symbol of the avaricious decade's predatory dealmaking and led the ascent of mergers and acquisitions."

"He was credited with putting together more than 1,000 deals, worth a total of more than $250 billion, including Time's merger with Warner Brothers."

"He had a reputation as a brilliant but arrogant and bullying banker who found unusual ways to close deals. He invented the so-called "Pac-Man defense" where a takeover target turns around and buys its would-be acquirer.""

Random finance site
"No one did it better," Green wrote. "He earned the trust and respect of both the consumer side and the business side. He had a deep laugh, an agile mind and loved the game of business and of politics. I've never met anyone with a better sense of strategy."

Telegraph
He was indeed known as “Bid ‘em up Bruce” but this nickname was not entirely affectionate. It refers to his legendary ability to persuade his client companies to overpay for their targets, which is not universally viewed as a virtue, even on Wall Street. He was also one of the bankers who developed the leveraged takeover, allowing  companies to buy rivals by loading up with debt, most famously in the case of RJR Nabisco, as chronicled in Barbarians at the Gate. Bigger deals, of course, meant bigger fees for the bankers.


Telegraph 2
Having brokered the merger of Time and Warner Bros in 1990, he later advised in the ill-fated marriage of Time Warner and AOL during the dotcom boom, and he caused ructions in 2006 when he teamed up with the veteran corporate raider Carl Icahn to try to force the break-up of the struggling media group he had profited from helping to create.

Never shy of controversy, Wasserstein could claim to have had a hand in more than 1,000 merger and acquisition deals in the course of his career, amounting to some $250 billion in value. Whether in defence or on the side of the hostile bidder, he deployed a mastery of takeover techniques, a sharp tongue and formidable powers of persuasion to keep his clients in the game to the last hand – hence "Bid 'Em Up Bruce", a sobriquet which he was said to hate.

Anonymous said...

But the increasing importance of Wall Street in the economy in recent years no doubt played a major role in this increase over the historic baseline.

If I have time later tonight, then I will write a 10,000 word essay on how they funneled upwards of a trillion dollars through AIG and into the likes of Goldman Sachs, and then got off Scot-free afterwards, but I need to go get some real work done.

PS: Isn't it time we re-thought that phrase, "Scot-free"?

Or is Komment Kontrol going to frown on that observation?

Anonymous said...

One could easily figure out Meg Whitman's religious affiliation by looking at her NYT wedding announcement. I don't have one of those accounts that allows archive access, but here's a link to the article preview:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60811F8385D17728DDDA90A94DC405B8084F1D3&scp=1&sq=Griffith%20Harsh&st=p

Clark said...

Remember that before the financial crisis of last year and the recession, Wasserstein and his fellow money men were characterized as somehow being great for America and American prosperity, and being innovative producers of "wealth," benefiting ordinary Americans, etc. This was all swallowed of course by the naive and ignorant masses, who had no way of even understanding what the hell these people are doing.

Now that the ruse has been exposed, those in our culture and "information" producing/manipulating overclass, like Thomas Friedman, have to change the script and argue that all those parasitic extractors who've been feeding off the accumulated industry built by generations of traditional Americans, deserve everything they've acquired and that the middle class "engineers and programmers" are responsible for being losers, being outsourced, etc.

jody said...

they are good at making money, and there has never been a nation with more opportunity to do that than the US.

like most groups though, they don't do that well without living among europeans. on their own, they would not be making much money or winning many nobel science prizes. "living with whitey" is the best way for any group to leverage their capabilities.

how many on the list are east asians? once again, we see overwhelming evidence of their aversion to high levels of risk. on average, they're simply not interested in taking the chances required to become billionaires. they're satisfied dominating the medical and engineering departments at the university and getting the reliable $100,000 a year jobs. a winning strategy for life. hitting singles the whole way.

Anonymous said...

> And, of course, there are the usual issues of how to count people with one Jewish parent, converts, and so forth. <

Indeed. Not to mention those with Jewish spouses.

The whole list might be colorably Jewish.

"How many have dual citizenship with Israel?" might be a more salient investigation.

Also keep in mind that of the Russian oligarchs, only one was a goy.

Anonymous said...

It’s really incredible the prominence Jews have in America and Europe. Lets just look in America, a third of Nobel Prizes, A third of billionaires, around half of public intellectuals, Ivy league admissions, a high frequency of elected politicians and even more so in cabinet members. I cannot verify but I saw somewhere they comprised half of Clintons appointments, they are also strong in Obama’s and there are positions which have just been reserved for them like central bankers, treasury. That’s some really good statistics out there.

Now again if you look at the IQ tables, and you follow it logically then things don’t add up. Let’s see, the white mean IQ is 100 and I have seen Jewish IQ estimated at 105 – 106. On the high scale some have calculated 115. I suspect the truth in my own personal experience is somewhere in the middle maybe 107 – 110.

Now the above numbers do not correlate with these massive over representations, no way. You could see the same effect in France, Britain and other European countries. In Russia it is almost extreme to make no sense.

Regarding minority performance, IQ measurements can piggy back on real life performance metrics. So the IQ constant can be as the main ingredient in trying to explain away the performance gap and everything fits in perfectly. How ever in field tests when it comes to Jews, then it fails.

Which leads me to the conclusion that IQ is not all and be all of these metrics? There is a lot we don’t know about intelligence and most of it cannot be measured.

Andrea said...

And Jews dominate in places that really matter. NY is really the economic, cultural, and even political center of America, and I recall reading somewhere that 20 out of 23 billinaires in NY are Jewish.

Also, in areas such as media--which affect the way we see the world--, Jewish domination is all-pervasive. Those who control what people read, see, and hear control everything.

This is why so many Jews are pressuring Obama to control the internet. Media monopoly is slipping away from the Jews.

Unknown said...

As far as white anglo saxon protestants, at the top, of course, is Gates and I suppose, Buffet. Then there are the Waltons. After that I have little idea.

Whiskey said...

With Wall Street now subject to pay limits and no real engine of the US economy, the road to riches lies in Carlos Slim relationships. Meaning a friend of Obama is the likely beneficiary -- a connect Black or Hispanic leveraging government relationships in semi-monopoly power. Like Slim.

Moreover, the constant assimilation and out-marriage, dropping of religious observance, makes "Jews" such as Louis B. Mayer a thing of the past. You'll see more Sarah Michelle Gellars, i.e. Jewish background men and women marrying very much non-Jews (such as Freddie Prinze Jr.) Jews simply lack cohesiveness in America's cultural acid.

However, the same cannot be said for Muslims, or Mexicans, who both maintain cultural and social norm cohesiveness, the former through rigid adherence to religious mores, and the latter through the gigantic Mexican cultural machine right next door. Both groups do not out-marry with Americans. Their lack of emphasis on education means they lag behind those of Jewish descent, but their cultural unity allows them to create real political power.

Which in the Obama era of Chicago style politics is the path to riches.

DWBudd said...

Interesting, but I tend to think Adam Sandler's musical rendition is a bit 'catchier.'

Anonymous said...

The top 24 appear to average three children.

Desmond Jones

Robert said...

Shape shifting reptilians?

Andrea said...

I don't get it...what's the reason for this Jew-counting?

"Why aren't we counting how many billionaires, or pundits, or whatever, belong to America's other traditional 'elite minority' - the Scottish?
Or we could count Mormons, America's other prominent religious minority."

Don't be coy with the goy. You know full well that Jews are special since most of them tend to be liberal or radical. Jewish power also derives from the fact that they are immune from the criticism thanks to the Holocaust card. Great Jewish wealth means great power and influence for stuff like gay agenda, multiculturalism, open borders and illegal invasion, the cult of diversity, radical feminism, interracism, etc. And, Jews have great influence on US foreign policy, especially in relation to Israel. Since most Jews tend to be on the liberal-radical trans- or post-national spectrum, we need to gauge the amount of power they have.

Jewish wealth also means Jewish control of media. And Jewish wealth is connected to Jewish dominance in academia and culture. It takes brains to succeed in business or in intellectual fields. Also, businessmen can sway institutions through donations.

And, we know all about the connection between money and politics. No way Obama would be president without Jewish wealth and influence. There are rich folks among all groups but none as powerful or influential as the Jews. Not even close. So, it's not surprising that we are more interested in rich Jews than rich Mexicans or rich Cubans.

Anonymous said...

how many on the list are east asians? once again, we see overwhelming evidence of their aversion to high levels of risk. on average, they're simply not interested in taking the chances required to become billionaires.

China only trails U.S. in billionaires

"The Hurun Rich List counted 130 billionaires in China this year, up from 101 a year ago and none in 2003.

An additional 825,000 people had personal wealth of more than $1.5 million, said Rupert Hoogewerf, an accountant who has compiled the list since 1998.

"You can double the real number of billionaires in China to 260," said Hoogewerf in a statement. "There are still a large number of billionaires off the radar screens.""

" Few of those making the list relied on exports to Western economies.

But the richest man in China this year, Wang Chuanfu, jumped 102 places to the top after billionaire U.S. investor Warren Buffett agreed to buy a 10 percent stake in his company.

Buffett's announcement sent shares in Wang's company, BYD, surging 387 percent this year.

The company initially made its name with rechargeable cell phone batteries, but this year launched mass production of a plug-in hybrid electric car."

"# Less than 1 percent on the list inherited their wealth, compared with 25 percent in the United Kingdom and 35 percent in the United States.

# The typical rich list member is a 50-year-old self-made man who started out 16 years ago and has made his money from property development.

# 102 women were among China's 1,000 richest. Chinese women make up more than half the world's richest self-made women.""

Chutzpah said...

Shocker of the century!

Mr. "Tel-Aviv Scotch-Irish" yet again tells us to completely ignore empirical reality when it comes to something involving Jews.

He proved everything. You see, those "Jews" aren't actually Jews. They're all so assimilated and everything. And they themselves don't even realize that they're Jewish.

Besides, it doesn't even really matter anyway. Because all those guys on the Fortune 400 are soon going to be replaced by Mexican peasants and ignorant cousin-marrying A-rabs!

BTW, Whiskey, how are the salary & benefits over at Mossad's cyber psyops unit? Decent pension?

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Anonymous said...

"# 102 women were among China's 1,000 richest. Chinese women make up more than half the world's richest self-made women."

I wouldn't have expected that. Does anyone have any ideas as to why?

Fred said...

"This is why so many Jews are pressuring Obama to control the internet. Media monopoly is slipping away from the Jews."

For reals? Google, which owns the platform on which Steve blogs (and on which the Jew-hating commenter N/A blogs as well) was founded by two Jews, who both remain co-presidents at the firm. Google's main competitor in search -- Microsoft, now that it has partnered with Yahoo! -- is run by a Jew, Steve Balmer. So I think you'd have to argue that the Jews who control the interwebs have been pretty tolerant so far, despite the vitriol heaped on their ethno-religious group.

I think I can clear up the Meg Whitman mystery. The knucklehead who put together the list probably lazily assumed she was in some why related to NY money manager Marty Whitman, who is 110% Semitic, despite the WASP-y name.

Chris said...

Speaking of Jewish philanthropies, what do they actually do? Is there anything substantive that isn't simply intended to directly or indirectly support their co-ethnics or diminish their potential foes?

Anonymous said...

""# 102 women were among China's 1,000 richest. Chinese women make up more than half the world's richest self-made women."

I wouldn't have expected that. Does anyone have any ideas as to why?"

Dunno. Ask Derb.

Anonymous said...

"I don't get it...what's the reason for this Jew-counting?

Why aren't we counting how many billionaires, or pundits, or whatever, belong to America's other traditional "elite minority" - the Scottish?

Or we could count Mormons, America's other prominent religious minority."

Go ahead, Noah, get to it. Get back to us with your counts.

From curiosity, how many howls of "YOU ANTI-SCOTSMAN" or "YOU ANTI-MORMON" or "YOU ARE INSANE" do you reckon you'll get blasted at you?

Steve Sailer said...

Noah:

Please do count every category of members of the Forbes 400. I'd love to see the numbers. My favorite character on Sesame Street is The Count: "I love counting!"

Calper said...

Speaking of Jewish philanthropies, what do they actually do? Is there anything substantive that isn't simply intended to directly or indirectly support their co-ethnics or diminish their potential foes?

Great question. I've always wondered about this too. You always hear about "Jewish charities" in the media, but it always comes off like an oxymoron, especially since the other kinds of charities you also always hear about involve starvation in Africa or something.

Chief Seattle said...

To me, this recession, and secular changes in the economy, seem harder on Jewish-dominated professions than most.

Retail: The Internet is dis-intermediating producer and consumer, leaving less room for middlemen. "Why did God create the Goy? Because someone has to pay retail". Not so true any more.

Bankers are getting hit hard by the financial crisis. Sure, there's some at the top still making megabucks, but there's also been a lot of layoffs.

Lawyers are getting hit especially hard, both by declining financial services work, and by a surplus of law school grads.

Media? Newspapers are dying. Record companies are dying. Network TV is dying. Movies are doing OK. Not a lot of bright spots for the MSM.

Anonymous said...

You'll see more Sarah Michelle Gellars, i.e. Jewish background men and women marrying very much non-Jews (such as Freddie Prinze Jr.)

Freddie Prinze Jr. has Jewish ancestry.

Fred said...

"Speaking of Jewish philanthropies, what do they actually do? Is there anything substantive that isn't simply intended to directly or indirectly support their co-ethnics or diminish their potential foes?"

Uh, build hospitals and medical research centers, for starters? Sandy Weill's Weill-Cornell Medical Center in NYC, for example. Think of all those hospitals with the funny Jewish-sounding names -- what's that one in Los Angeles, Cedars-Sinai? -- do you think the philanthropy that funded it came from Bedouins living in the Sinai?

Noah Smith said...

Steve and Anonymous:

I honestly have no idea how to count Scots (especially since they have probably interbred even more than Jews). But then again, I don't know how to count Jews either, other than to look each persons bio up on Wikipedia or use one of those Jewish name-estimating software programs. (Incidentally, the program would probably miss me; I'm Jewish, and my last name is Smith...)

Here's a website with some interesting trivia about Scots, though:
http://electricscotland.com/scottish_trivia.htm

From what I've read (I'm a bit of a Scottish history buff), that list is nowhere even close to an exhaustive list of Scottish accomplishments in politics, science, engineering, and literature, which frankly dwarf those of the Jews. Chances are, more than 50% of the value-added of the objects in the room you're sitting in is something invented by a Scotsman...

And of course I'm not being anti-Scottish or anti-Mormon (fact is, I quite like both cultures). Nor are those who count Jews anti-semitic (although Andrea obviously is; whatever with you, psycho!). I just think the obsession with Jews, over and above all the other "elite minorities", is a bit silly.

Besides, most heretofore Jewish-dominated fields are being taken over by Indians...the "new Jews!" :)

Tim said...

Bernard Lewis pointed out the fact that Jews have prospered in cultures related to Judaism such as Christianity and Islam. Jews have stagnated in China and India.

Underachiever said...

Am I the only one who has noticed that Jews are ambitious and conscientious (even relative to their IQ)? It isn't just their intelligence; it is their personality.

grayson said...

To me, this recession, and secular changes in the economy, seem harder on Jewish-dominated professions than most.

Yeah, if you live in some kind of bubble in a major city.

This pales in comparison to the gutting and hollowing out of manufacturing, outsourcing, diminishing of productive enterprise and engineering, etc., that has gone on for the past few decades and has been implemented and cheerleaded by the professions you mention.

TH said...

It’s really incredible the prominence Jews have in America and Europe. Lets just look in America, a third of Nobel Prizes, A third of billionaires, around half of public intellectuals, Ivy league admissions, a high frequency of elected politicians and even more so in cabinet members.

Are Jews really "incredibly prominent" in Europe? I don't think they are, after the Holocaust. In Russia, perhaps. The original 1990s oligarchs were Jews almost to a man, but Putin has cracked down on some of them, and there are many non-Jewish billionaires in Russia nowadays.

In Western Europe, Jews are successful enough, but they do not dominate the cultural, political, and economic life of these countries the way Jews do in America.

I wrote about British Jewish scientists here, noting that they have not been particularly prominent. For example, there's been only one British-born Jewish science Nobel laureate.

Anonymous said...

"Nor are those who count Jews anti-semitic (although Andrea obviously is; whatever with you, psycho!)."

There's nothing anti-Semitic about Andrea's comments so far. She's making pretty realistic claims and observations.

Anonymous said...

" NY is really the economic, cultural, and even political center of America, and "

PPPPLLLLPPPLL.

Those of us in flyover country, who are still sane, have nought but contempt for New Yo-awk.

We're incompatible. Let's separate.

"New York CITY!? Git a rope."

Chris said...

Uh, build hospitals and medical research centers

Putting aside the fact that neither the Weill-Cornell medical center nor Cedars were founded by "philanthropies" and that billionaires like Weill need to spend their riches somehow and often do so by ordering monuments to themselves, couldn't both Cedars and WCMC be construed as tools for furthering Jewish influence. For example, how do you think the Jewish fraction of doctors and researchers at Cedars compares to that at UCLA, just a few miles away. My superficial impression is that Cedars has a substantially higher Jewish fraction.

What about Jewish philanthropies proper? Such as the ones we repeatedly heard about losing all that money with Madoff. What are they about?

Anonymous said...

TH said....I wrote about British Jewish scientists here, noting that they have not been particularly prominent. For example, there's been only one British-born Jewish science Nobel laureate"

Jews are extremely prominent in the UK, among the arts scene, business, and financiers. Majority of the big department stores in the UK are owned by them or started by them, Argos, Sainsbury, Tesco (biggest), Marks & Spencer, Topshop ad infinitum.

Alot quite a few cabinet members from the thatcher era were jews including lawson father of Nigela lawson who is married to a saatchi.

Even now there are two jewish brothers in the british cabinet, the milliband brothers.

However my ace card is that the Simon Cowell is a member of the tribe too.

Anonymous said...

"I just think the obsession with Jews, over and above all the other "elite minorities", is a bit silly"

I just think I noticed that I can count Scots or Mormons without, as sure as the sun rises, Scots and Mormons crawling out the wookwork demanding to know why I'm not counting all the Jews and Eskimoes and poor beggars, too. I can even criticize a person of Scottish ancestry or a person of the Mormon faith without jeopardizing my livelihood by SPLC.

Anonymouses like me like to count Jews because: we're not *supposed* to. We do it, often, just for the fun of being contrary.

This always bugged me: If Jews are as worried about being pogrommed on at any minute as they say they are, you'd think they'd use some of that legendary mental horsepower figuring out how the non-Jews think so they can avoiding ticking them off.

Mark said...

Whitman's not Jewish (nor does she have a Chinese adopted daughter). Arillaga is Basque, so I'd assume he's not Jewish, unless on his mother's side. And if what we're really looking at is ethnicity shouldn't you give only half credit for half-Jews, and quarter credit for quarter-Jews, like the Ziff brothers?

But the increasing importance of Wall Street in the economy in recent years no doubt played a major role in this increase over the historic baseline.

Well I posted yesterday that the percent of business profits earned by the financial sector rose from around 16% (1973-85), reached 30% in the 90s and hit 41% this decade.

I wonder if you could go back and look at the list since it's fist publication (1982, I believe) and track how Jews have done over the years. Because commensurate with the increase in their share of the financial wealth has been an increase in their political power. Jews dominated in the Clinton Administration like it was nobody's business, at one point having 3 of the big four cabinet seats (Summers, Albright, Cohen). Counting the half-Jewish John Kerry they currently have 14 seats in the US Senate, which is probably an all-time record.

And then America is held at the point of a gun by a Fed chairman named Ben Shalom Bernanke and told we have to bail out the finance industry, no questions asked.

I wrote about British Jewish scientists here, noting that they have not been particularly prominent. For example, there's been only one British-born Jewish science Nobel laureate.

Germany, Switzerland and Austria still do incredibly well despite lacking many Jews, whether you look at GNP, trade balances or Nobel Prizes.

Presumably becoming rich takes brains. Jews are known to have IQs about one standard deviation above the norm. So why is anyone surprised?

It isn't just brains. Political power can be used to enact policies which benefit some industries (and the groups who dominate them) over others.

Not saying this is happening, but even the perception can be bad.

Or we could count Mormons, America's other prominent religious minority.

Earl Holding, Richard Peery and the Marriott brothers - 4, or 1%, which is less than their share of the US population of about 2%.

The LDS Church is in terminal decline as any sort of influence on white society. It places a heavy emphasis on the missionary experience for its young men, but new membership in educated countries is drying up. Much of the new membership, even in the US, is Hispanic. It's not at all rare for missionaries in educated countries to spend 2 full years proselyting and not gain a single convert.

And the more minority its membership gets the more white members it will bleed.

Sen. Pat Leahy said...

I would think that controlling the entire United States telephone computer sub-architecture (through Mossad front companies) helps greatly to advance the careers of highly connected Jews in America and Israel.

Even Bill Clinton was powerless to stop an unnamed "foreign government" from eavesdropping on his Lewinsky phone calls.

Gee, do you think you could do a little better in the stock market if you had a backdoor computer-level wiretap into certain people's phone lines? Maybe Rahm Emmanuel could give us answer to that question. Rahm made approximately 15 million dollars during a brief stay at a major brokerage before diving into politics.

Or maybe all of that info passing over the phones lines every day is worthless. You decide.

Do a web search for Comverse Infosys Amdocs. These are/were Mossad front companies who were awarded the contracts for the telephone architecture in this country back in the 1990s (and apparently other countries also).

Honest Money said...

The most important thing to understand is that the money earned on Wall Street during the past thirty years has almost all been honest money.

The Madoff ponzi scandal was the exception.

There are no other Madoffs.

Madoff was a loner.

He was a lone wolf.

There is no vast network of organized financial criminals operating on Wall Street.

Repeat: there is no network.

Noah Smith said...

I wrote about British Jewish scientists here, noting that they have not been particularly prominent. For example, there's been only one British-born Jewish science Nobel laureate.

Maybe it's because Britain already has an "elite minority"...the Scots!

FYI said...

"what is it about Jews that have allowed them to rise to be the cream of the crop of so many fields, enriching themselves at the same time? Is it all IQ?"

Some call it "networking" but it's actually InGroup/OutGroup Strategy. All groups do this but none as aggressively as the Jews within America's highest power circles. Take a look at the top members of the Federal Reserve Board. It was all Jewish guys until the financial crisis hit in 2007 and then they quickly added one gentile banker lady from Dixie!

This special type of "lack of diversity" in high power centers in America is a scandal. And mentioning it will put your career on a long track to knowhere apparently.

Would it be reasonable for the Federal Reserve Board to be utterly dominated by other 2% minorities? How about an all Muslim Federal Reserve Board? Or all Mormon? All Chinese? It's absurd.

As was already noted in the thread: the distribution of IQ in the population does not correlate with Jewish dominance of these power centers. The Jews are consistently over represented. This is because a high IQ group with very strong group cohesion can take over entire organizations. Too much "networking" produces poor quality work though. And we see this in America today with the level of output in our intellectual spheres.

All sorts of minorities including homosexuals throughout history have been able to carve out power bases in certain areas of society using InGroup/OutGroup Strategy. It's not exactly breaking news. But the level of Jewish domination in modern American society is reaching an extreme. History shows that this has happened in various parts of the world on a periodic basis.

Mark said...

Maybe it's because Britain already has an "elite minority"...the Scots!

Do post data, if you have any Noah, because my perception is that Scotland's turning into a basket case, with lower life expectancies than England and much of the rest of Europe: "life expectancy in Scotland remains low compared with most Western European countries."

Lower incomes, too. From Wikipedia: Scottish per capita income "is still lower than the average of the United Kingdom as a whole."

Now maybe part of this is that the most talented Scots head to London, but still...

Anonymous said...

"The wealthiest and most powerful of the rising bourgeoisie are connected to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 2006, a survey by the official Chinese Academy of Social Sciences found that of the 3,320 richest individuals in China—owning more than 100 million yuan—2,932 were the children of high-ranking officials.


Whether “self-made” or “well-connected”, all China’s millionaires made their fortunes through the super-exploitation of workers, driven to find work following the destruction of collective agriculture and dismantling of state industry. Poverty has driven workers to accept low wages, long hours, dangerous and unhealthy conditions, poor food and accommodation and a lack of even the most basic labour rights.


Social tensions are reaching boiling point. In its February edition, Hong-Kong’s Cheng Ming magazine reported that petitions and demonstrations in China reached 127,467 in 2008 and involved more than 12 million people—compared to 87,000 incidents in 2005. Overwhelmingly the protests are by workers and the urban and rural poor."


The study finds that the top 10 percent households hold the up to as high as 75 percent of total hidden income. The actual difference of per capita between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent in urban areas is 31 fold instead of official figure of 9 fold. The difference in per capita combining both rural and urban is calculated to be 55 fold between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent, rather than the 21 fold projected by the official statistics. The report also indicates that due to insufficient data, the Gini coefficient is hard to finalize now, but surely reaches the inequality warning standard, 0.45, used by the World Bank.

The administrative monopoly has contributed substantially to this inequality

China can be characterized by Brazilian levels of economic inequality, which is aggravated by mass scale crony capitalism. China's large number of billionaires, to a large extent, reflects the degree to which a small clique of people can exploit the rest of the country to their benefit.

Anonymous said...

American Jews have harnessed the best combination of success factors to their advantage - e.g., nature (high intelligence), nurture (group cohesiveness, high interpersonal communication) and location, location, location.

And they tend not to piss away their kindling on trips to Disney World, teevee or season tickets on the 50 year line.

Andrea said...

"This is why so many Jews are pressuring Obama to control the internet. Media monopoly is slipping away from the Jews."

"For reals? Google, which owns the platform on which Steve blogs (and on which the Jew-hating commenter N/A blogs as well) was founded by two Jews, who both remain co-presidents at the firm. Google's main competitor in search -- Microsoft, now that it has partnered with Yahoo! -- is run by a Jew, Steve Balmer. So I think you'd have to argue that the Jews who control the interwebs have been pretty tolerant so far, despite the vitriol heaped on their ethno-religious group."

----

There's no doubt that Jews have been at the forefront of the internet revolution. And much of the wealth created by internet have gone to liberal or radical causes.

Anyway, it's wrong to say that google and microsoft have been 'tolerant'. They control powerful tools on the internet but don't own the internet. Their tools and services led to great fortunes. Keep in mind that the essence of the internet is free exchange of ideas, goods, opinions, etc. The only way to succeed online is by facilitating more freedom, more interconnection. And, Jews like Sergei Brin and Balmer have been brilliant at this. But, it wasn't out of tolerance but for dominance of the internet market. Google dominates and controls search engines. Microsoft dominates windows software.
The internet being what it is, Google could not have won the competition if it had been Intolerant and repressive of freedom.
BUT, once these guys have amassed huge fortunes, they've donated to politicians who promote PC. Obama and his ilk want to pass 'hate speech' laws--like the on in Europe and Canada--which would criminalize a lot of 'controversial' 'far right' views--of course, 'hate speech' never applies to the left even when nutjob radicals praise Mao and Stalin or deny the number of victims of communism.

Do you think the Balmers and Brins of the world will do anything to oppose or block 'hate speech' laws? No, though these fellas amassed huge fortunes by developing tools that faciliated freedom of communication, they are worried because free flow of information has leveled the playing field between the left and right. So, even as they pose as defenders of freedom, guys like Brin will support the Obamas of the world who wanna quell and criminalize 'far right' speech.

There is some of this already though self-enforced. Ebay bans sales of Nazi material but allows sales of commie stuff. Facebook bans 'rightwing hate' but you can be as extremist and hateful as possible on the left.

Liberals have two uses of freedom. They use it to amass great power and wealth and then use their power and wealth to support politicians who clamp down on our freedoms. The so-called liberal and open-minded people in the media and academia support politicians who propose 'hate crime' legislation. And, do you think the Brins and Balmers will donate a penny to the cause of defending 'hate speech'? Privately, they only want free speech for their side.

Of course, Brin will never come forward and openly call for banning 'hate speech'. No, he will say he's all for freedom but then fund politicians who seek to ban 'hate speech'.

'Hate Speech' is, of course, mostly how liberals define it. Any speech critical or antagonistic to Jewish interests, Zionism, black power, or the gay agenda will be 'deemed' hateful.

Prior to the internet, it was difficult for most people on the right to communicate except through highly (self)censored talk radio and few magazines like National Review. Though Jews do dominate tools in cyberspace, most of these tools allow greater freedom and access to all of us. Even so, most sites do ban or censor mostly 'far right' speech. And the sort of politicians supported by cyber billinonaires eagerly support 'hate speech' legislation whose purpose is to permanently cripple the right in cyberspace.

Lots of Hollywood movies were 'patriotic', which made Jews rich, but then rich Jews donated their fortunes to the Democrats.

Andrea said...

Is Steve Skol, formerly of Ebay, Jewish or is he one of those wimpy do-goody white boys like Ken Burns and Robert Redford?

Big Bill said...

It isn't surprising that the Jews dominate so many areas of elite practice -- they are smart as a whip.

So were the English, who settled Rhodesia when it home to just 100,000 or so wandering tribal African neolithics in 1900.

So were the Boers. So were the Indians in Uganda.

Lots of ex-colonialists were very smart compared to the native populations.

Anonymous said...

testing99 (Tel Aviv Scots-Irish): Mexicans and Muslims, not Jews, are the ones with real power. Just like the WASP-Harvard mafia controls Hollywood.
Noah (Jew): Focus on Scots and Mormons instead of Jews.
Fred (Jew): Jews are very tolerant; n/a is a Jew-hater for pointing out facts Jews don't like.

Fred said...

Most Jews donate their money to universal, not Jewish organizations and causes (e.g., such as hospitals, medical centers, non-Jewish universities, etc.):

"Two studies, both conducted in recent years but with different methodologies, show that Jewish philanthropists contribute the overwhelming majority of their dollars to universal, rather than Jewish, organizations and causes. In 1998, professor Jack Wertheimer studied the 232 foundations in America that self-identified as giving at least $200,000 to Jewish causes. He found that even these foundations gave nearly two-thirds of their annual funding, $487 million, to non-sectarian causes. Similarly, a 2003 report by Dr. Gary Tobin and colleagues at the Institute for Jewish and Community Research examined the 865 philanthropic gifts of $10 million or more made by all American donors between 1995 and 2000. While nearly 25 percent (188 gifts totaling $5.3 billion) were made by Jews, the Jewish mega-givers made fewer than 10 percent of their gifts to Jewish or Israeli organizations."

Fear not, those of you with bugs up your asses about Jews: you will be able to put a negative spin on the piece I linked to above, since the author (a Jew!) apparently wishes more Jewish giving went to Jewish causes.

Anonymous said...

And then America is held at the point of a gun by a Fed chairman named Ben Shalom Bernanke and told we have to bail out the finance industry, no questions asked.

His name really is Ben Shalom Bernanke! damn I thought that was a joke. Steve this is like a bad screenplay: Barack Hussein Obama meets with Ben Shalom Bernanke to decide how far to devalue the dollar.

Mark said...

While nearly 25 percent (188 gifts totaling $5.3 billion) were made by Jews, the Jewish mega-givers made fewer than 10 percent of their gifts to Jewish or Israeli organizations."

And how much was given to lefty political causes, by people like George Soros or the Levi Strauss heirs?

No bug up my ass, though. If Jews are giving to their own deserving that's AOK with me - just wish that Harvard-WASP mafia would do the same for its own, too!

Anonymous said...

His name really is Ben Shalom Bernanke! damn I thought that was a joke. Steve this is like a bad screenplay: Barack Hussein Obama meets with Ben Shalom Bernanke to decide how far to devalue the dollar.

Don't forget about Rahm Israel Emanuel.

Fred said...

"Putting aside the fact that neither the Weill-Cornell medical center nor Cedars were founded by "philanthropies" and that billionaires like Weill need to spend their riches somehow and often do so by ordering monuments to themselves, couldn't both Cedars and WCMC be construed as tools for furthering Jewish influence."

You're right that Weill didn't found the medical center/school that now bears his name, which was founded over a hundred years ago. But according to Cornell, his gift "Is Believed to Be the Single Largest Gift Ever Given to a Medical School". So it wasn't exactly chopped liver. And Jews have founded other hospitals in America.

As for hospital philanthropy being used to "further Jewish interests", I assume you could spin it that way, given that it's clearly in Jewish interests to come up with new treatments for cancer, for example, since Jews do get cancer. But then again, so do no Jews, right? I guess there's no pleasing some people.

As for building a monument to himself, Weill is atypical as far as Jewish donors are concerned. Most give not in their own names but in memory of their deceased parents. That's because the Jewish religion holds that one way to advance the position of a soul in the afterlife (Judaism is pretty vague about the afterlife) is to do good works in memory of that person on earth.

Fred said...

"Keep in mind that the essence of the internet is free exchange of ideas, goods, opinions, etc."

By accident, or did this have something to do with the spirit/intent of those at the forefront of the Internet revolution, among whom, you note, Jews have been prominent?

Your comments and Chris's comment suggest that there is nothing Jews can do that would put them above suspicion/contempt in your eyes. I mean, here you have Jews helping to create technology we all enjoy, technology that happens to facilitate negative commentary about Jews. And yet Jews don't get any credit for that in your book.

Similarly, with Chris, we have Jews donating gobs of money to hospitals that treat all and sundry. And yet those donations can't have any humanitarian motivation; they have to have been made to somehow further nefarious Jewish interests.

We are human beings too. Can you get that? We aren't that different from non-Jews. We have similar aspirations, fears, flaws, etc.

Anonymous said...

This special type of "lack of diversity" in high power centers in America is a scandal. And mentioning it will put your career on a long track to knowhere apparently.

Indeed. At Harvard, Jews are around 30% of the undergrad population, and non-Jewish White Christians are about 18% of the Harvard undergrad population. And you'll find similar proportions at the other Ivies and top universities.

Practically speaking, Jews effectively fill up the informal white quotas of elite power centers and institutions. Yet they're protected in this position because noticing and saying anything would result in being attacked for suggesting that Jews aren't white or something, which is a giant no-no in our society today.

mmm mmm mmm Mark said...

Practically speaking, Jews effectively fill up the informal white quotas of elite power centers and institutions. Yet they're protected in this position because noticing and saying anything would result in being attacked for suggesting that Jews aren't white or something, which is a giant no-no in our society today.

Well it realy depends on how you decide to count, doesn't ot? To some people (blacks and various liberals) race is what matters. But why should count by race, or only by race? Gays seem to identify more with their sexual orientation than anything else. Growing up in a white, religious home I idenified more by my religion than my race. Now I'm more inclined to identify by my ethnicity. How people choose to determine their identify is up to them.

Anonymous said...

Comrades! the tone here has gotten a little weird. Someone might almost get the impression that we iSteve fans have got the Jew Thing. It's really possible to regret the outsized influence American Jews have on U.S. foreign (or even immigration) policy and yet not impugn their motives for funding hospitals. Yes, I imagine most Jews show some preference for members of their own tribe, just as most people do; and that's sure to be salient, since they're a successful group. That doesn't mean they're plotting the demise of the Gentiles.

@Noah: I don't know if Steve's being sarcastic or not, but I would like a rough estimate of Scottish representation. It's always seemed to me that the greatest cultural contributors per capita have been the Scots, the Jews, and the Greeks (what ever happened to them??).

Anonymous said...

Comrades! the tone here has gotten a little weird.

Yeah, it is getting weird. But imagine how weird it would be if we were counting another group. Then nobody would be noticing or mentioning how weird it is that we're counting. How weird would that be!?

Chris said...

Fred, tell us about these Jewish philanthropies we always hear about. That was my original question - not about how good-hearted the Citibank CEO is.

Maybe I should restate it. Here goes: to what extent are those entities referred to as Jewish philanthropies operating in a way intended to specifically further Jewish interests?

Simple question, right?

Fred said...

"Fred, tell us about these Jewish philanthropies we always hear about. That was my original question"

I'm not an expert on Jewish philanthropies, Chris, but this is one I donate to (in addition to donating to a non-denominational charity) on the anniversary of my father's passing every year: The Hebrew Free Burial Association. The mission of the HFBA is to provide proper burials for indigent deceased Jews. I donate to the HFBA in memory of my father because my father donated to it. He donated to it because he watched his father's body get tossed into a mass grave, and he wanted to do what he could to insure dignified burials for others.

Chris said...

That brings me to another question. How many of the entities referred to as Jewish philanthropies would invoke the holocaust to discourage or deflect questioning of their intent and purpose?

Fred said...

As I said, Chris, I'm not an expert on Jewish philanthropies as a whole. I know something of the Hebrew Free Burial Society, for the reason I mentioned above. I can't think of any sense in which the HFBA "invoke[s] the holocaust to discourage or deflect questioning of their intent and purpose", or why it would want to discourage or deflect such questioning in any case. The HFBA was established well before the Holocaust (in the late 19th Century), and its mission has remained essentially the same since its founding: to provide proper burials for indigent deceased Jews. If you have further questions about this, here is the HFBA's contact info.

Anonymous said...

didn't whitman end up adapting a chinese girl or something? So much for anglo bloodlines.

Adapting?

*Gulp*

I'm not sure I like the sound of that.

Anonymous said...

However my ace card is that the Simon Cowell is a member of the tribe too.

Ill see your Cowell and raise you a Malcolm McLaren of Sex Pistols fame.

Recently Simon Cowell was thinking about buying Britsh tv network ITV. This would be in partnership with Sir Philip Green a retail billionaire.

No prizes for guessing Green's ethnic origins.

Who would have thought it, two Jewish boys owning their own tv network!

Truth said...

"Who would have thought it, two Jewish boys owning their own tv network!"

You guys are the ultimate paradox; you spend 50% of your time whining about people who do worse than you, and the other 50% whining about people who do better.

Mark said...

You guys are the ultimate paradox; you spend 50% of your time whining about people who do worse than you, and the other 50% whining about people who do better.

Or maybe 50% of us "whine" about people who do worse and the other 50% "whine" about the people who do better? As for me, I assume that racial/ethnic differences in intelligence are real and affect outcomes.

That applies as much to groups who do better than whites (Jews) as to groups who do worse, which isn't to say there isn't a lot of Jewish hypocrisy to target, especially regarding their overwhelming support for the idea of equality of outcomes - just so long as it doesn't apply to them.

Anonymous said...

Another possibility for the Jews' success in the US is a sense of gratitude they have to this country for giving them a safe home and the freedom to practice their religion--something they did find in Europe and Russia. I realize this is anecdotal, but growing up in a mixed neighborhood in the '50s, it was always the Jewish families that flew flags on national holidays. My Latvia-born grandmother, who spoke five languages, refused to speak anything but English because she was an American now. My brother and I could not act up in public because we would be an embarrassment in front of the goyim. I'm not sure whether this is the motivation among the richer Jews as I most certainly am not one, but it is very common among middle-class Jews who never want to be considered slackers or drags on society. Then lightly sprinkle the whole mental process with paranoia and you have the way many Jews think.