THE CRIMINAL CLASS
The truth of the
criminal billionaire class
For four decades after World War II, the top marginal income tax rate in the United States never fell below 70%. Highways got built. Universities got funded. The middle class emerged as a theoretical midway point between those with and without capital. The most notable inflection point came in the policies of an influential president and TV personality, Ronald Reagan, who assumed office in 1981. Reagan's presidency was one of wars, not just bloody wars, but against concepts. The war on drugs. The war on homelessness. Today, the war on terror. The US can only think in terms of war and extraction. As Reagan paved the way for the erosion of the US's institutions and the consolidation of wealth, he also shared his tenure with the justice who issued the famous memo most infamously attributed to be the official declaration of war from the ruling class against the underclass.
Top marginal income tax rate, US
1913 → 2025The tax rate the wealthiest Americans paid on their highest-bracket income. Source: IRS historical statistics; Tax Foundation; Brookings.
The 1986 tax reform act dropped the top rate from 50% to 28% in a single year. Wealth inequality, by every measure, has widened without interruption since.
◼ The self-made myth
Most billionaires didn't build it.
They inherited it.
The "self-made billionaire" is one of the most durable myths in American capitalism — a story powerful enough to make inherited aristocracy look like a meritocracy. The data doesn't support it.
Forbes 400: where the money came from
According to a 2018 Institute for Policy Studies analysis of Forbes classifications. One-third of the 400 richest Americans inherited their wealth outright or in part.
Forbes' own "self-made" score runs 1–10. A 6 — the minimum to be called "self-made" — is defined as receiving a meaningful inheritance or head start. IPS estimates over 60% of Forbes 400 members grew up in substantial privilege.
New wealth created in 2023
UBS Billionaires ReportIn 2023, for the first time since records began, heirs added more to the global billionaire class than entrepreneurs did — $150.8 billion vs. $140.7 billion.
53 heirs each inherited an average of $4.3B. 84 entrepreneurs created $140.7B combined. The inheritance economy is now larger than the innovation economy — at the top.
NOTE FROM THE CHIEF EDITOR
The self-made-man narrative is intended to uphold the worship of capital. If you believe the narrative that the wealthy achieved their wealth on merit and not wage theft and inheritance, their success becomes a signal of their intellect, entrepreneurial spirit, and business acumen. In reality, we know the value they extract to accumulate their wealth is at the expense of the workers they exploit to generate it. Workers find themselves on food stamps because their employers don't pay them enough to live, carve their hours just sparse enough to deny them benefits, and price them out of the very grocery stores they work at. The wealthy subsidize their own operating costs with the American's tax dollar. Meanwhile, companies like Amazon pay $0 in tax liabilities year over year and the effective tax rate against the wealth of men like Jeff Bezos is under 2%.
The trickle-down story needs the self-made billionaire to work. If wealth at the top is mostly inherited, passed tax-free through trusts and stepped-up basis provisions, the whole “job creator” argument collapses. The data says it already has.
Sources: IPS Billionaire Bonanza 2018; UBS Billionaires Report 2023; Forbes 400 self-made score methodology.
2,781 people. $16.1 trillion.
Forbes 2025 vs. World Bank GDPAll the world's billionaires combined hold more wealth than the GDP of every nation on earth except two. Source: Forbes Billionaires 2025; World Bank / IMF WEO 2024.
In 12 months. +$5.1 trillion.
Global billionaire wealth 2017–2024While roughly 5 billion people got poorer during the COVID-19 pandemic, global billionaire wealth surged $5.1 trillion in a single year — from $8.0T in March 2020 to $13.1T in April 2021. Source: Forbes Billionaires 2017–2025; Oxfam "Inequality Inc." (2024).
Pandemic-era stimulus, zero interest rates, and asset inflation redistributed wealth upward at historic speed. The relief was temporary for nearly everyone. The gains were permanent for a few.
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What this site is
A public-record archive.
Every claim names a source: court filings, SEC orders, settlements, investigative reporting. No anonymous accusations. No hearsay.
An opinionated archive.
We write with a voice. Wage theft is theft. Tax evasion is theft. Letting people die for shareholder value is murder by ledger. We say so. The facts and the framing are clearly separated.
An accumulating archive.
Dossiers grow as new findings land. The chart up top is the skeleton. The dossiers are the flesh. Both will keep filling in.
We use the word "crimes" because we mean it.
Poisoning water is a crime. Denying healthcare claims to people who die from the denial is a crime. Profiting from caging immigrants is a crime. The fact that the legal system has not yet caught up is part of the story.