◼ A receipt
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 got created. Then a story got told — that taxing the rich was a punishment, that wealth would "trickle down," that prosperity required deference. The story was a marketing campaign. This is the receipt.
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.
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.
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.