NEWS: Sanders Launches New Video Series on Global Oligarchy and the Trump Administration

NEWS: Sanders Launches New Video Series on Global Oligarchy and the Trump Administration

• December 13, 2024

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today launched a new video series exploring global oligarchy, including how billionaire oligarchs manipulate the global economy, purchase our elections, avoid paying taxes, and increasingly control our government. The series will feature the world's leading experts on the topic and will cover the incoming Trump administration's ties to the billionaire class.

Sanders remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below and can be watched HERE:

You know, it is kind of funny how when politicians and the media talk about Russia and Vladimir Putin, they often use the word "oligarchy." They talk about how the oligarchs of Russia have enormous power under Putin. But strangely enough, the term "oligarchy" is very rarely used to describe what's happening in the United States or in fact, what's happening around the world.

But guess what? Oligarchy is a global phenomenon, and it is headquartered right here in the United States. The fact of the matter is, and we don't talk about it very much, but this is the reality. A small number of incredibly wealthy billionaires own and control much of the global economy. Period. End of discussion. And increasingly they own and control our government through a corrupt campaign finance system.

Since 2020, five billion people all over the world have become poorer, while the world's five richest billionaires have more than doubled their fortunes at a rate of $14 million per hour. And listen to this: Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest man, has added a $120 billion to his fortune just since Election Day. While Jeff Bezos, the number two guy, he only became $67 billion richer in the last year. And Mark Zuckerberg, he became $90 billion richer this year alone.

In other words, the people on top who are already phenomenally rich are becoming incredibly richer. Over the past decade, the wealthiest 1% of the global population amassed $42 trillion in new wealth, while the wealth of the bottom half of society barely budged. In fact, as of today, the top 1% owns more wealth than 95% of the people on this earth.

Outrageously, the wealthiest people in the world are stashing up to $32 trillion in offshore tax havens like the Cayman Islands in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes to governments all over the world. In other words, governments are underfunded, and these people stash trillions in tax havens. Meanwhile, the uber rich do spend money to protect their incredible wealth.

They do it by buying influence and increasingly by buying our elections. Billionaires in the United States are 0.0005% of the population. That ain't a lot of people. Yet they accounted for 18% of 2024 electoral spending. Tiny number of people spending huge amounts of money to buy elections. Just 150 billionaire families spent nearly $2 billion to buy our recent elections.

Elon Musk alone spent at least $277 million to back Donald Trump. And we saw the results of that investment. The major defense contractors spent over $38 million this election cycle. And you know what? They're going to have a $1 trillion military budget with enormous amounts of waste and fraud in it. And AIPAC, a billionaire-funded super PAC, spent over $100 million to defeat members of Congress who are critical of the extremist, right-wing Netanyahu government in Israel and the horrific war they are waging in Gaza.

My friends, you don't have to be a PhD in political science to understand that this is not democracy. This is not one person, one vote. This is not all of us coming together to decide our future. This is oligarchy.

In my view, this issue of oligarchy is the most important issue facing our country and world because it touches on everything else. It touches on climate change. It touches on health care. It touches on whether or not working people are going to have a decent standard of living. It touches on whether or not we can eliminate poverty.

And what we are going to be doing now is over the coming months, we are going to be doing a number of programs exploring how global oligarchy functions, the power that the very, very rich have over our economy and political life. We're going to be talking about the tax havens they use and how they avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

And we will be talking about the kind of role that the oligarchs will play in the coming Trump administration. We're going to bring forth some of the smartest people in this country and around the world who know about this issue. So, it's important stuff, and I hope you will follow along.

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