{"id":12851396,"date":"2025-12-15T15:48:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T20:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/?p=12851396"},"modified":"2025-12-16T16:27:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T21:27:39","slug":"the-billionaires-have-gone-full-louis-xv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/2025\/12\/15\/the-billionaires-have-gone-full-louis-xv\/","title":{"rendered":"The Billionaires Have Gone Full Louis XV"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"css-16uri30 euiyums1\">\n<div class=\"css-1vkm6nb ehdk2mb0\">\n<h2 id=\"link-5c2baeb0\" class=\"css-1khwk7e e1h9rw200\" data-testid=\"headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/12\/14\/opinion\/billionaires-politics-money.html?unlocked_article_code=1.808.0U3n.qXaHQN10AEvD&amp;smid=url-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Billionaires Have Gone Full Louis XV<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-p6m5rf\">\n<div class=\"byline-container css-t91cuf epjyd6m2\">\n<div class=\"css-ehpuw4 epjyd6m1\">\n<p class=\"css-1tx0lhj e1jsehar1\"><span class=\"byline-prefix\">By\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/12\/14\/opinion\/billionaires-politics-money.html?unlocked_article_code=1.808.0U3n.qXaHQN10AEvD&amp;smid=url-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"css-1baulvz last-byline\">Michael Hirschorn, NY Times\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"css-4q3lf8 epjyd6m0\">\n<div id=\"enhanced-byline\" class=\"css-8atqhb\">\n<p class=\"css-1npznau e1wtpvyy0\"><em>Mr. Hirschorn, the chief executive of Ish Entertainment, writes about the intersection of culture and politics.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<section class=\"meteredContent css-6wov7h\">\n<div class=\"css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn\" data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Billionaires had a great thing going. The ruling in the 2010 Citizens United case, among others, invited the super rich to exert all the influence on policy and politics that their money could buy \u2014 and then enjoy all the wealth that influence secured for them in return. Thanks to ever-more-obliging tax policies, the billionaire class grew absurdly rich over the years that followed. In the last five years alone, the wealthiest 20 Americans increased their net worth from $1.3 trillion to $3 trillion,\u00a0<a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/chasewithorn\/2025\/09\/09\/the-2025-forbes-400-list-of-wealthiest-americans-facts-and-figures\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forbes reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">And they did it in many cases without the rest of us even having a clue. It took the investigative reporter Jane Mayer five years of relentless digging to figure out how the Koch brothers gained a chokehold on the Republican Party. The title of her 2016 book, \u201cDark Money,\u201d became synonymous with a particularly effective form of influence that was all but untraceable. The billionaires could have kept on like that forever. All they had to do was keep their mouths closed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/12\/14\/opinion\/billionaires-politics-money.html?unlocked_article_code=1.808.0U3n.qXaHQN10AEvD&amp;smid=url-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">More here &gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Billionaires Have Gone Full Louis XV By\u00a0Michael Hirschorn, NY Times\u00a0 Mr. Hirschorn, the chief executive of Ish Entertainment, writes about the intersection of culture and politics. Billionaires had a great thing going. The ruling in the 2010 Citizens United case, among others, invited the super rich to exert all the influence on policy and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":12851398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26922,21,1,12,25391],"tags":[371],"class_list":{"0":"post-12851396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-market-news","8":"category-available","9":"category-uncategorized","10":"category-phils-favorites","11":"category-members-corner","12":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12851396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12851396"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12851396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12851442,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12851396\/revisions\/12851442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12851398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12851396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12851396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12851396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}