The War on the "Investor Class"

By Hadleyblogger Bobby

In the runup to the election, I wrote Charleston radio talk show host Charlie Thompson an interesting perspective, and what I believe is the next big battle in the New Left Congress -- The War on the Investor Class.

From a standpoint of time, today's stock market is like the Biblical parable of talents. Help support good companies, and you will see your money grow. Lazy people with money will not work or see that talent grow.

On the Web site OPENSECRETS.ORG, I found a report on investments, and my belief is when liberals talk about "two Americas" (as John Edwards says) orbring up their "class warfare" redistribution tactics, their fight isn'tabout Upper vs Middle vs Lower Class, but instead Investor Class vs the Non-Investors.

One example of a tax the New Left wants to impose is to tax capital gains not as a lower rate (15% -- Bush wants it even lower!) but instead tax them as income, which in their dream world, is 40%. (There are plans established by liberals to raise the income tax rate to 40% for certain people.) Liberals imposed a "sunset" on Bush tax cuts so that the Bush Tax Cuts will be killed immediately so their tax hikes will go back into power.

The Left hates investors because investors would rather put a dollar after leisure (golf, theatre, opera, the SC Philharmonic, hockey games -- yes, AA-level hockey is very popular in South Carolina, with two current ECHL teams (the Charleston team draws 10,000 for the Interstate 26 War between teams in Charleston (Washington affiliate) and Columbia (Toronto affiliate)game) and a third (Conway) starting in 2007-08, and the works; the Wild's AA affiliate is in Beaumont, TX.) into the market instead of putting the same dollar into Powerball. The state LOOTtery collects over one billion dollars a year in revenue -- if it was a publicly traded company, it would make more in revenue than all but the state's top five publicly traded companies, two of which (SON and SCG) I hold shares. Liberals believe money in their pocket is better than money in my pocket. A look at the Opensecrets.org report on Congressional investors will show where conservatives are more likely to go into the market than liberals based on the top fifty companies (and ties).

The Opensecrets.org report on Congressional Investors (Firm - Total Investors - Dems - Reps)

1. General Electric - 103 - 37 - 66
2. Pfizer - 80 - 32 - 47
3. Cisco Systems - 75 - 30 - 45
4. Microsoft Corp - 73 - 24 - 49
5. Intel - 67 - 26 - 41
6. Exxon Mobil* - 64 - 18 - 46
7. Johnson & Johnson - 54 - 22 - 32
8. Home Depot - 53 - 21 - 32
8. Procter & Gamble - 53 - 21 - 32
10. JPMorgan Chase - 50 - 17 - 33
11. IBM - 49 - 17 - 32
12. Citigroup - 46 - 15 - 31
13. Wal-Mart - 43 - 12 - 31
14. Verizon - 42 - 10 - 32
14. Coca-Cola Company* - 42 - 11 - 31
16. AT&T Inc (1) - 41 - 12 - 29
16. Merck - 41 - 14 - 27
18. Amgen Inc - 40 - 10 - 30
19. PepsiCo - 39 - 14 - 25
20. Hewlett-Packard - 38 - 15 - 23
20. Dell - 38 - 14 - 24
22. Time Warner - 37 - 17 - 20
23. Lucent Technologies (2) - 34 - 12 - 22
24. Chevron - 32 - 10 - 22
24. Walt Disney Co - 32 - 11 - 21
26. Wells Fargo - 31 - 12 - 19
26. Nokia* - 31 - 13 - 18
26. Medtronic - 31 - 10 - 21
26. Motorola - 31 - 9 - 22
26. Comcast - 31 - 10 - 21
26. British Petroleum - 31 - 8 - 23
26. Bristol-Myers Squibb - 31 - 11 - 20
33. Wachovia** - 30 - 9 - 21
34. Texas Instruments - 27 - 14 - 13
34. American International Group - 27 - 12 - 15
36. Fannie Mae - 26 - 9 - 17
36. Oracle - 26 - 8 - 18
38. Altria Group (3) - 25 - 5 - 20
39. American Express - 24 - 6 - 18
39. EMC - 24 - 9 - 15
41. Bank of America - 23 - 7 - 16
41. Washington Mutual - 23 - 11 - 12
43. Vodafone (4) - 22 - 12 - 10
43. Sun Microsystems - 22 - 12 - 10
43. Tyco International - 22 - 6 - 15 - 1 Independent
43. ConocoPhillips - 22 - 7 - 15
47. Berkshire Hathaway - 21 - 7 - 14
47. Ford Motor Co - 21 - 7 - 14
47. Walgreens - 21 - 11 - 10
47. MedCo Health Solutions - 21 - 10 - 11

* Bobby holds shares in these companies.

** Bobby has his brokerage account in Wachovia Securities. Bobby also has an IRA with Sharebuilder, a joint venture of various financial firms, and in some firms has a DRIP account, administered by the Bank of New York, Citigroup, or Computershare.

(1) The former SBC Communications. Includes investments in the former American Telephone & Telegraph, which was purchased by SBC. SBC changed its name to AT&T after the takeover.

(2) To be acquired by France's Alcatel.

(3) The former Philip Morris. MO is also a minority interest holder in South African Breweries (Miller beer) and Kraft Foods.

(4) Vodafone is the world's largest wireless telephone company, based in the United Kingdom. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon andVodafone, and is their only way to penetrate the US market.

This report should show where the Right puts their money where their mouth is - in the investment bank, and to prove they are the Party of the Investor Class.

I noticed how the Democrats are huge into Vodafone, the big European phonegiant. Why aren't we seeing many liberals investing into American phonegiants? I also saw how the Left dislikes (gasp!) investment brokerages.

One attack on the investor class I am hearing from the liberals: They are planning to remove tax breaks currently in place to encourage drilling in the United States, as part of an attempt to force us to buy our oil from their cronies in Venezuela (Hugo Chávez) or in Iran.

The Investor Class was built by changes which created discount brokerages, the Dividend Reinvestment Programs (DRIP), the influence of CNN's Moneyline (from 1980-2001, CNN's financial news show) and CNBC (including "MadMoney," the show designed for the 18-34 crowd), and the Bull Market. The Left's attack on the Investor Class is a want to return to the era where government money was better than the free market, and that's why they do not want Social Security invested in the market, when clearly the market has created a Bull Run that has given us President Bush, an investor himself.