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1%ers

Wednesday 21st of January 2026

1%ers The latest real estate trend among internet billionaires and hedge fund tycoons is, apparently, buying bunkers. These individuals, who have made fortunes disrupting the present, predicting the future and then making the future happen, are preparing for the end of civilization. … This new group of tech-savvy survivalists prefers the name “preppers”. It implies something preppier than the redneck gun-nuts in battered pick-ups with whom they might otherwise be confused. Financial Times, April 9, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
1%ers Now we're seeing cellars increasingly being located in proximity to the games room or the kitchen, so they're accessible and visible. They're something that people can share with their friends, much like a gun room or an art collection. A cabinet maker quoted in Financial Times, November 21/22, 2015, on the trend among wealthy homeowners to move wine bottles, tasting tables, decanting areas and spittoons from downstairs to upstairs © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers The romance of running away never grows old. So you make a plan. You dream of a hideaway high over the ocean, where you can linger over lunch on the terrace then wander in a fragrant garden. At night you slip quietly into the pool to float under a blanket of stars. Then wrap yourselves in each other's arms in front of the fireplace. You lean close and whisper that running away was a very good idea. And staying another night would be even better. Advertisement for Belmond El Encanto hotel, Santa Barbara T: The New York Times Style Magazine, November 15, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers To be in the top 1 percent of incomes nationally, families need to take in a minimum of $389,436. The average income of America's 1-percenters is $1,153,293 … Yet when incomes are measured state by state, the study shows wildly diverging fortunes for 1-percenters. … Teton County, Wyo., is the richest in America when it comes to 1 percent incomes, with 1-percenters earning $2.2 million. New York County, or Manhattan, ranks second, with a $1.44 million threshold … By contrast, you need only $97,000 to be a 1-percenter in Holmes County, Miss., or Lamar County, Ala. New York Times, September 25, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
1%ers The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are the nation's most egregious tax evaders, failing to pay as much as $163 billion in owed taxes per year, according to a Treasury Department report released on Wednesday. New York Times, September 8, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
1%ers What is especially striking about the current period in the United States is that more and more people in the top 1 percent are rich both  in terms of the ownership of capital and through their earnings from high-salaried jobs. Consider it another version of American exceptionalism. Nevertheless, the overall implication remains the same: individuals generally become rich not through a lifetime of hard work — as suggested by the American dream — but through how much capital they inherit. Jennifer Welsh, The Return of History  [2016] © 2021 Kwiple.com
1%ers What sort of people go on a trip like this? It is a sign of how stratified things have become that even within the top 1 percent there are differences between the single-digit millionaires and the double- or triple-digit millionaires. The people on this trip were by and large on the lower end of the upper class. One had a family carpet business. Another was an I.T. executive at an insurance company. David Brooks, on a $120,000-per-person, 24-day, round-the-world sightseeing tour T: The New York Times Style Magazine, November 15, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers What you soon come to understand is how different everything feels from the water. Luca from the hotel says with all his heart, “There are places that once you see them, they change you.” So you ask, “Where would you take someone special?” He studies you for a moment before giving away his secret. Then he sketches a simple map and makes you promise to tell no one. Later you swim at his secret beach, then rest on the deck of the gozzo while the sun warms you. You think, “I will keep this with me forever.” Advertisement for Belmond Hotel Splendido, Portofino, Italy How to Spend It, November 7, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say And the thing I'm eyeing next is a beautiful pair of Beretta 486 shotguns designed by Marc Newson. They are a work of art – and so elegant. I love everything from their shape and the engraving on the metal to the character of the wood. I took up shooting when I arrived in England four years ago from Buenos Aires – I probably won't use these very much, though; they look like something that you'd want to keep for generations. £44,400 for a pair; beretta.com. Juan Santa Cruz, quoted in how to spend it, March 3, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
1%ers say The best gift I've received recently was a limited edition 12-cylinder Aston-Martin Vanquish and a vintage 1960s Corvette, for my birthday. I have some beautiful sports cars that I like to look at but rarely have time to drive – maybe one day. Fawaz Gruoisi, jeweler, How To Spend It, June 10, 2016 © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say The best souvenir I've brought home is a pair of spectacular knee-length, embroidered black silk folkloric boots called tsholhams  that I bought at a market in Bhutan. I also treasure the brightly coloured mandala given to me by the King and Queen of Bhutan after a magnificent dinner at their palace. It hangs in my office and reminds me of that special trip and their friendship. Diane von Furstenberg, fashion designer and former princess, How to Spend It, June 16, 2014 © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say Happy days are here again The skies above are clear again So let's sing a song of cheer again Happy days are here again “Happy Days Are Here Again,” music by Milton Ager, lyrics by Jack Yellin © 2016 Kwiple.com
1%ers say I feel like, no matter what you have, somebody has about a hundred times that. A New York City woman with an apartment overlooking the Hudson, a second home in the Hamptons, a household income of at least two million dollars a year and who considers herself to be middle class, quoted by Rachel Sherman in her book, Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence  © 2018 Kwiple.com
1%ers say I had this nightmare that somehow in Davos, all of us who went there got it [COVID-19]. And then we all left and spread it. The only good news from that is that it might just have killed the elite. Jaime Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorganChase, on postponing the 2021 Davos meeting of the world's leaders © 2020 Kwiple.com
1%ers say I only acquire hotels I fall in love with, and they must have history and a soul for this to happen. Jocelyne Sibuet, founder-owner of Maisons & Hotels Sibuet © 2017 Kwiple.com
1%ers say I wasn't sure what to expect tonight, but bare minimum, it's a very eclectic mix of amazing people. And dude, I gave my business card to Cheryl Tiegs! John, CEO of an online startup, about a cocktail party promoting a multi-day, $45,000+ singles mixer held on Richard Branson's private island, New York Times, October 13, 2013 © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say Indeed, you may take it that what characterized our relationship was an atmosphere of taking everything for granted. The given proposition was that we were all “good people.” John Dowell, narrator of Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, on he and wife Florence's relationship with Edward Ashburnham and his wife, Leonora © 2016 Kwiple.com
1%ers say Island-hopping for those without their own chartered yacht was, until recently a laborious exercise often involving flying back to Manila each and every time, but the seaplanes have no need of landing strips or airports, which means they can go wherever your fancy takes them. Lucia van der Post, How To Spend It, April 4, 2015, on how easy it has become to get to private island resorts in the Philippines for spells of being coddled and pampered © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say It seems “functional” is the new “F” word: it means food tailored to meet specific nutritional requirements. Vivienne Becker, on a linguistic tic of hardcore white-jacketed Provençal nutritional therapists © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad. Psalms 126:3 © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say Money equals merit © 2016 Kwiple.com
1%ers say My personal style signifiers are wearing colour and a high heel [sic] by Gianvito Rossi. I like to experiment with fashion and to look both polished and feminine but not overdone or intimidating. My go-to pieces are usually by Proenza Schouler, Oscar de la Renta, Givenchy, Céline, Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana, but I'll try anythong once and love discovering new designers. Every new season brings a thrill. Lauren Santo Domingo, fashionista also known as LSD, How to Spend It, April 27, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say Not long after, a text arrived from Mario, my driver in Milan for the past twenty years, saying he was waiting downstairs and ready to start our tour. Tyler Brûlé, Financial Times, April 25-26, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say The only way I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. Jeff Bezos, when asked what he intended to do with his personal fortune of $118 billion © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say People pay fortunes for paintings and things, so why not for this? Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One racing magnate, on The Official Formula 1 Opus, an 18×18×8-inch, 77-pound, 850-page coffee table book with 1,200 photos, auctioned off with a reserve price of one million dollars © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say People say  bespoke shoes are an extravagance, but I see them as a bare necessity. Jeremy Hackett,  fashion designer and entrepreneur quoted in how to spend it, March 10, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
1%ers say Rise early, work hard, strike oil. J. Paul Getty's formula for success © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say “Summer” is a verb © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say This evening is our first big event on the island of Sumba, Indonesia: a bonfire night on the beach and a cultural exchange with the local warriors – a game of pasola, on horseback, that involves hurling spears at bamboo trunks in thanksgiving to the spirits. It's one of life's true great moments, the perfect marriage of Sumbanese and British Polo Day heritage. Edward Olver, co-founder of British Polo Day, a series of international polo tournaments How to Spend It, November 18, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say What do the simple folk do To help them escape when they're blue? “What Do The Simple Folk Do?” Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe  © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course. Robert Durst, scion of a New York real estate dynasty, seemingly admitting to three murders he had long been suspected of, while being videotaped for a television documentary called “The Jinx” © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say When will you get back? response to “We should get together” © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say Who's your household manager? © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say Who's your wealth manager? © 2015 Kwiple.com
1%ers say You don't get to vote unless you pay a dollar in taxes. … A million in taxes, you get a million votes. Tom Perkins, billionaire venture capitalist © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers $20.6bn Increase in the net worth of Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, since the start of 2018 FT Wealth, March 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Perentage of Americans worth $25,000,000 or more who make at least $10,000 in charitable contributions each year: 65 Who spend at least that much on home improvement: 69 Harper's Index, February 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of income and wealth taxes in Norwary, Sweden and Denmark that are evaded each year: 3 That are evaded among the nations' top 0.01 percent of earners: 30  Harper's Index, October 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers The richest 1% of Americans can now expect to live up to 15 years longer than the poorest 1%. The Guardian, April 11, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Charity Millionaires expect billionaires to plug charity gaps — — — — — — — — — — — Survey finds the wealthy believe giving is the responsibility of the even richer headline, Financial Times, November 15, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say Why shouldn't the president surround himself with successful people? Wealthy folks have no need to steal or engage in corruption. … And most of these folks aren't political. They won't be afraid to reach across the aisle for bipartisan solutions. And that includes Mr. Trump himself. Larry Kudlow © 2018 Kwiple.com
Death The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced. Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth” © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democrats Even the party’s most progressive field for a generation or two does not contemplate taxes that are European in breadth and depth. Pressed on this point, Democrats invoke the sage that was Willie Sutton. The criminal of yore targeted banks because, he said, with unanswerable logic, “That’s where the money is.” In a country with America’s titanic inequalities, the top 1 per cent is where the money is. It is the obvious percentile to press for revenue. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, February 26, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democrats In targeting just the richest [1% for tax increases], Democrats rather imply that a welfare state is only worthwhile insofar as someone else pays for it. It is not an inherent good. It is not a nation's binding agent. In this sense, the Sanders and especially the Warren platform is a tacit concession to the Republican view of the world, with tax as a burden, not what the jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes defined as “what we pay for civilised society.” The Democratic appeal is less to Nordic universalism and solidarity than to the noblesse oblige of a remote overclass who will not miss the money. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, Feb. 26, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democrats to 1%ers How do I love thee? Let me count the way$ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnet 43” © 2015 Kwiple.com
Education According to one Harvard study, more students attended America's elite universities from the top 1 per cent of income backgrounds than from the bottom 60 per cent. Edward Luce, The Retreat of Western Liberalism  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Income growth Between 1979 and 2007, income growth in the United States — all of it! — went to the richest 10 percent of earners; the  remaining 90 percent saw their income fall. Examining the distribition of gains, the Congressional Budget Office found that the  income of the top 1 percent rose by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, after federal taxes and government transfer payments such as Social Security. Over the same period, the incomes of the broad middle class — the 60 percent of the population in the middle of the income scale — grew by only 40 percent. And the bottom quintile fared the worst, rising by only 18 percent. Joshua Green, in Rebels © 2024 Kwiple.com
Income inequality Between 1997 and 2007, for example, income after taxes and benefits grew by 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent of U.S. households, by 65 percent for those between the 80th and 99th percentiles, and by 275 percent for the top one percent. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2020 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Income inequality Connecticut presents one of the starkest examples of the growth of US income inequality. In their guarded homes, Greenwich's rich have been doing very nicely: from 2009 to 2013, the income of the state's top 1% grew 17.2%. The incomes of everyone else dropped by 1.6%. The Guardian, March 27, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Income inequality In 2009 the richest twenty-five hedge-fund investors earned more that $25 billion, rougly six times as much as all the chief executives of companies in the S&P 500 stock index combined. Ann Pettifor, The Case for the Green New Deal  © 2019 Kwiple.com
Income inequality Since 1978. the poorest 50 percent of Americans have seen their real incomes shrink, by 1 percent. By contrast, America's most affluent 1 percent, over that same span, have seen their real incomes nearly triple. Sam Pizzigati, The Case For a Maximum Wage  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Liars say This is going to cost me a fortune, this thing, believe me, believe me. This is not good for me. I have some very wealthy friends. Not so happy with me, but that's OK. You know, I keep hearing [New York Democratic Senator Chuck] Schumer, “This is for the wealthy.“ Well, if it is, my friends don't know about it. Donald Trump, on the 2017 Republican tax bill © 2017 Kwiple.com
Libertarians to 1%ers How do I love thee? Let me count the way$ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnet 43” © 2015 Kwiple.com
Money in politics Among Americans overall, roughly 18 percent make political donations,  usually in amounts between $25 and $100. Forty percent of all political donations come from the top 1 percent of the 1 percent. Jaime Lowe, New York Times Magazine, April 7, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Reich wingers say I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its “one percent,” namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the “rich.” Tom Perkins, billionaire venture capitalist, “Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?,” Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2014 © 2015 Kwiple.com
Republican say Letting the rich do whatever they want to is change we believe in  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Preaching economic nationalism with no economic plan other than to make big corporations and the rich even richer relative to the rest is change we believe in  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Republicans say The rich need bigger tax cuts © 2015 Kwiple.com
Republicans to 1%ers How do I love thee? Let me count the way$ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnet 43” © 2015 Kwiple.com
Selfie Part of the beauty of me is that I'm very rich. Donald Trump © 2016 Kwiple.com
Selfie I'm a grumpy old guy. People don't need to know what I buy in the grocery store or what the name of my dog is – I don't own a dog, by the way – but they do need to know why billionaires are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Bernie Sanders © 2015 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say Raising taxes on the rich reduces economic growth  © 2015 Kwiple.com
Socio-economic mobility You can have a shot at joining the one percent, money tells us, only if you are first committed to making the one percent stronger, to defending their piles in some new and imaginative way, to rationalizing and burnishing their glory, to exempting them from regulation or taxation and bowing down as they pass. Thomas Frank, Rendevous with Oblivion © 2018 Kwiple.com
Sports There's a big difference between not wanting your kids to play football and not wanting to watch football. They're obviously still watching. In fact, more of them [Americans] are. For the wealthy—that is to say, the decision-makers—in this country, it turns the NFL into something like the military. They'd rather their kids not take part, but they'd happily support your kids' doing so. Will Leitch, New York, September 5-18, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Democrats work to raise the bottom and cap the top Republicans work to push most middlers to the bottom and raise the remnant to the top  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Supreme Court to 1%ers How do I love thee? Let me count the ways Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnet 43” © 2015 Kwiple.com
Surely you jest For 20 minutes, the only spirits present appeared to be the Jack Daniel's. citation New York Times, June 25, 2017, commenting on a séance hosted by Larry and Toby Milstein, siblings and billion-heirs, at their apartment once owned by Leonard Bernstein, where they and friends invoked spirits of deceased musical tenants by singing songs they wrote and downing Champagne splits and Jack Daniel's © 2017 Kwiple.com
z Surely you jest While art collections have long graced great rooms and hallways, some luxury homeowners display cherished pieces in bathrooms. Art lovers say they like the jewel-box effect when vibrant art is featured in small spaces. Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2016, on the best place for a $110,000 Damien Hirst depiction of a diamond-encrusted skull, according to its owners © 2016 Kwiple.com
Taxes The Senate's three richest members – Democrats Mark Warner (VA), Richard Blumenthal (CT) and Diane Feinstein (CA) – voted against the 2017 tax bill. The Senate's three richest Republicans – Jim Risch (ID), Bob Corker (TN) and John Hoeven (ND) – voted for it. The House's three richest Democrats – John Delaney (MD), Jared Polis (CO) and Scott Peters (CA) – voted against the 2017 tax bill. 2 of the 3 richest House Republicans – Greg Gianforte (MT, richest)  and Michael McCaul (TX, 3rd richest) – voted for it. © 2017 Kwiple.com
Tea Partiers to 1%ers How do I love thee? Let me count the way$ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnet 43” © 2015 Kwiple.com
Wealth inequality The richest 1 per cent of Americans now account for more than half the value of equities owned by US households, according to Goldman Sachs. Since 1990, the wealthiest have bought a net $1.2tn in company stakes, while the rest of the population has sold more than $1tn. … As of September 2019, the bottom 90 per cent owned $4.6tn of equities, or 12 per cent of the total, the analysts noted. Financial Times, February 10, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
 
Wealth inequality Three decasdes ago … the top percentage point of Americans by wealth only controlled 46 per cent of all US equities held by households. By the end of September 2019, that pro- portion had hit a record 56 per cent, amounting to $21.4tn, according to [Goldman Sach's] calculations. That includes both public stock and ownership stakes in private companies. Financial Times, February 10, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com