#  Top Ten! Greediest Americans this Holiday Season

     Details    Sam Pizzigati   ![logo](https://mail.citywatchla.com//templates/ja_teline_v/images/logo.png)         December 18 2014       [ARCHIVE](https://mail.citywatchla.com/archive)   - [  Previous Article **If It’s True on Cuba, It's True on Iran** ](https://mail.citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8081:if-it-s-true-on-cuba-it-s-true-on-iran&catid=16)
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> ![](https://mail.citywatchla.com/images/stories/Dec-2014/102s.png)OTHERWORDS-Peace on Earth, good will toward men. We honor these noble values every holiday season — and some people actually work to advance them all year long.
>
> Other folks, by contrast, mock these values. They spend their days chasing after ever grander stashes of personal treasure.

 These greedy souls love the shadows. So a few years back, the [inequality weekly](http://www.toomuchonline.org/) I edit for the Institute for Policy Studies began publishing an annual list of America’s top ten greediest. I’ve just introduced this year’s [list](http://toomuchonline.org/americas-ten-greediest-the-2014-edition/), bringing tales of plutocrats young and old.

The oldest character on it: the 79-year-old Wall Street mover and shaker Ken Langone.

Langone began [making headlines](http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-ken-langone-20140103-story.html#page=1) right at the start of 2014 with his advice for Pope Francis. The pontiff, he [told](http://org2.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?key=-1&url_num=23&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2Fid%2F101302230) New York’s archbishop, should cool it on the inequality front. Papal [broadsides](http://www.cnbc.com/id/101302230) against “the powerful feeding upon the powerless,” Langone complained, could leave America’s wealthy “incapable of feeling compassion for the poor.”

Langone himself has always been a generous sort — at least for his friends. As a New York Stock Exchange director, he [greased the skids](http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB108724160215936579) for a $190-million exit package for his buddy, NYSE president Richard Grasso, in 2003.

Langone has been a bit less generous to the powerless. As a director at Yum! Brands, the home of Taco Bell and KFC, he [cheered](http://www.alternet.org/belief/rich-catholics-threaten-pope-francis-because-he-frightens-them?akid=11365.156228.CMtZW-&rd=1&src=newsletter943064&t=3&paging=off%A4t_page=1#bookmark) on company efforts to oppose hikes in the minimum wage. As he [likes](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/what-romneys-donors-heard-at-this-weekends-retreat/) to tell regulators: “Leave us alone and let us hire people.”

Home Depot, the retail giant Langone’s financing helped propel to big-box dominance, shows what happens when you leave corporations alone. Big-box giants, [notes](http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/smart-growth-working-families/harms-big-box-retail) the research group Good Jobs First, don’t create jobs. They “grow mostly at the expense of existing competitors,” many of them local businesses.

Big-box giants, on the other hand, *do* create massive concentrations of personal wealth. *Forbes* now [estimates](http://www.forbes.com/profile/kenneth-langone/) Langone’s net worth at $2.6 billion.

Among the youngest of America’s 2014 top ten greediest: the 38-year-old [Travis Kalanick](http://toomuchonline.org/americas-ten-greediest-the-2014-edition/), the CEO and cofounder of Uber, a taxi-like service that lets travelers hail cars through a mobile phone app.

Last January, Uber [was running](http://www.daytondailynews.com/ap/ap/top-news/surge-pricing-ubers-40b-valuation-worth-it/njMpw/) cars in just 60 cities. Now it’s spread to 250 cities — in 50 countries.

That growth has propelled Uber’s worth to [$40 billion](http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/01/technology/uber-forty-billion-valuation/index.html) — more than long-established transportation heavyweights like Hertz and United Continental.

Not bad for a company, the AP [notes](http://www.daytondailynews.com/ap/ap/top-news/surge-pricing-ubers-40b-valuation-worth-it/njMpw/), “that didn’t exist five years ago.” And Kalanick himself, *Forbes* [estimates](http://www.forbes.com/profile/travis-kalanick/), is ending the year worth a cool $3 billion.

How has Uber soared so quickly? The company is pumping up profits, critics charge, by taking short cuts like [not running](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/uber-pressures-regulators-by-mobilizing-riders-and-hiring-vast-lobbying-network/2014/12/13/3f4395c6-7f2a-11e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html) adequate background checks on drivers. Officials in Los Angeles and San Francisco [have just filed suit](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/2-california-counties-sue-uber-citing-misleading-safety-practices/?emc=edit_th_20141210&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=2027049) against Uber on driver safety checks, and governments from Spain to India [have also taken](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/technology/ubers-system-for-screening-drivers-comes-under-scrutiny.html) legal action against the company.

Other critics [include customers](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2824832/ubers-surge-pricing-earns-it-an-f-on-better-business-bureau-test.html) like Leah Kappen of Indianapolis. She took an Uber ride downtown to the December 6 Big Ten football championship game. That ride cost her $30. The 18-minute trip home after the game [cost her](http://wlfi.com/2014/12/10/indianapolis-woman-upset-about-uber-fare/) $450. This past Halloween, an 18-mile ride home [ran](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/uber-customer-outraged-billed-539-18-mile-ride-article-1.1997960) New Yorker Elliott Asbury $539.

Uber’s “surge pricing” — a policy that ties rates to the supposed market demands of the moment — [generated](http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/12/11/uber-surge-prices-highest-ever-during-big-bayareastorm-fares-3-8x-normal-rate/) these outsized fees. But anyone upset by $500 cab fare, says Kalanick, [needs to start](http://www.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304887104579306622013546350-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwNzEwNDcyWj) “getting used to dynamic pricing in transportation.”

Uber drivers [are complaining](http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/mcdonalds-and-uber-too-much-control-ov-60963/), too. One of Uber’s competitors, Lyft, gives all the extra profit from “surge pricing” to its drivers. Uber takes a 20 percent cut. Why not, the *Wall Street Journal* [asked](http://www.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304887104579306622013546350-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwNzEwNDcyWj) Kalanick, follow suit?

“We are a business,” he replied.

So much for good will.

***(Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, the Institute for Policy Study's online weekly newsletter on excess and inequality. This column was provided CityWatch by OtherWords.org.)***

***-cw***

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***CityWatch***

***Vol 12 Issue 102***

***Pub: Dec 19, 2014***

  - [  Previous Article **If It’s True on Cuba, It's True on Iran** ](https://mail.citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8081:if-it-s-true-on-cuba-it-s-true-on-iran&catid=16)
- [  Next Article **The Violent, Repressive Future that the Cancellation of ‘The Interview’ Promises is Already Here** ](https://mail.citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8083:the-violent-repressive-future-that-the-cancellation-of-the-interview-promises-is-already-here&catid=16)
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