There are lots of broke geniuses in the world, and lots of rich dolts. Brains and money correlate poorly, if at all.

I'm sad and embarrassed to say he is a University of Wisconsin alum. Maybe they'll take his degree away from him?

My mother used to have a saying: "If you would know what God REALLY thinks of money, look at those to whom He gives a great deal of it."

I have had dealings with this man. He is great fun in a group because he is so dumb and so unaffected by it. But he is also corrupt and cruel. And old. I console myself with the knowledge that he won't be around much longer.

Sociopathy is actually a more valuable character trait for amassing money than intelligence.

I wonder if Mr. Friess can explain in detail the differences between Sharia, which he opposes, and the Christian fundamentalist law that he would like to inflict on America. What would be different in practical terms?

Are you kidding me? Did you really say that?

There is one thing that would cure our country's problems: get money out of politics. We are being forced to live the nightmare that is the influence that asswholes like this clown produces in legislatures all across the country.

There is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with 'a money touch,' but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers:" - Theodore Roosevelt

I don't know if I would go as far to call is "sociopathy," but those who become extremely wealthy are much more likely to do so as a result of a willingness to take advantage of others than intellect. There are exceptions, but the one most common trait among the majority of the very wealthy is a willingness to do whatever it takes to make money even if it is at the expense of someone else or a large group of people. that may be through "borrowing" ideas, like Bill Gates did, or willingness to pollute with no remorse, as most energy companies do. At least Gates is making up for the ruthlessness of his youth by focusing on helping the poorest in the world.

As I’ve mentioned, I lived for a while in Wilmington, Delaware, which is also where Foster Friess ran his mutual fund business, including the Brandywine Fund. I was a close friend of his fund manager, and from what I learned then, Friess doesn’t have a lot upstairs, if you know what I mean.

So this brings up a question, which is why are these billionaires so involved on the side of the Tea Party? And that leads to another question: How are they getting so many people to “go along” and basically vote against their own interest?

I watched a couple of documentaries lately, one on Sarah Palin (who’s more vile than you think) and the other one called The Billionaires Tea Party. From that and my own experience, I believe that these ultra-rich, ultra-conservative folks like Friess and the Kochs have funded a fake grassroots movement, made to look like people are just fed up with too much government and paying taxes, that is systematically and effectively producing a state of hysterical paranoia.

The Tea Party movement essentially started with a rant by a guy named Rick Santelli in 2009 and went on to include hired shills, pretending to be working for nothing but patriotic duty. These shills went around the country on bus tours, holding rallies and scaring the dickens out of anyone who’d listen—lots of the poorly educated and addled.

At these rallies, they told of Death Panels coming with Obamacare, progressive programs bankrupting America, a police state that was only waiting for all guns to be registered and accounted for so they could be collected, climate change being a cruel hoax. They say Obama is a Kenyan Muslim, Democrats are interfering with their ability to worship their God. People like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Matt Drudge are throwing gasoline on the fire. They’ve scared these people to death, and now there’s no getting through to them with reason. They think we’re the ones who are lying.

I say all this because I don’t know what you can do about it. There’s been an impenetrable bubble built around that segment of society, and I’m actually concerned about what might result. The Tea Partiers are like frightened animals who truly believe they’re fighting for their lives.

Craig in #1.10, you're right. There was a story recently on Morning Edition (NPR) where a researcher was talking about the traits that define a psychopath. These include charm, ruthlessness, lack of empathy and so forth. I'd have to go back to the story for more details. But the essence was that people are on a continuum of this propensity, some with more and some with less, and that entrepreneurs exhibit high levels. Certainly food for thought as you go about your day

And I should point out about the psychopath traits, the researcher was saying that we hear the word and think of it as pejorative. But it has positive aspects, too, because those same traits have been behind some of the great leaps forward in America. I'm not saying that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison are bad people. It's just interesting that what we perceive as being all negative has brought about so much good in our world.

Actually, Larry Ellison is a Bad Person. If yolu doubt it you should meet his vile offspring.

I've heard that, too, TC. I didn't want anyone to think I was calling these titans psychopaths, because I have no way of knowing that.

But if you think about the callousness of Romney, Ryan, McConnell, McCain, Brownback, McDonnell and so many other prominent Republicans, you could almost make the case that they're members of the GOP tribe because they're not nice enough to be Democrats. Remember the Blue Dots in a Sea of Red (or whatever it was titled) recently on MaddowBlog? I was struck, and I mean really struck, by how gentile and likeable those people were who shared their stories. Makes you wonder.

I was a close friend of his fund manager, and from what I learned then, Friess doesn’t have a lot upstairs, if you know what I mean.

It's possible it wasn't always that way. I've met his kind myself, and in each case they were men (always men) who had been surrounded for decades by boot-licking sycophants. I imagine that at some point after being cut off from the critical thinking of other people by a thick layer of toadies that a person simply loses the capacity for critical thought themselves. After all, if they are always right, why put any effort into thinking?

Whenever a great victory was won by the ancient Roman army, the victorious general was feted almost as a god. But, at the same time, a slave accompanied the general to repeatedly remind him that he was mortal. The ancient Romans had a healthy (if wildly inconsistent) suspicion of power and wealth. You would think that without the handicap of lead plumbing that we could do better, but apparently we can't. We treat the wealthy and powerful as gods, and we allow them to come to believe that they are gods.

It just gives more credence to the old aphorism that the rich aren't smarter than the rest of us, but merely luckier, or more fortunate if I were inclined to make a pun. =^>

No but I bet Harlem is...

Beginning to understand the Repub's disdain for the "elite" when taking the "projection factor" into play - their own "elite" are proving themselves to be pretty ignorant, so they assume Dem "elites" are the same. Got news for them...!

Investment management, short for stealing from others with a smile instead of a gun.

The new-fashioned way: Legal Stealing via investments, etc.

Clearly he made all his money on his chain of ice cream shacks, Foster's Freeze.

No, he had some very smart people working for him. His fund manager in 1989 was a young guy, 26 years old, who was amazingly smart. He had gone to SMU in Dallas for college so he could start work at Shearson Lehman Brothers while he was going to school. By the time he graduated, he was well into six figures in income and went on to work investing for the king and queen of the Netherlands. When I met him, he was managing the Brandywine Fund for Friess and it was the top-performing fund in the world. At 26. Really.

I could go on, but I don't want to step on anyone's privacy. Let's just say that my impression of Foster Friess was that he was a certifiable bozo.

And Ron in 5.1, it's important to look at investment banking circa 1985-1995, rather than in today's economic climate. At that time, their mission was to find people with great ideas and provide the funding required to get the idea turned into a successful business. They often added help with business acumen, as inventors often have no clue about how to manage all the minutiae of running a company. But they were actually helping energize our economy and build technology.

Nowadays, "investment bankers" are in the news for designing new devious ways to siphon money out of the economy as transactions occur, without providing any perceivable benefit to anyone but themselves. (Think collateralized debt obligations and palming off the third, fourth, fifth tranches, etc.)

Why is it that when you get to a certain level of wealtth, you gotta dress like a Bond villain?

Perhaps Friess would be happier if the votes from the blah people in those "center cities" only counted as 3/5 of a "non-discounted" vote.

They do. Unfortunately, that was still too much.

So, Some Voters are more equal than others?
(with apologies to George Orwell)

Not if the blah people were allowed to cast their 3/5 vote themselves rather than having them cast for them by "entrepreneurs."

see Andy Borowitz's account of La Pierre and his congressman collection.

You don't. It's a case of sociopaths seeking out other sociopaths.

Actually, the Republican party has two distinct groups...the wealthy and the stupid. Your examples are sub-groups of either or both.

The GOP has another group of moderates who consider themselves disenfranchised and mostly voted for Obama. They are bailing on the party of plutocrats, theocrats, fascists and assorted too stupid to know they are killing themselves with their votes.

Well, I'm pretty sure Friess has proven that a Republican can be both wealthy and stupid. Or reinforced the proof, as the Mittidiot was able to prove that one all by himself. Maybe the Republican party should be split into the puppets and the puppeteers?

Don't be dismissive. It was very rightly said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We can NEVER rest on our laurels and feel secure in the supposed continuation of our personal liberties. While we peacable folk grill and dream and laugh and sleep, busying ourselves with the millions of myriad hobbies and pursuits we do, the power hungry, corrupt and greedy scheme and plot and corrupt. They are the same person in every generation and have the same goals.

The sleep of the free is necessarily a light one.

Personally I was thinking of San Francisco. Although San Jose (IIRC the country's sixth largest city) has one or two entrepreneurs as well.

The basic point stands, as to the idiocy of Friess's comment, given that numerous blue voting urban centers are plenty entrepreneurial. Just a nitpick, though, that while San Jose as a city has a high ranking population, it's metro area that counts and in that ranking it's somewhere in the high 20's or low 30's. Same goes for Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Jacksonville, Indy, etc.

Wrong again, Lebowsky DUD. That somebody was me and I was telling you that people from the West don't understand the culture of the South. And furthermore, don't understand how the culture of the South has infiltrated our politics via money. I've lived that. And others have, too. Now you should go read the link you were provided, or do you not have enough time because you're off tending to all the "other side" of things in your effort to be so open-minded.

Dishelved: I give you credit for stepping up and admitting it was indeed you who made the pidgeonholing/stereotype statements. Not only are such statements offensive, they are fluffy, they represent a line of thinking that only scratches the surface. Look at what you just said: you are implying that you have understanding and knowledge that millions of Americans do not because of I guess, geography. How does that not make you Taliban? You have a built-in disrespect for tens of millions of people, and you defend it like it's gospel. My parents taught me to respect people, treat them equal until they let you know otherwise. Apparently you and Foster Frieese feel you have cornered the market on what matters and what does not...

The fact is, Disgusted With It All is right. The looney Southern political-religious culture has infiltrated the rest of the country, starting with Nixon's embrace of the Southern Strategy letting them into the Republican Party, which they decided they would take over, to insure non of the "treason" they'd just gotten from their traditional tools, the Democrats, over civil rights. And the fact you don't see this takeover and the fact that the South is crazy, is proof of his statement that most people in the West fail to understand the South.

And I guess we know what that makes Santorum.

Sure -- a frothy mix.

White, male landowners, perhaps?
Oh wait, the Constitution has been updated since then.

Excuse me:

Christian, White, male landowners, perhaps?

And they better be the right kind of Christian.