Today's super-rich are not robber barons, but bubble barons: they extract their fortunes from intensifying cycles of imaginary wealth creation and destruction, live at a far remove from their businesses, and evade accountability in the public spotlight. The robber barons stood behind their economic crimes; the bubble barons, for the most part, do not.
Beginning today, AlterNet and LittleSis.org are partnering in an investigation of these bubble barons -- a select group of American multi-billionaires who saw astronomic gains in wealth during the housing bubble, and who so far have evaded all accountability in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Who are they? Where did their wealth come from? Where has it gone? How do they exercise their influence?
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