Billionaire

Billionaire

Musical Selection – Millionaire by Chris Stapleton

There is an arrogance that comes with being a “billionaire.”  There has to be; they’ve been successful at the game that everyone has to play, the game of making a living.  They are clearly the winners:  political folks like Mike Bloomberg and Howard Schultz, but also the gentle Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.  Some like Gates, Zuckerberg and Musk, found a way to “build a better mousetrap;” they used their genius to ride their creations to wealth.  Others, like Buffet and Bloomberg; were better than others at manipulating the financial system, building their own wealth as reward for creating wealth for others.

It’s an arrogance that comes from not having to worry about any kind of basic needs.  To just go through a million dollars a month, it requires spending $33,000 a day.  And that’s only twelve million a year, only a 1.2% of a billion.  To say that someone with that kind of financial capacity is “in touch” with the cost of health care, mortgages, retirement or the price of bread at Krogers, is hard to imagine.  

Howard Schultz made his money in Starbucks.  He has a great “rags to riches” story, and says “he understands” the American people. But of course, he understands not what the American people need, but what he sees from the high altitude of his billions in wealth.  He claims to see “the big picture” that “average” Americans can’t possibly understand. He thinks we need “serious people” to sit around the table to solve American problems.  That doesn’t seem to include average Americans, because he does not feel the reality of living in an America where the disparity of wealth is so great, that one percent of the population controls forty percent of the wealth. 

There is also arrogance grown from the immensity of their financial success.  From their achievement comes the attitude that they can do anything, including running the country.  President Trump is simply the most unvarnished example of this, whether he is a real billionaire or not.  And there is, among almost all of them, a dedication to the system that providing them with success, a no-holds-bar belief in unbridled capitalism.  It worked for them, so it should work for everyone.

It doesn’t.

I’m not a socialist, or a communist; but I do believe that our nation has an obligation to those whose labor creates our wealth, as well as to those who own it.  And more than that, I do not believe that there is a quid-pro-quo; an economic bargain saying you labor and maybe you will get what you need. We as a nation should be better than that:  food, shelter, education, healthcare; all should be inherent entitlements of being in America, and not gained as a reward for labors performed.

Regardless of the excesses of the past two years, the United States still has the potential for being the greatest example of a nation in world history.  We have the greatest amount of wealth available to benefit our people, and we already have near the highest standard of living.  What the United States needs to do is recognize the obligation we have to ALL of the people in our country.  This is not a matter of scarcity of wealth, it is a matter of wealth distribution.  And as soon as that term comes out, redistributing wealth, the hue and cry against socialism (or communism) rises, particular from those with the biggest megaphone:  the most wealthy.  Well of course they don’t want their income redistributed, they have the most to lose.

Don’t say it can’t be done, or that it would make us a SOCIALIST COUNTRY.  Two years ago, when the Trump era began, I wrote an essay about some Americans longing for the simplicity of the 1950’s, the era of the television show “Leave it to Beaver” (Trump World and the Beaver.)  In that “black and white” time the tax rates on the most wealthy was over 90% (the tax charged on income OVER $200,000, the first $200,000 was taxed at lower rates.) Today the equivalent income is over $2 million, and the tax rate is 37%.  We were doing it in the era of Elvis and Eisenhower; why not now?

Billionaires don’t represent the interests or experiences of most Americans.  And success in creating wealth doesn’t equate to success in running government (we should know that now more than ever.)   What billionaires do have is access to our communication system:  they can buy the biggest megaphones to deliver their message.  It doesn’t make them qualified to govern, nor does their experience help them understand the concerns of most Americans.  They are good at making money, so, as the saying goes;

“Do what you know best; if you’re a runner, run, if you’re a bell, ring.”

Ignaz Bernstein – Jewish Folklorist and Wealthy Philanthropist (1836-1909)