Grab It And Run. I Mean, Just How Much Money Do You Actually Need?

In the last few days, I came across a somewhat tongue in cheek article in The Guardian written by the reliably sardonic Arwa Madawi on the obscene amount of money billionaires in America control. 

 According to her research, they have stashed away a staggering $ 4.7 trillion, which is a figure that we mere mortals have difficulty wrapping our heads around, let alone counting the zeros that make up a trillion!

 At the beginning of the COVID epidemic, we were forced indoors and had to endure watching television coverage of the majority of the world's citizens trying to cope with something we really didn't understand. We were urged to "Be Kind "to one another, stand on our balconies and beat pots and pans in support of the tireless health care workers who were at the front lines in hospitals and clinics across the globe and look out for our neighbours.

 There was a glimmer of hope that this appalling catastrophe might reset our priorities and, once it was over, we would emerge into a different world, one that was a better and fairer society.

'We're all in this together", we were told.

Sure, we beat our pots and pans and cheered on those souls working in essential services for a while, but after two long years, we simply went back to exploiting them.

The pandemic was a period when a new cache of billionaires was minted and, for those who already had reached the top of their financial pile to increase their obscene wealth even further. 

Billionaires in the United States of America are now worth close to five trillion dollars, of which most of it goes untaxed.

 A report in 2021 by ProPublica found that the 25 wealthiest people in America paid less than 4% in income tax while the rest of the mainly' middle class' contributed over 30% of their hard-earned salaries. So it would seem that the ultra-wealthy have got a lot richer and become a lot more selfish.

 Billionaires have seen their fortunes grow exponentially, and corporations have witnessed their profits balloon, yet the tax taken around the world is the lowest since the 1970s. 

We have also witnessed the gap between the rich and the poor have widened to the point where we have arrived at the same juncture as when the French Revolution began in 1780. 

 Is that the sound of the sharpening of the guillotines I hear?

 I suppose that the only way to understand how the average billionaire thinks is to ask one, and so Ted talk did precisely that when Elon Musk agreed to be interviewed. 

During the session, the following question was asked; 

 "There are many people out there who can't stand this world of billionaires. In fact, they are hugely offended by the notion that an individual can have the same wealth as, say, a billion or more of the world's poorest people."

 Musk's reply was astounding. 

 "Only an idiot would be offended by something like that. But, I think some axiomatic flaws lead them to that conclusion," he told the interviewer. "For sure, it would be very problematic if I was consuming, you know, billions of dollars a year in personal consumption. But that is not the case. In fact, I don't even own a home right now.

 I'm staying at friends' places … I don't have a yacht; I really don't take vacations; I only have a private jet( valued at $70 million), but that allows me to work longer hours. So, it's not as though my personal consumption is high."

Now, I appreciate that a) the man is a genius, b) his various companies generate thousands of jobs c) he is probably the most innovative person on the planet. However, let us not forget he has benefited from billions of dollars in government grants, which have helped him get to where he is today. 

 Well, there you have it. 

 So, you had better douse those lighted torches, put away the pitchforks and stop sharpening those guillotines, for perhaps it is us mere mortals who are to blame? If we are that angry about that nasty gap between rich and poor, we must look to our own "axiomatic flaws." 

 According to Elon, its’ perfectly OK for him and his bastion of other billionaires to have more wealth than over sixty per cent of the world's population combined as long as we only have just one private jet, stay for months on end at our friend's houses, not splurge on a superyacht and dispense with those pesky holiday homes in exotic locales. 

 So thanks, Elon, for putting us on the road to future fiscal responsibility. 

 But, talking of superyachts, gosh, aren't they all the rage right now? Seems that the world is awash with them. Even down my way, a day on the beach most days will provide views of these ostentatious floating palaces drifting off to waters that most of us will never get to see.

 If one had the luck to be an oligarch, it would seem that the first item on their shopping list would be a yacht bigger and better than Boris's or, just so one can show off when it's moored at, say, Monte Carlo or other such salubrious Mediterranean harbours. 

With so many of them afloat on the high seas, parking the damn things must become a problem when there are simply no spots left. However, Vladimir's recent foray into Ukraine has at least solved that particular issue, as most of them have been impounded.

 Perhaps being an oligarch is not so lucky after all.

 Bali, Indonesia 2022