Tag: Wealthy

The Great God–Greed

+++Note:  I need to be at the hospital for my procedures at 0645….so this will be my only offering for today as I will probably be in a shitty mood when I get home….thanx for understanding.+++

Since the late 70s early 80s the country has had an emerging new god on the horizon…..greed.

It is steadily gotten worse year by year and then we elected the spokesman for greed…..DJ Trump….but even with is insatiable appetite for money he has only made the tech bros the lead on greed.

I am talking about people like Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, et al….

Life is strange.

If you’d told me fifteen years ago that, as part of covering DC politics, I’d be reading books about space, I’d have told you to take a hike. But when Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, he set a chain of events in motion.

I remember the day the Washington Post’s sale was announced. It was August 2013 and I was with my friend Tony Norman at our regular falafel haunt on U Street when I got an alert on my phone saying Bezos had just bought the Post for $250 million. “What?” Tony said when I broke the news to him. I read it again, not believing the words either. The Graham family, which had owned the Post for decades, wasn’t known to be looking to sell its prized possession. But now they had.

And in that instant, Bezos was transformed from the billionaire founder of Amazon, into the savior of the Post, if not the entire failing media industry. I read these hot takes with steam coming out of my ears. As the child of parents who owned our local newspaper, I was keenly aware of Amazon’s role in destroying newspapers across the country — namely by bankrupting local business, which are the lifeblood of any local paper (and community). The man who may be responsible for destroying more newspapers than anyone on earth was definitely not a savior of the free press.

That much I knew. But there was a lot about Bezos that I didn’t know. And now that he owned the Post, then the all-important newspaper for local DC politics, it was time to start reading up on the man.

The first book I cracked was The Everything Store, Brad Stone’s revelatory 2013 biography of Bezos. Eight years later, Stone followed that up with Amazon Unbound, another invaluable work. More recently, I devoured Wall Street Journal reporter Dana Mattioli’s excellent 2024 book The Everything War. These books laid bare Bezos’ business practices, a good number of which are illegal, or would be if we enforced antitrust laws in this country.

But there’s another aspect to Bezos that these books didn’t quite capture — namely how he’s lost touch with reality.

Bezos truly believes that he’s going to save humanity via an intergalactic bank shot. He’s perfectly open about this, and always has been. As I wrote in a story at Truthdig last year:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/07/23/how-bezos-and-the-tech-bros-made-greed-godly/

The Tech Bros will save humanity?  First, from what?  Second, are you kidding?

These Tech Bros firmly believe that they are serving humanity….I do not see it….do you?

What is up with the lie that if you are poor then you are lazy?  Which conserv moron thought this piece of crap up?

I guess when you have that much money you can claim whatever you want.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Looking For A Career Change?

In these unsettling days of employment flux many are looking for ways to make more money….I mean AI is taking jobs right and left…..college degrees are worthless and there has got to be a better way to earn a good living.

Well Bubba there is……the uber rich are concerned with their safety….the society seems to be getting more hostile to the Robber Barons with each passing week….

America’s richest are jittery, and a growing group of “meat shields” is cashing in. That’s the term one bodyguard-in-training uses in Grayson Schaffer’s deep dive into the industry for GQ. For the record, bodyguards use the term “protector,” though the leader of a team is usually the BG, or bodyguard. Whatever the term, more aspirants are flocking to executive-protection courses like the one run by Elijah Shaw, a former protector for 50 Cent and Usher who now trains others to keep billionaires, tech titans, celebrities, and politicians safe. Schaffer drops into Shaw’s weeklong Las Vegas class, where students practice pulling “principals” off the X, or point of attack, and learn that the job is more about advance work than gunplay.

The story zooms out to explain why business is booming: high-profile killings and attacks on CEOs, governors, figures such as Charlie Kirk, and even the president—all part of rising political violence as tracked by Princeton’s Bridging Divides Initiative. This trend of “stochastic terrorism” has corporate security budgets swelling. Shaw and his peers say the real work happens long before an attack, in mapping exits, anticipating threats, and swallowing ego. Trainees are reminded—repeatedly—that running away with the client beats winning a fight. The job, as one trainee puts it, is being a literal human buffer—an “oversized butler” with a plan.

Read the full story.

There you have it….you too can become a ‘meat shield” for the ultra wealthy….stand between them and a society that is slowly letting the hatred boil to a roar.

It is coming.  Do you want to stand between a fucker that cares little for your safety as long as he can make it to the bank on time.

I am too old but if I were not then they could kiss my ass….my advice learn to defend yourself you pampered twats

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“The Rich Get Richer”

How many times have you heard that in your lifetime?

As much as one may not like this slogan it is true….in the past year billionaires fortunes have shot up 81%….last year alone they shot up 16%….and it ain’t over yet.

Billionaires are entering 2026 wealthier and more numerous than ever, even as global poverty progress stalls, according to a new Oxfam report timed to the World Economic Forum in Davos. The charity says billionaire wealth hit a record $18.3 trillion last year, climbing 16% or $2.5 trillion, with more than 3,000 individuals in the club, per CNBC. Since 2020, their fortunes have grown 81%, or $8.2 trillion—enough to eliminate global poverty 26 times—while overall poverty levels have remained roughly where they stood in 2019, per the Guardian. The report, titled “Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power,” argues that concentrated wealth increasingly translates into political and media influence.

It points to Elon Musk’s role in the US administration, Jeff Bezos’ ownership of the Washington Post, and French billionaire Vincent Bolloré’s control of the news outlet CNews as examples. “The outsized influence that the super-rich have over our politicians, economies and media has deepened inequality and led us far off track on tackling poverty,” said Oxfam Executive Director Amitabh Behar. Oxfam also highlights President Trump’s 2025 tax package, which it says delivered notable breaks for high earners, including an estimated 3% income boost for those making more than $1 million, while many Americans struggle to cover basic needs; about 10% lived in poverty in 2024, while a 2023 study found most can no longer afford a “minimal quality of life.”

Beyond the US, Oxfam connects economic strain to social unrest, referencing more than 140 significant anti-government protests across 68 countries last year. The organization urges governments to adopt national inequality-reduction plans, increase taxes on the ultra-wealthy, strengthen barriers between money and politics, and protect free expression. Without such moves—and with rich nations cutting foreign aid “further and faster than before,” including the shuttering of USAID—Oxfam warns that as many as 14 million additional people could die by 2030. “Being economically poor creates hunger. Being politically poor creates anger,” Behar said.

You work, right?…did your income grow by 81% in the last 5 years?  Or for that matter did it grow by 16% last year?

Look at the timeline…..the past 5 years includes Biden as well as Donny….so matters not which party sits in the WH….they are all responsible.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Losing My Religion

Nope not some tribute to a song by R.E.M.

By ‘religion’ I mean democracy because to some of us democracy is a religion and it needs preserving and helped to thrive…..and it appears to be diminishing almost daily.

For decades there has been a slow destruction of our beloved democracy and since the early 90s that destruction has sped up until we arrive at today and the total disregard of our democracy by some.

The culprits are those oligarchs, the uber-wealthy, that are using their wallets to secure influence and drain the life out of democracy.

It doesn’t take a conspiracy to dismantle democracy — just concentrated wealth and time.

Across the globe, but especially in the United States, the ultra-wealthy have learned to bend democratic institutions not through revolution or coups d’état, but through slow but determined erosion. They don’t storm the halls of power; they sponsor those halls, sue them if they resist, and slowly discredit them if they persist. They present themselves to the public and a pliant media as hardnosed realists and pragmatists — people who know how to get things done – rational actors disillusioned with what they denounce as ‘the inefficiencies of self-rule.’ But what they’re really doing is waging a cold and relentless war on the very machinery of democratic life.

The corrosion starts subtly: A billionaire funds a lawsuit, quietly buys a newspaper, or drops millions into a political race. It initially appears to be wholesome participation (Bezos saving journalism by giving it room to breathe) — civic engagement by successful individuals. But with the benefit of time, the scale and intent reveal something else.

When Peter Thiel bankrolled the lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker Media, he wasn’t just seeking justice for a perceived personal slight. He was sending a clear message: If you cross a billionaire, we will destroy you — and we won’t need to win an argument to do it. You will not be debated; you will be swiftly liquidated.

The legal system, which in theory protects the weak from the powerful, is in practice yet another arena where wealth sets the rules. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP suits) have become the favorite tool of oligarchs to intimidate journalists, whistleblowers, and activists into silence. The goal isn’t to win in court; it is to bleed critics dry with legal fees and drag them through years of debilitating litigation. In a democracy, speech should be protected; in an oligarchy, it is priced and, in that way, snuffed out.

The media, too, has been captured — not in a dramatic coup, but through purchase after purchase.

Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling empire has normalized the idea that facts are pliable, that narratives are weapons, and that partisanship isn’t a danger but a business model. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now X) is a more recent version of the same impulse: Control the flow of information, and you control what people believe is real. Democracy depends on shared reality, while plutocracy, in sharp contrast, thrives and prospers in the fog.

https://thefulcrum.us/ethics-leadership/billionaire-oligarchy

The destruction is nearing completion….the tenets by which this great nation was founded are being chipped away…..what will you do to preserve the system we love?

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Waiting On A ‘Gold Card’

This is not the same thing as your Visa gold card….this is in reference to the US visa that the Trump Administration is selling….you are surely heard the term ‘green card’…..well this is a visa that rich people can pay to enter the US.

President Trump teased a new visa program Tuesday with something “like a green card,” but his favorite color: gold. Trump said the gold card, with “a higher level of sophistication,” would offer “very high-level people” a new “route to citizenship”—for the cost of $5 million, per the New York Times. “Wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card” and receiving “green card privileges,” said Trump, who spoke to reporters while signing various executive orders, per CNN.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said “the Trump gold card” would replace the EB-5 visa program, under which investors and their families can receive permanent residence if they make a significant investment in a US business that creates or preserves 10 permanent full-time jobs for US workers. Trump said the wealthy foreigners buying gold cards would be “people that create jobs,” without giving details, per the Times.

“They’ll have to go through vetting, of course,” Lutnick said, per CNN, “to make sure they’re wonderful world-class global citizens.” Asked if a Russian oligarch would be eligible, Trump replied, “Yeah, possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs that are nice people.” “I think they can afford $5 million,” he continued. He predicted the government would be able to sell a million or more gold cards starting in about two weeks. “If you add up the numbers, they’re pretty good,” he said.

A new way for the rich to come here and become a parasite on the American system.

The precedes would go to pay off the national debt….

President Donald Trump believes he can pay off America’s $36 trillion national debt by charging rich immigrants $5 million for a gold card—which has green card privileges “plus a route to citizenship.”

President Trump made the impromptu announcement in the Oval Office yesterday, telling reporters: “Remember the words gold card.”

The president said he had planned to make the announcement next week but seized the opportunity to share the news while signing executive orders on Tuesday.

As a result, details of what the gold card will entail are still sparse, but the Republican politician said: “Wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card. They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people.

They will come and pay lots of taxes……who believes that fairy tale?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Billionaire To The Rescue

The big story for a few weeks now has been Trump (of course) and the judgment against him…..will he be able to come up with the bond money….many people thought he could squirm out of this predicament one way or the other.

And as accurate as always Trump managed to find a benefactor to put up the cash and save his assets from being grabbed.

So who was the knight in shining armor for Trump?

Don Hankey, the chairman and majority shareholder of Knight Specialty Insurance, told CNN on Tuesday that the deal to underwrite former President Donald Trump’s $175 million bond in New York came together quickly and that Trump posted all cash as collateral.

“It’s what we do. I’m happy to do it. We would have done it for anybody else,” Hankey said in a phone interview. “It was an easy transaction. It was put together very quickly.”

Based in California, Knight Specialty Insurance is known for providing subprime auto loans to car buyers with weaker credit scores.

Hankey, who has supported Trump’s presidential campaigns, said initially he reached out to the Trump Organization last month when the former president was having trouble putting together a bond of $464 million. Hankey has amassed a fortune that Forbes values at $7.4 billion.

(cnn.com)

Now ask what did he have to promise this obscenely wealthy leech to get his money?

But one billionaire is not the problem for this country….it is a mass of billionaires that are bankrolling the shyster Trump.

Donald Trump’s allies have put together a sprawling political operation that continually collects money from major donors, many of whom have interests before the Trump administration.

Six groups funded by dozens of ultra-wealthy donors have raised more than $50 million to support President Donald Trump and his agenda since his inauguration, a sharp reversal from his three-year-old pledge to be independent from moneyed interests, a Public Citizen analysis (PDF) has found.

It’s a sharp contrast with Trump’s first run for office, which was famously dysfunctional. Our analysis of Federal Election Commission data found that since the start of 2017, the six pro-Trump groups had raised $54.4 million from 136 megacontributors who donated at least $100,000 each, with an average contribution of nearly $400,000.

The money has been used to promote Trump’s agenda through ads and support Republican candidates.

These six groups, including America First Action and Trump Victory, are fueled with contributions from corporate CEOs, largely from the gambling, finance, real estate and energy sectors, as well as from dark money groups that do not disclose their donors.

The Super-Rich People Backing the Trump Agenda

All this mundane stuff just to get to the meat of this post….sorry about that….

Did you know that behind every authoritarian person stands at least one billionaire?

The problem is not just the far right, but the fact that there is an alliance between the super-rich and the far right… It’s true. Behind every fascist movement, there is a billionaire who discreetly supports it. The far-right scapegoats minorities: public anger is not directed where it should be, at the very rich who are destroying our means of survival.

George Monbiot: “Behind Every Fascist Movement There Is a Billionaire”

While article is mostly commenting on the environment his words could be translated into stopping the billionaires and Trump.

We can beat this marriage of far right and billionaires but that would mean that the people need to take voting seriously or lose everything in the aftermath.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

All Those ‘Freeloaders’!

Closing Thought–13May21

We hear daily from the Trump Party about all those freeloaders that are getting off easy by getting their relief money and benefits…..that they are worthless because they use their money for luxury things like food, shelter and other necessities to live…..they are denigrated daily.

But not a word is said about those GOPers that pissed the money away….

California prosecutors are investigating abuse of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the loans given to businesses suffering under the economic crisis ushered in from the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the New York Times, one person used the government handouts to purchase a Lamborghini, Bentley and Ferrari.

“The man, Mustafa Qadiri, 38, of Irvine, was indicted by a federal grand jury on four counts of bank fraud, four counts of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and six counts of money laundering, the U.S. attorney in the Central District of California announced,” said the Times.

An OpenSecrets search of Mr. Qadiri revealed he was an active Republican donor, who owns a venture capital firm, All American Capital Holdings, LLC.

https://www.rawstory.com/gop-donor-ppp-lamborghini-ferrari/

Once again this shows that the working stiffs in this country are the drag on society and the wealthy get all the benefits.

At what point do the American people wake the Hell up?

Time for that change that we all keep dreaming of with no help coming…..time for that to end.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–22Jul20

This pandemic has done major damage to the working class…..they have seen the wages disappear and their livelihood shrink to nothing. In other words it has been devastating to the economy….well not so devastating for some…..some have made out like bandits without guns…..

How wonderful!  I am so glad that billionaires keep making lots of cash while the rest of society suffers.

Time for society to fight back.

Time for these slackers to do their part for this society.

The time has come……period!

Have you been impressed with the Dems handling of the economic pandemic?

Re-think your “atta boys”…..

Some 25 million US workers are facing a reduction or outright elimination of a $600 weekly federal addition to state unemployment benefits when the supplemental payment authorized by Congress under the CARES Act expires on July 25.

In the midst of a raging pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, with at least 30 million out of work and new jobless claims surpassing one million a week, the supplement is all that has been keeping many families above water. Coinciding with the impending end of a federal moratorium on evictions and the expiration of state moratoriums, the cut in jobless pay will propel millions into destitution and homelessness.

One survey found that 37 percent of renters and 26 percent of homeowners feared they could be homeless by the end of the year. Researchers at Columbia University say they expect US homelessness to increase by 45 percent compared to 2019.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/21/pers-j21.html

STOP! believing the hype that Dems are the friends of the working class….it is a CON!

A closing thought…..we know how much Trump hates China and has gone out of his way to sanction them, right?

If that is true why has he ordered about 8 tons of stuff?

President Donald Trump’s US properties imported more than eight tons of Chinese goods since September, according to a CNN analysis. 

More than six tons of tables were shipped to Trump International Hotel in New York last fall and two tons of cabinets were delivered to Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles in May, CNN reported.

On the 2016 campaign trail and throughout his presidency, Trump has accused China of unfair trade practices and pledged to address the trade deficit between the two countries.

As part of his “America First” policy, Trump entered a months-long tariff war with Beijing and has pressured American companies to redirect their business within the U.S.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-owned-properties-imported-more-than-8-tons-of-chinese-goods-2020-7

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–11May20

Some bastards are making out like bandits thanks for the pandemic….and many of them are Trump supporters…..

Fracking billionaire and Trump donor Harold Hamm was among an elite group of oil and gas executives who met with the president in early April to press for federal help, including access to big loans for businesses hurt by the coronavirus pandemic. It prompted Trump afterwards to promise to “make funds available to these very important companies”.

Major Trump ally Tommy Fisher, who last year landed a $400m Army Corps of Engineers contract to build 31 miles of Trump’s border wall in Arizona, in April received another $7m from the army – despite an active investigation by a Pentagon watchdog into allegations of favoritism after Trump reportedly pushed for Fisher.

Another big Trump donor, Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow and the chair of Trump’s campaign in Minnesota, got red-carpet treatment from Trump at a press briefing in late March. Lindell then praised Trump, hailing him as “chosen by God” as the president touted the firm’s efforts to make thousands of face masks.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/03/trump-coronavirus-wealthy-friends-donors-backers

These people are dealing in death…..it is that simple……

In defiance of overwhelming popular opposition, the Trump administration, a majority of state governments, multi-billion-dollar corporations and Wall Street financial interests are driving ahead with plans for a rapid reopening of the US economy.

The auto industry is leading the charge for a premature and deadly return to work. Succumbing to massive political and economic pressure, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has sanctioned today’s resumption of production by auto parts suppliers and tool and die shops. Major auto companies intend to resume production in the state next week.

Honda is resuming production today throughout the United States and Canada. This includes plants in Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia and Alabama.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/11/pers-m11.html

These people should be set out and boycotted for their part as purveyors of BS and ass kissers from the Trump squad.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trump And His Base

This virus has shown the public who Trump really working to help…….https://lobotero.com/2020/03/25/congress-do-we-have-a-deal/

The MSM and its pundits tell us daily during this election season that the Trump base are those voters in the Rust Belt and Middle America……I disagree.

To me everything the president has done since entering into office has been designed for his real base……billionaires.

Don’t blame the Trump presidency on the white proletariat. The real responsibility for this epically transgressive administration—headed by an individual Noam Chomsky rightly describes as “the most dangerous criminal in human history”—lies with the billionaire class.

According to a mainstream media myth long believed by intellectuals who ought to know better, Donald Trump rode into the White House on a great upsurge of support from poor, white, working-class voters drawn to the Republican candidate’s populist anti-Wall Street pitch in key deindustrialized battleground states. This conventional Rust Belt rebellion wisdom was proclaimed on the front page of the nation’s newspaper of record, The New York Times, a day after the 2016 election. The Times called Trump’s victory “a decisive demonstration of power by a largely overlooked coalition of mostly blue-collar white and working-class voters.” That same day, Times political writer Nate Cohn wrote that “Donald J. Trump won the presidency by riding an enormous wave of support among working-class whites.”

This storyline — repeated ad nauseam and taken for granted in the mainstream media and even in much of the progressive left—is flatly contradicted by credible data. There was no mass white working-class outpouring for Trump in 2016. Slate writers Konstantin Kilibarda and Daria Roithmayr noted weeks after the election: “Donald Trump didn’t flip working-class white voters,” they wrote. “Hillary Clinton lost them. … Relative to the 2012 election, Democratic support in the key Rust Belt states [Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin] collapsed as a huge number of Democrats stayed home or (to a lesser extent) voted for a third party.”

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/06/trumps-real-base-ruling-class

The media owned by billionaires is telling a tale that they want the voter to believe and trust……as usual they are lying to us!

This election like most election is just a battle of corporations for control…..while the corporations get the gravy and the people get the skim at the bottom of the pie.

One last question……why does a cruise ship get cash…..they sail under foreign flags…..and they will get American cash……why?

Death total from this virus has hit 1,000…..how many more must die to protect stupid?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”