Tag: Wealthy

“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”

2020–Are You Sick Of These F*ckers Yet?

Warren and Sanders have started the billionaires to shake in their tidy whities……it is the tax thing.

Warren has said she would pay for Medicare For All with a tax on billionaires…..by “taxes on big corporations, Wall Street, and the top 1%…… Her plan, posted online

The plan sent a quiver through the wealthy old boys club……Gates, Cooperman and Bloomberg are thinking they know best simply because they have money to burn……I for one am not buying their crap….

Gates started whining….

Bill Gates to her list of critics. At a forum Wednesday, Gates didn’t sound thrilled about Warren’s idea to increase taxes on billionaires, and his criticism caught her attention. The details:

What he said: “I’ve paid over $10 billion in taxes,” Gates said at the New York Times DealBook conference, per the Guardian. “If I had to pay $20 billion, it’s fine. But when you say I should pay $100 billion, then I’m starting to do a little math over what I have left over.” He eventually added, “Sorry, I’m just kidding.”

Gates did more than criticize Warren’s tax policy. “I’m not sure how open minded she is—or that she’d even be willing to sit down with somebody who has large amounts of money,” he said, per Mediaite. And when asked who he would support in a hypothetical matchup of Warren vs. President Trump, he declined to say. “Whoever I decide will have the more professional approach in the current situation, probably is the thing I will weigh the most,” he said. “And I hope that the more professional candidate is an electable candidate.”

More professional?  What the Hell does that meas?  Is it code?

Next up is a billionaire named Cooperman….

Warren is clashing with billionaire investor Leon Cooperman, who sent her a critical letter and called out her “vilification of the rich.” In harsh terms, he said to Politico, “This is the f—ing American dream she is s—-ing on.”

He sounds like a parasite that is afraid of losing his host.

Now the perennial candidate Mike Bloomberg is joining the whining by billionaires that would have to pay more taxes…..but as usual he is thinking about running for president…..

Bloomberg flirted with a presidential run earlier this year, visiting early voting states and conducting extensive polling. He ultimately decided against a run, citing in part the apparent strength of former Vice President Joe Biden, a fellow moderate. But Bloomberg is said to have become increasingly worried about the direction of the Democratic primary as more liberal candidates like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren have gained in popularity. In a statement on Thursday, Bloomberg adviser Howard Wolfson said the former mayor is worried that the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates is “not well positioned” to defeat Trump.

Bloomberg has become a “media whore” he will do anything to try and get his mug on the tellie…..

When will the American people tire of the constant whinbing by the greedy class trying to fuck the country and horde their cash?

I think it is interesting that these billionaires think they have a better plan for governing this country….and if I am not mistaken there was a billionaire that felt the same way in 2016….and look how that has worked out.

These people said the same things about the taxes of the Obama years….

How sad that these people are so insecure that they feel that the government owes them something above the benefits they all get while raping the economy.

The MSM is helping the whiners above all else because the corporate owned news loves the center….

Politico, John F. Harris makes the case that the mainstream media is biased against Warren because “journalists love the center.” Republicans complain of a liberal bias, but Harris says they have it wrong. “The more pervasive force shaping coverage of Washington and elections is what might be thought of as centrist bias, flowing from reporters and sources alike … a conviction that politics should be a tidier and more rational process than it usually is.” What’s wrong about this view is when real change happens, it rarely comes from the center, he adds.

You want change?

It never comes from the “Center”.

Enough already!  Besides the Dems already have enough billionaires in this race.

Ask yourself one question…can a person living in the lap of luxury have any idea what the Middle class and poor go through daily?

Anything more pathetic than the uber-rich pretending that they want to save our democracy?

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

VOTE!

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Taxing The Rich!

It is TAX DAY!

OMG! That is almost blasphemous these days.

The lie spread is that the less tax the wealthy pay to more economic activity they produce and in turn the better the Middle Class and workers will do.

Pause here for the inevitable dash to the Google machine……..

Just about every viable candidate for the Dems has some plan or other to tax the rich so at least we get something from these people….Warren, AOC, Bernie, Yang et al…..it is a popular meme for Dems this cycle.

The 1990s Democratic Party made friends with the rich. The 2008 Democratic Party was eager to bail them out. The 2019 Democratic Party seems ready to declare war.

In just the past few months, at least three major Democratic Party figures, two of whom are presidential contenders, have proposed large tax increases targeted at the richest Americans:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) floated a big increase in top marginal income tax rates in an interview on 60 Minutes. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) proposed an annual wealth tax. Sen. Bernie Sanders. (I-VT) proposed a drastic hike in the estate tax.

There is a way and there is a desire by the people to see the rich to start paying their share of the American Dream……

https://www.vox.com/2019/3/19/18240377/estate-tax-wealth-tax-70-percent-warren-sanders-aoc

How successful will these people be in this endeavor?

If you listen close enough you can hear the big guns of corproate America being prepared for war.

2020 is the voters chance to change the course of the crumbling America……but do they have the guts to step up for change or will they roll over like they have been doing since the 1990s?