​Billionaires and the End Times

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Where will the homeless go when billionaires go to their bunkers?

Icelanders are living almost on top of volcanos but are cooled by ice, snow, and placid attitudes while hiding a keen sense of humor. But with the planet heating up and devastating windstorms, floods, hurricanes, tornados, and fires of many descriptions constantly harassing the earth’s humans, animals, and plants, they understand what will happen.

In 2019 Icelanders decided to commemorate the passing of a major glacier melted completely by climate change with a monument and plaque with the wry comment: “This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and know what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”

Icelanders know that if the Greenland icecap melts, the planet’s oceans will rise 23 feet. They understand that if the ice of Antarctica melts the oceans will rise 230 feet. The highest spot in Florida is in the northern panhandle at 350 feet. The highest spot in the south is near Lake Wales and the Bok Tower Gardens at 254 feet. A rather tiny island would be left with a few plants and the bell tower. The average temperature of Jackson, Wyoming has increased four degrees F in 100 years.

Oxfam, the world’s babysitting organization, estimated in 2019 that the world’s richest one percent generated as much carbon emissions as the poorest two-thirds, or about 5.5 billion people. It would take a million wind turbines just to cover the power “needs” of the rich.

In 2023 Oxfam noted another dreaded milestone: the average global temperature rose more than two degrees Celsius, which is almost one degree C above what countries promised they would hold the world to in 2013. The big question is: Will the people who have collected the most assets and cash in the world help save their fellow human beings from climate change, formerly called global warming? An expert on the wealthy says “NO!”

He says: “Two groups think of money constantly: the poor and the rich”

Michael Mechanic, senior editor of the magazine Mother Jones, has written “Jackpot,” a book about people who have so much they play real monopoly. Billionaires are desperate to win the game of wealth, whether it’s spending $600 million on a daughter’s wedding or $600 million for a superyacht and $200 million for a smaller one for the wife so she can land her helicopter. You might even spend $150,000 for a companion Alpha Dog.

Mechanic writes: “Extreme wealth can severely hamper enjoyment. Immense wealth possesses you as much as you possess it: managing it becomes a full-time job. You don’t know whom to trust; you can start to imagine your friends are not friends at all; it can dominate and poison your family relationships (review the family of Fred Trump). It can hollow you out, socially, intellectually and morally. If you can go anywhere and do anything, everything is over the horizon. You speed past the local and the particular, towards an endlessly escalating ideal of luxury: the better marina, the bigger yacht, the private jet, the super home. Place has no meeting, other than as a setting that might impress the friends you no longer trust.”

The records for leading the Hall of Famous Rich are constantly falling: size of country estate, number of mansions and bathrooms, length of superyachts, amenities in the survival bunker, trips to space and planets, the most expensive wrist watches--and whatever turns on the latest superrich.

The latest status symbol among the superrich may be the Svalinn Alpha Dog. It is advertised in the latest prestigious magazines as “a military-grade beast that can rip out an attacker’s throat but is also a loving, gentle pet.” The minimum price: $150,000. The dogs are a mix of Dutch and German shepherds and Belgian Malinois and take about two years to train. Clients always ask whether the Alpha Dog is comfortable flying in a private jet or helicopter or living on a superyacht.

How can we restore the middle class and a livable planet? Go Radical!

Whether it’s Fox “News” or Trump on the stump or the Freedom Caucus on the House floor, we hear the constant refrain; “Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris are far-left, crazy, radical, communist, and fascist.” Here’s a partial list of those “crazy” issues, and they have the support of 60 to 90 percent of the American people according to all national polls:

1, The federal government must represent the needs of the disabled, the sick, children, working families, and the elderly instead of just the rich donors turned loose like crime families by a Republican Supreme Court.

2. Healthcare is a right of everyone, not just the ones who can afford it. Everyone regardless of income or status must have the right and ability to go to a doctor when sick or hurt and not be forced into bankruptcy. Healthcare should not be attached to a job. Healthcare must be universal and all drugs free. Why should Americans be paying the highest prices in the world—and sometimes ten times the average cost?

3. Every family must be eligible for family leave, parental leave, and medical leave, allowing for a few months with each newborn and the ability to care for a family member who is ill. One should not worry about losing a paycheck or job.

4. Like almost all of the top 38 industrialized—and civilized—under-graduate colleges should be free and all student debt presently on the books should be canceled. Supporting education is the responsibility of each state according to the Constitution.

5. Let’s get specific about overall support in national polls from Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and Trump voters for those “far-left and radical” issues promoted by that Pied Piper of Socialism Senator Bernie Sanders and by Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Progressive watchdog of Wall Street and Trump chicanery.

• Expand Medicare to include coverage for dental, vision, and hearing is approved by 77% Overall, 73% Independents, 69% Republicans, and 65% of Trump voters.
• Cut the cost of prescription drugs by making sure that Americans pay no more than European and Canadian citizens. (O-75%, I-68%, R-68%. T-65%)
• Expand Social Security benefits by making the wealthy pay the same tax rate as the working class. (O-72%, I-72%, R-56%, T-56%)
• Make the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes. (O-70%, I-68%, R-54%, T-53%)
• Establish a law limiting rental increases in very short periods. (O-63%, I-57%, R-46%, T-46%)
• Establish a Medicare-for-All single-payer healthcare system guaranteeing healthcare for all Americans. (O-62%, I-62%, R-39%, T-39%)
• Eliminate medical bankruptcies and all medical debt. (O-62%, I-59%, $-43%, T-42%)
• Build at least two million housing units of affordable housing. (O-59%, I-57%, R-38%, T-42%)
• Re-establish child tax credits that were paid to families during the pandemic.(-58%, I-55%, R-43%, T-44%
• Raise minimum wage to $17 an hour. (O-51%, I-49%, R-47%, T-42%)
• *** Make public two-year colleges, public 4-year colleges, and universities tuition free. ()-50%, I-51%, R-25%, T-25%)
• Pass the Pro Act , which would make joining a union much easier than it is under present Bureau of Labor laws. And 7 out of 10 Americans will agree to join a union. (O-48%, I-41%, R-29%, T-28%)

When we look at the percentages of approval by our voters on these issues, we realize why the Divided States of America never qualify for the first quadrant when the happiest countries in the world are selected in that annual world-wide poll. Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark always fight it out for the top spots because voters in these countries have approved all of these issues years ago and have put them into practice. For some reason, those citizens are not at our borders pleading for asylum. How does Finland treat the homeless?

They give them keys to an apartment or home!

We have been transporting our poor and middle class down the world’s rathole since the great budget-balancer and union-buster Ronald Reagan preached that “Greed is Good.” It’s a great political platform for a political party that brought us the Great Depression in spades. By abolishing unions and cutting taxes Reagan buried the middle class with those spades. It’s why we have the worst economic inequality in the world today.

We are generations behind other industrialized nations in protecting our working families, children, the elderly, sick, and disabled. We can’t even stop our society from killing and wounding more than 150,000 men, women, children, and fetuses a year with 435 million firearms, and another 150,000 with Oxycontin and fentanyl because we are still living under “Greed is Good.”

What are the chances billionaires will sacrifice to save the planet?

It doesn’t look good. And, as I always say, slim is out of town checking out another tax haven. A billionaire has just decided to pay Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors $62.6 million to shoot 3-point baskets. A billionaire collector just bought the baseball jersey for $24.1 million Babe Ruth wore when he “called” a homerun in a baseball game. The Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team played in Phoenix this summer when it had 100 straight days of 100F—and 54 of them were 110F or more! The greatest football quarterback on Planet Earth Tom Brady just signed a $375 million contract with Fox Sports to talk about pro football on TV for this season.

In the business world, Starbucks just hired a new CEO, Brian Niccol, to “perkulatte” up a company that sells coffee for $5 to $10 a cup. Starbucks has a rule that office workers must be in the office three days a week. One problem. Niccol lives in California, a thousand miles away from the Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. No problem. Starbucks owns a corporate jet, so he’ll use it to fly to the office during the week! How much fuel will be used to fly 2,000 miles a week? Normally, a single billionaire produces a million times more emissions than the average person. How is he doing on average?

We are living in a world which does not recognize reality. An incident in the French wine industry is a splendid example. Belgian pranksters recently entered a wine selling for $2.70 a bottle in supermarkets, the cheapest available, in a prestigious contest. In a contest that involves wines selling for hundreds of dollars a bottle, this cheap wine was picked for the gold medal. Judges called it “exceptional, very interesting, excellent bouquet,” and so on. It reminded me of my own taste for wine. While working on a master’s degree at Moorhead State, I tended bar at the Frederick Martin Hotel (the finest in the metro!) in the Skol Room and Treetop Room.

To stay on the job, I had to take a wine course from the California Wine Institute. A student had to distinguish the cheap from the expensive wines. For some reason, I had a lousy palate. Besides, I like martinis. I could never tell the difference between a $2 and a $100 bottle--if there is any. My judgment still is: our billionaires are not going to save us from global warming. Greed is too “good.”