American Plutocrats Have Contempt for Working People

The 1 percent Wants Americans to Work Themselves to Death

Sen. Richard Burr only warned wealthy donors about the coronavirus threat. (Facebook)

I’ve figured out how the world ends. It ends with the rich and connected jetting off to another planet on a warp-drive enabled starship, while the rest of us are left to deal with the inevitable man-made or natural disaster.

I don’t think this scenario, also depicted in the disaster movie “2012,” is too extreme. Several recent actions show that the 1 percent have utter disregard for working people. America is a plutocracy, (a country governed by wealthy people) not a democracy. It’s run for and by a new age of unfeeling landed gentry who think anyone who makes less than $1 million is a lower lifeform.

FOX News’ Sean Hannity wants Americans to get back to work.

Here are a few recent examples:

Senators Protected Their Stock Not the Country

Several senators on both sides of the aisle, including Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.,) decided to dump their stock when they received advanced warning of the coronavirus pandemic. On Feb. 13, Burr dumped $1.7 million worth of stock.

Burr’s case was particularly damning because he chairs the Select Committee on Intelligence. His job is literally to oversee the security of the American people! Even worse, he gave advanced warning to a group of wealthy donors because apparently, only rich people deserve to be safe and sound. Who cares if the unwashed masses die?

Loeffler’s case was equally as bad. In January, she dumped her stock and invested in medical equipment and teleconferencing companies because a pandemic is always a good time to make a buck!

Republican Donor Recommended Trump Slash CDC Budget

According to an article in The Intercept published on March 26, Charles Koch, a longtime Republican donor and advocate of deregulation and laissez-faire economics, pushed for massive cuts to the CDC.

“Americans for Prosperity’s (a group funded by Koch) position, which directly contradicts the advice of medical experts who say that social isolation is essential to curbing the spread of the coronavirus, comes after the group lobbied the Trump administration in 2018 to rescind $1 billion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” said Lee Fang.

This is the organization that could have warned the country about the coronavirus and prevented 20,000 American deaths. Koch’s behavior shouldn’t be surprising, he has advocated for policies that allow companies, such as Koch Industries, to get away with polluting the environment for years.

Many plutocrats, such as Koch, Trump, and President George W. Bush inherited their wealth and as the old saying goes, once you’re born on third base, it’s pretty easy to hit a home run. Also, in the cases of Trump and Bush, their families bailed them out of several financial and criminal scrapes.

What’s particularly damning about Koch’s attitude is that he’s currently worth $43.2 billion, but wants budget cuts and tax reduction, so he can make even more money! According to liberal talk show host Thom Hartmann, people like Koch, who have enough money to last several lifetimes, suffer from a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. But instead of hoarding newspapers and other junk, they hoard money.

I don’t begrudge the 1 percent their fortunes but what troubles me is their utter contempt for ordinary people. They seem to assume that if you’re not like them, you didn’t work hard enough. But many plutocrats, such as Koch, Trump, and President George W. Bush inherited their wealth and as the old saying goes, once you’re born on third base, it’s pretty easy to hit a home run. Also, in the cases of Trump and Bush, their families bailed them out of several financial and criminal scrapes.

It’s Luck, Not Talent

Additionally, self-made millionaires like Mark Zuckerberg often just got lucky and happened to be at the right place at the right time with the right idea. They didn’t work any harder or possess special talents, the stars simply aligned in their favor. They might brand themselves as titans of the business world but much of their success is based on dumb luck. This concept was studied in a computer model by a team of Italian researchers from the University of Catania.

“The computer spit out what’s known as the power law, or the 80:20 rule. A famous concept in economics, the power law says no matter what economy you look at, almost everywhere, 20% of the people own 80% of the wealth. What’s more, luck was the single greatest determinant in wealth acquisition,” said Big Think in 2018.

The Haves and the Have Nothings

Many of the 1 percent have also supported budget-cutting policies, like Koch, that have led to a hollowing out of society. Those gaps have been brutally exposed by the coronavirus — medical personnel dying from lack of equipment, citizens dying from lack of healthcare and homeless people dying on the streets or in unsanitary shelters. A New York doctor on Sunday’s “60 Minutes” piece on the coronavirus described the conditions as “catastrophic.”

Any student of history knows that this situation is unsustainable. You can’t have a 1 percent that has everything and a 99 percent living with crumbling infrastructure and a lack of basic services. If a society fails to invest in its people or facilities, it leaves itself open to disasters such as the coronavirus that ultimately don’t care about your status in life.