How to Prevent More Billionaires from Happening
By Thom Hartmann A...
How did we end up with an infestation of billionaires?
Imagine a society with no billionaires.
Numerous countries have tried to accomplish this, but nearly every time they do, the United States intervenes, sometimes covertly like Reagan did in Central America with the contras, and sometimes overtly and explicitly, as JFK did with the attempted invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
We love and defend our billionaires and multimillionaires; after all, we have more of them than any society in the world. The result is that our political system has been corrupted to third-world levels, our middle class has been reduced to servility and deep indebtedness, and a UN representative who recently visited the American South was shocked to find infant mortality, lifespans and hookworm infestations as bad as in some of the world's poorest nations.
And this is the official policy of the United States.
Bill Gates, arguably one of our more benign billionaires, was recently on TV proudly noting that he and his wife have given away "more than $40 billion." Without specific government programs allowing monopolistic behavior and extending government intellectual property protections for extended periods (something Jefferson fought against unsuccessfully), Gates would merely be a multimillionaire.
Does society benefit from having billionaires? And if not, why do we "allow" (and in fact, openly promote) such wealth accumulation, and where did this all begin?
Read more here.
Comments
#2
This is off subject (what was the subject?). While at the Gym today Fox News was on. I was not listening but the major headline caught my eye. "Two Dick's Sporting Goods Employees quit over recent gun sales changes". 17 died at that school in Florida and 20 were wounded and Fox is concerned about 2 employees that quit their $7.50 an hour jobs at Dick's? The changes are that Dick's decided to not supplement the carnage and sell weapons of mass destruction and raised the age to purchases guns to 21. I applaud them for those minor changes.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article203505039.html
https://news.google.com/news/search/section/q/dicks%20sporting%20good/di...
#3
Diane is so brainwashed by Fox and the rest of the right wing media that she literally is a lost cause. She lives in a very small world were facts and history are not allowed. The right wing media specializes in brainwashing the weak minded in this country. They do it very well.
https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=lMqdWv_1M4u-jwSw446gAg&q=righ...
#4
Rick Steve, All you have is the same old tripe. As I stated before, I feel bad for you and will keep you in my prayers.
#5
Reynolds
You poo pooed my post about a very profitable liberal talk radio station.
Why?
If its "more"proof you want...?!?
I'll be happy to put up several more links...
In fact: This ( former) station had so much "local" popularity..that the majority of its advertising came from "local" businesses!
There was a large public outcry when it was "shut down"..
But.. Ownership has its privileges!! And making decisions that had NOTHING to do with the "bottom line" was definitely one of them!!
#6
Diane is a typical Republican. All she has to offer is thoughts and prayers.
#7
There have been rich, and billionaires since the dawn of time and there always will be because that is how the capitalism system is based.
#8
I assume no one is still reading this blog article, but in case you, Brayan, are reading this, I would like to point to an article that appeared in Look magazine in the 1960's. The article was providing information to say why there will never be any billionaires in the US. The article probably didn't say it but it was implied that no billionaires adjusted to 1960 dollars.
It seems that the takeaway is that with the policies of the New Deal and the Great Society no one would become morbidly rich.
Then Reagan and Lewis Powell came along. So, for fifty years until they arrived there were no billionaires.
#9
Hi Jeffisse. Money is an addiction. Like people who are pack rats in there homes. I'm sure you have seen TV shows of people addicted to collecting things in their house, until you can't even move around.
#10
HotCoffie - Well done!
#11
Jeffisse - I too, have wondered the same thing. And spoke about it.
#12
Ownership only has the privileges given to it by the consent of the governed. Unfortunately, the governed are whoever SCOTUS wants.
#13
Peope with ordinary incomes give more as a percentage of their wealth than do people like Gates. More important, because of their relatively greater numbers and independence in deploying their gifts, a more diverse group of recipients are funded by the philanthropy of ordinary income earners. So it would seem that diverting more income and wealth more widely, by any means, would be more beneficial to research and development in America.
We risk suffering increasing industrial tunnel vision when we allow wealth and monopoly power to concentrate in the hands of a few. The value of increasing diversity in ownership and investment and development to the nation as a whole is far greater than the value of greater concentration. This value increase arrises from the increased amount of our total total incomes going into philanthropy, and the greater diversity of philanthropic contributions.
None of this value increase takes into account the additional valuable economic effects of increasing the incomes and wealth of our ordinary income earners. They will consume and create employment at a far greater per dollar of income rate, than will our Billionaires. That will result in even more dramatic increases in prosperity.
So why do we do such stupid things? We do them largely because our government has been being progressively corrupted by massive payments to elected and appointed officials permitted by a corrupted regulators, judges, and an increasingly packed right wing Supreme Court . It won't stop until one guy owns everything, or we rise up to stop the concentration.
#14
Nice post...
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Entertain yourself with wishes but if as you say the most profitable in the nation, it would be a no brainer for some other station national or independent owner to shuffle on over and snatch up all that "progressive" talent and reap those huge profits you talk about..
Forbes sums it up pretty well.
As for leftie/socialist television media one only has to look to MSNBC running "lockup" all weekend or CNN going off in a re-run tangent rather than pay pretty talking heads.
Give it time and you may become viable again the older voter is dying off and the new "free shit" crowd is ripe for picking.
Ref. Me, Forbes