Good news everybody! Not everybody is being hurt by our global pandemic and economic crisis! In fact, one group of very special people, best known for making lots of money—usually for one silly thing like being wealthy enough to invest in PayPal—are making a killing! Billionaires!
Business Insider reports that since March of this year, the American billionaires amongst us (who are we kidding? They are usually above us … frequently on private planes and such) were able to add $930.7 billion to their collective net worth. Hold on while I respect the flag and listen to the playing of the National Anthem by some public school kids who have had their school’s music program cut.
These 644 people retain $3.88 trillion in wealth, almost double what the rest of us—165 million Americans—collectively have. U-S-A, U-S-A. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly at all, our economy has “contracted” a world-beating 33% percent since last year. But somehow, these (mostly) men of industry have been able to horde more and more wealth. Shocking in a not-really-shocking sort of way.
The top winners this pandemic were Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Quicken Loans’ Dan Gilbert. But don’t you worry, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is still on top, worth somewhere around $200 billion. In a side note, the median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment is about $1,216, and there are upwards of 35 million Americans facing evictions because of late rent.
$1,216 x 35,000,000 = $42,560,000,000.
Those 644 billionaires could give that net worth back, pay for almost two years worth of rent … and still be billionaires. Considering that there are somewhere around 43 million Americans renting, and considering how much money people and their family have to spend on basic housing, it is obscene that people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are allowed to horde the amount of money they horde.
from Daily Kos https://ift.tt/3oclcD5
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