August
02-05-19, 07:30 PM
There is lotta truth here:
Income inequality in the US celebrated its 50th birthday last year. Having declined steadily after World War II, 1968 began a 50-year winning streak. Few are cheering, though, because concentrations of wealth are dangerous. People controlling huge amounts of money can use their buying power to push us all around. Hence billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett are much in the news on the receiving end of public opprobrium.
I’m happy about that. It keeps the pitchforks pointed away from me and my even greater piles of dough. Mark and Bill are comfortable, to be sure, but the really rich are in another league. There are about 500 of us with spending power to make Zuckerberg’s eyes bulge. He may have $56 billion, but it’s mostly on paper in Facebook stock, and it took him decades to acquire. His entire net worth is merely pocket money to people like me: we spend that much every two weeks.
I don’t normally talk about the vast sums at my disposal. I’m more often leading the mob denouncing the rich. But I wanted to get it off my chest, and I feel I can confide in you not to spread it around.
How I Put Food on the Table
I’d better start with the basics: I’m a politician. My job is to oversee public services like roads and police.
You may think mine a mostly passive job—the humble public servant faithfully channeling the Will of the People and doing his best to effect it in a difficult political environment.
But the truth is I’m an entrepreneur just like Zuckerberg. To advance my career I must find a problem people worry about—or can be persuaded to worry about—and then convince them I’m a better bet to solve it than the other candidate. I scour Twitter for the outrage of the week. I look for industry missteps I can claim to solve by hiring regulators.
Like other entrepreneurs, there are no limits on where I can look for problems to “productize”; I don’t have to stick to just the roads and the police. In fact, if I did I’d be out of a job quickly because my field is brutally competitive. Anything is fair game: the public hazard of unlicensed florists. Reckless dispensation of plastic straws. The pet rescuer menace. The low hanging fruit is long picked; to keep putting food on my table, I have to get imaginative.
I make it sound like a burden, but finding causes to champion is the easy part of my job, and thundering about them in the news is great fun. “Six million seniors are being deprived of meals!” I’ll scream. “Democrats want to give undocumented immigrants cars!” All the attention and theatrics of being a professional wrestler, without the bruises.
https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/im-00001-my-confession?fbclid=IwAR2S4CYE0mNMjXGpZnltPUNJ94ihwt nkNMma22pyCz7E1px6f8Xibf-nlfA
Income inequality in the US celebrated its 50th birthday last year. Having declined steadily after World War II, 1968 began a 50-year winning streak. Few are cheering, though, because concentrations of wealth are dangerous. People controlling huge amounts of money can use their buying power to push us all around. Hence billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett are much in the news on the receiving end of public opprobrium.
I’m happy about that. It keeps the pitchforks pointed away from me and my even greater piles of dough. Mark and Bill are comfortable, to be sure, but the really rich are in another league. There are about 500 of us with spending power to make Zuckerberg’s eyes bulge. He may have $56 billion, but it’s mostly on paper in Facebook stock, and it took him decades to acquire. His entire net worth is merely pocket money to people like me: we spend that much every two weeks.
I don’t normally talk about the vast sums at my disposal. I’m more often leading the mob denouncing the rich. But I wanted to get it off my chest, and I feel I can confide in you not to spread it around.
How I Put Food on the Table
I’d better start with the basics: I’m a politician. My job is to oversee public services like roads and police.
You may think mine a mostly passive job—the humble public servant faithfully channeling the Will of the People and doing his best to effect it in a difficult political environment.
But the truth is I’m an entrepreneur just like Zuckerberg. To advance my career I must find a problem people worry about—or can be persuaded to worry about—and then convince them I’m a better bet to solve it than the other candidate. I scour Twitter for the outrage of the week. I look for industry missteps I can claim to solve by hiring regulators.
Like other entrepreneurs, there are no limits on where I can look for problems to “productize”; I don’t have to stick to just the roads and the police. In fact, if I did I’d be out of a job quickly because my field is brutally competitive. Anything is fair game: the public hazard of unlicensed florists. Reckless dispensation of plastic straws. The pet rescuer menace. The low hanging fruit is long picked; to keep putting food on my table, I have to get imaginative.
I make it sound like a burden, but finding causes to champion is the easy part of my job, and thundering about them in the news is great fun. “Six million seniors are being deprived of meals!” I’ll scream. “Democrats want to give undocumented immigrants cars!” All the attention and theatrics of being a professional wrestler, without the bruises.
https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/im-00001-my-confession?fbclid=IwAR2S4CYE0mNMjXGpZnltPUNJ94ihwt nkNMma22pyCz7E1px6f8Xibf-nlfA