The REAL Problem with Billionaires

It's not what you've been told.

Billionaires can be very dangerous.

The typical leftist reasons for why they are dangerous are wrong, however.

It is not “concentration of wealth,” per se, that is a problem. Economics is not a zero-sum game. My bank account is not smaller because some rich person’s is bigger. That is not how it works.

In fact, the opposite is true. Setting aside complications of crony capitalism (which we can certainly discuss elsewhere), people get rich by adding value to an economy. That value then creates new economic activity and new jobs.

This added value does not shift an existing amount of wealth from one place to another. It creates NEW wealth. The economy is not a pie. I don’t get a smaller slice because someone else got a bigger one.

Indeed, if it were a pie, then productive rich people are the ones who grow it. To wit…

Every so often, a country will pass a luxury tax on yachts. The results are as predictable as the rising of the sun. The rich do not suffer. They move their boats to a non-tax area, or they forgo buying a boat and do something else instead.

It is everyone else associated with the boating industry who suffers. The shipwrights. The boatyard workers. The boat painters and the boat cleaners. The guys who captain their boats for them, so they can entertain friends at sea.

The damage then spreads to every other industry tied to the boating industry. The people who make the boat paint…the truckers who ship it…the waitresses who poured their coffee…and on and on. The boat tax in 1990 in the U.S. was meant to “make the rich pay their fair share.” All it actually did was destroy an estimated 25,000 jobs—jobs that “regular” people needed. QED. Every. Damn. Time.

Moreover, that 25,000 may not have even taken into account the tertiary and quaternary effects, like the maids and babysitters who never got hired, and all the people they would have helped with their added income and economic activity.

The existence of rich people does not impoverish others. Take away one of the billionaire’s homes and he doesn’t suffer. The staff who cared for the house and grounds suffer. The woman who came weekly to teach the daughter piano suffers.

No one is homeless because a billionaire has an extra home. Or two extra homes, or three, or nine extra. That is not how things work.

No one lacks a dollar because a billionaire has a lot of them. No one goes hungry because he just ate a $200 surf and turf dinner.

That is just not how economics works.

The Marxian zero-sum-game picture of economics is caveman garbage.¹ It is riddled with envy and greed and virtue signaling and top-shelf ignorance. You should not fall for it.

BUT…

All that said, there is a way in which billionaires can be dangerous. Very dangerous.

But this is only the start of our surveillance dystopia, according to Larry Ellison, the billionaire cofounder of Oracle. He said AI will usher in a new era of surveillance that he gleefully said will ensure “citizens will be on their best behavior.” […]

Ellison said AI would be used in the future to constantly watch and analyze vast surveillance systems, like security cameras, police body cameras, doorbell cameras, and vehicle dashboard cameras.

“We're going to have supervision,” Ellison said…. “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on.” […]

Ellison is the world's sixth-richest man with a net worth of $157 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Is it all just talk? Nope. He’s gonna make it happen:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday talked up a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence by a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.

The new entity, Stargate, will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House. The initial investment is expected to be $100 billion and could reach five times that sum. […]

Joining Trump fresh off his inauguration at the White House were Masayoshi Son of SoftBank, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle. All three credited Trump for helping to make the project possible, even though building has already started and the project goes back to 2024. (read more)

From surveillance outside, we then move to manipulation inside…

“One of the most exciting things we're working on – again using the tools that Sam and Masa are providing – is our cancer vaccine,” Ellison said during a news conference with Trump in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Tuesday.

Ellison said early cancer detection can be provided with a simple blood test, and artificial intelligence can be leveraged to look at the blood test and find the cancers that are seriously threatening someone's health.

“Then beyond that, once we gene-sequence that cancer tumor, you can then vaccinate the person, design a vaccine for every individual person to vaccinate them against that cancer,” Ellison continued. “And you can make that vaccine, that mRNA vaccine, you can make that robotically again using AI in about 48 hours.”

So, how many of you hear “mRNA vaccine” and think Yeah, sign me up!

As @uTobian posits on Xwitter:

You get a blood test at your annual physical. The doctor says, “we see evidence of cancer floating in your blood.” You're ordered to get Larry Ellison's patented AI gene therapy that costs $500,000 per dose. You get four treatments and the last dose kills you. The doctor shrugs and says, “we did everything we could.” All wealth is now drained from your family. You never had cancer in the first place. Larry has liability protection because he called his injections a “vaccine”. This is quite possibly the biggest grift in history. “The Stargate Project” is Operation Warp Speed 2.0 on steroids.

At first blush, the words “you’re ordered to get…” sound overwrought. Then you remember 2020-2022. They ordered us to do a lot of things.

The data are unequivocal: mRNA covid vaccines are killing people. And here is a billionaire saying,

Guess what—I am going to use my billions to do more of that! Isn’t that so cool?

I don't care how much money billionaires have. I don’t care how many houses and yachts they buy. That sort of economic activity helps “regular” people like me.

But as soon as they start using their wealth to try to manipulate my life—our lives—they become a serious problem.

And then, they crawl in bed with

• governments—who have inescapable power and authority over us, and

• weirdo globalist power-players—who pull strings from shadowy places for shadowy reasons

THAT is the problem with billionaires. And governments. And the weirdo ideologues who wield the power that governments give them. It’s not money that is the problem. It’s power and force.

And I have just found the perfect song to describe all this for #FreedomMusicFriday!

The lyrics really do speak for themselves, so follow along. You will see exactly what I mean:

Compliance
We just need your compliance
You will feel no pain anymore
No more defiance

We just need your compliance
Just give us your compliance
We won't let you feel lost anymore
No more self-reliance

Fall into line, you will do as you're told
No choice fatigue, your blood is running cold
We lose control, the world will fall apart
Love of your life will mend your broken heart

Life lived in fear, you need protection
You're all alone, too much rejection
We have what you need, just reach out and touch
We can save you (we can save you)

We just need your compliance
We just need your compliance
You will feel no pain anymore
No more defiance
Just give us your compliance

Cover your tracks, we know what's best for you
You've bitten off much more than you can chew
You're running scared, you'll run into our arms
Come join our clique, we'll keep you safe from harm

Our toy soldier, you'll do the dirty work
Stay loyal to us, we'll take away the hurt
We have what you need, just reach out and touch
We can save you (we can save you)

[…]

Ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh, oh-oh
Ooh, ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh (we can save you)

[…]

Oh, fear is controlling you
It's time to give it up
And give in to us (we can save you)
Give us your compliance

1. When I say “caveman,” I mean it quite literally. Caveman economies were zero-sum: there were only so many buffalo and berries per given area. Resentment of a high Gini coefficient is a throwback to basic hominid programming. And using force to take stuff that others produce—which is, after all, the left’s stock and trade—is a strategy as old as our species.