News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Mar. 8, 2019: President Trump always sees himself as #1.
Most of us know that as Fake News ….
And there is startling new news this week to confirm it!
And in telling the Truth here in this episode as I always do, there is a much larger story to be told a powerful lesson for the next Presidential election.
FIRST OF ALL what am I talking about that Trump is only #715??? As always I wanted to get your attention in an entertaining way. You love it!
Forbes Magazine just released its famous or infamous annual Billionaires list for 2019. It is loaded I mean loaded with a hoard and I mean ravenous hoard of the richest men and women on Earth. If you like huge wealth there is some good news for women. More are making the List each year.
Overall Forbes ranking the richest from #1 to #1000 which brings the total to well over 1000 in fact Forbes says there are 2153 Billionaires on Earth. Believe it or not 55 less than last year. Yes 55 of them are now only worth $900 Million or so. If they can live with that ! Pity them their losses.
Back to the 2019 Billionaires which includes a few dead people like Steve Balmer #19 co-founder of Microsoft who died last year who apparently is now in Billionaire Heaven living very well. Overall as you move down the list of the living to the “poorer” Billionaires there are groups of them who share the same amount of wealth. For example, those worth $3.1 BILLION.
Forbes says there are 50 Billionaires on Earth worth $3.1 Billion today. Most of them you probably never heard of. One I do is would be NYC mayor John Catsimatidis the well known Greek New York entrepreneur.
Finally now yes there is one very famous the most famous Billionaire of all at #715 President Donald Trump!! America’s first Billionaire President!!!
Specifically here in the United States there are 587 Billionaires of course the largest group of Billionaires anywhere on Earth as is only right here in The Land Of The Rich. From the world’s Richest Human Greed Merchant Jeff Bezos at $131 Billion and increasing every day all the way down to 17 lowly American Billionaires worth just $1 Billion each. So sad. Just $1 Billion.
Now that you think you know all you really need to know about the world’s 2153 Billionaires in 2019 except maybe why you are not one ….
Let’s get to the real story of this week’s episode about the rest of us. There are almost 8 Billion men, women and children on Earth today but only 2153 Billionaires. There are 99.999999+% of the rest of us who are not.
This episode is about the Forbes List and Trump and the other 586 American Billionaires and the rest of the 1% worth slightly less and more precisely an insightful article included in Forbes special Billionaires issue titled ….
“Reimagining Capitalism: How The Greatest System Ever Conceived (And Its Billionaires) Need To Change.” QUITE A TITLE!!
And this article delivers. So I am deputizing Forbes as this week’s media partner. A first for Forbes and a distinct honor for them! Let’s dig in …
1) Of the billionaires willing to speak on the record. Virtually everyone I talked to acknowledged the need for change. Some incremental and many systemic; some spoke in whispers, many in full-throated pleas for “reform” or “a reboot.”
Interpretation … time for Billionaires to pay their FAIR share.
2) Pick the brains of some of the greatest-ever manifestations of the American Dream, and an AAA-version of capitalism emerges, one moreauthentic, accessible and accountable—and perhaps, in an age of uncertainty, one that’s built to last. The stakes couldn’t be higher, as forces gather to threaten the greatest prosperity engine ever built.
Interpretation …. Most Americans want a NEW kind of Capitalism
3) In an era when consumers crave authenticity, the Tocqueville version, which sees profits as a by-product of business rather than its singular mission, offers a natural strain of capitalism that’s already hugely popular, especially among younger Americans. For Millennials, according to a massive Deloitte survey in 2018, the bottom three priorities for a business should be profits, efficiency and sales. The top three? Generating jobs, improving society and innovation.
Interpretation … Making maximum profits no matter what the impact on the rest of us is NOT a legitimate goal for the future.
4) Authenticity explains why Americans, while disliking Wall Street and big business, continue to love entrepreneurs (87% approval, per Gallup) and small business (96%).
Interpretation … Americans favor real entrepreneurs and small businesses NOT predatory Fat Cats or monopolies masquerading to be and fooling us.
5) 42% of Americans do not think “the way capitalism works in the U.S. these days” gives them “a fair shot.”
Interpretation .. Lots of Americans view Capitalism as a Con Game today.
6) And there are ample stats to back up the sentiment. In the U.S. the top 1% of workers, collectively, earn vastly more than the bottom 50%. “The market system as it gets more specialized pushes more money to the top,”
Interpretation …. Proof positive that inequality is OUT of control today.
7) But the situation is actually far worse than yawning income disparity. Americans have historically viewed the super-rich as heroes, not villains, for a simple reason: “We all thought we could be like them,” Jones says. It’s the accelerating lack of upward mobility that’s fueling much of this populist anger. For all the anecdotal success stories, if you’re born in the wrong Zip code, to the wrong parents, the road to The Forbes 400 has never looked longer or narrower.
Interpretation … The future is a dead end treadmill for many Americans.
8) “Unless we find a market-based solution to the exponential growth in inequality, we will end up with populist legislation that creates a hammer to go after every nail,” Jones says. He’s right. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s much-touted 70% income tax bracket displays a stark lack of understanding how fortunes in this country are built—through ownership, not earnings. Elizabeth Warren’s wealth surcharge would require an army of appraisers.
Interpretation …. If we don’t find good solutions there will be worse ones.
9) Virtually every billionaire I spoke with acknowledged that higher taxes on the billionaire set are inevitable; most even saw them as beneficial, if correctly applied. According to Gates, Buffett, Khosla and others, the correct way to levy taxes on the superrich is at a transaction point. Either an estate tax without the loopholes that currently render it useless or a higher capital gains tax applied only on extreme fortunes, to avoid suppressing growth.
Interpretation … Super Rich say they want to pay more taxes. Really ??
Now let me add #10 myself to make it even far better ..We need a better newer America for the future and forever more for all of us that is really based on basic necessary equality and fairness and even better results based on fair and open access to opportunity based on intelligence, imagination and determination not who you are or who you know.
Interpretation ….. NOT a perfect America. Only a far better America from the results of the election of 2020 and especially who we elect as President.
(This series dedicated in honor of the late Liu Xiaobo & Jamal Khashoggi)
