What happens to a man when he becomes a billionaire?
I’d include women in that question if they represented more than the 12% of existing billionaires, but it would be surprising to a lot of us to know that there are fully 337 female billionaires out there in the first place. Surprising, not because they’re women, but rather because 337 is 12% of a much larger number of total billionaires. And to me, that’s just flat-out troubling.
Female billionaires don’t appear to be the type who run around wedging their names into the world’s headlines. They don’t appear to offer overly contentious commentary of local, national, and international stages. I’m absolutely positive they have the financial heft to make their opinions known, and probably aren’t terribly shy in making their wishes come true. They just seem to go about it in a way that makes them come up a rosier version of their male counterparts.
Miriam Adelson gave Donald Trump $95 million in campaign donations this last time out, which is a pretty good chunk of change if you ask me. But you don’t see her flashing Nazi salutes and heading up a government witch-hunt operation like her comrade-in-cash Elon Musk, who delights himself as being the anti-everything good and proper and presenting himself like some caricaturized version of a 1940’s comic book villain. I wish Batman would show up and “sock” the little prick a good one, but Bruce Wayne was a wealthy man, and who knows? Maybe he’s a jerk too when he doesn’t have his tights on.
I was struck by the number of luminaries in “Billionaires Row” who stood behind their hero Donald Trump at his inauguration, like they were the new Royal Family of America, that is after they fall into place behind all the sons, daughters, wives, and various other hangers-on in the Trumpian orbit.
I didn’t see Miriam Adelson there. Does $95 million not get you a good seat at something like this?
Up here in Canada, we have something called election law. Part of that law captures the idea that you shown’t be able to buy your way into influence with government. That means there are limits as to how much a person or entity can contribute to a candidate or a campaign. Sure, rich people find a way around this, like they find ways around everything, and so they’ll line up a bunch of people and have them donate on their behalf in exchange for nudge-nudge, wink-wink, know what I mean?
I often ask myself how I might change as a person should I ever become rich. It’s a game poor people play, the sort of fantasy-thinking that one indulges in when they’re thinking about how they’re going to make this months’s rent. I keep telling myself that, should I stumble across millions, hell let’s make that billions, that it wouldn’t fundamentally change who I am and how I approach things. Aside from perhaps a minor adjustment to my security detail, as in having one in the first place, I’d like to think that good ‘ol Grampy Steve would remain good ‘ol Grampy Steve, although exponentially more popular I’d guess.
I really can’t see myself Hitler-saluting much, or dancing around stages, or launching rockets that crash, or interfering in foreign elections. I could see myself watching television on a much larger television, not that there’s anything wrong with my current one, but for crying out loud, I’m a billionaire, so I need to spend my cash on something, right? And if I’m a billionaire, I should have the biggest television out of anyone, including my buddy Dave in Cornwall, who has always prided himself on having the biggest box on the block. There you go, Dave. No winning this fight, ‘cause I’m a billionaire now.
Why are billionaires so angry?
Think about that for a second. Doesn’t it seem that they all have a significant chip on their shoulder? Like now’s the time they’re going to pay us all back for all the bullying they received while in school and growing up, mostly because they were weird as fuck.
Did you see Mark Zuckerberg’s hair? That’s what owning billions of dollars gets you? My goodness, Mark, you might be well-advised to have someone look into the possibility of just going bald, shaving yourself daily so you can look like all the other aerodynamic billionaires out there. I exclude the women billionaires from this last comment, not because I think they’d look all that bad cruising through life with zero drag, but rather because that just might be a step too far too fast for the rest of us to keep up with.
Of course, these were only the so-called “tech” billionaires who were arrayed behind the Filet O’ Fish who is now president. Women generally arrived at their billions through inheritance rather than coming up with ways for us to carve each other to pieces in public forums without any rules of civility. To be fair, there are many women billionaires out there who earned every dime themselves, it’s just statistically fewer than their male counterparts, largely owing to historical inequalities that existed (exist?) between women and men regarding the accumulation of wealth in our capitalist society, or any society for that matter. It’s not because women are less capable, it’s just that they were held down under the thumb of male-dominated societies.
Don’t believe me? Ask any woman.
I didn’t see Kanye West on-stage at the inauguration. Which is a blessing because the less I see of him the better, but still, wasn’t he the billionaire of colour who held a virtual press conference right in front of Agent Orange in the Oval Office several years ago? What the hell happened to him? I mean, I really don’t care what happened to him, other than to comment on his wife’s Grammy Award dress, which is another case of what billions can buy. And his wife’s facial expressions? Also known as the thousand-yard stare, an expression often encountered in severely overwhelmed soldiers who have seen too much, witnessed too much, and now are a shell of their former selves, this to last for the rest of their lives. Poor woman.
We should start of Go-Fund-Me.
Kim Kardashian is a billionaire too, but somehow doesn’t seem to come across as a five-star jerk despite her celebrity status. She was married to a billionaire, Kanye West again, and sure that was part of her notoriety, but her billions are not necessarily his billions, they’re self-made through hard work, and she’s proven that you can have a more or less normal life despite the overwhelming need for attention and relevancy. We should all be just thankful she doesn’t have that deer-in-headlights look after being married to that screw-ball all those years.
I’m actually surprised Trump doesn’t have that look himself, because Kanye was in his office for over an hour. That would be a lot for anyone. But maybe Trump sees a little bit of himself in the man, given they both have their own sneaker line, although to my knowledge I don’t know if West is in to shilling bibles.
Actually, Zuckerberg himself seems to have the look, which I guess is always going to be a possibility when you’re locked inside that body with Mark Zuckerberg. Thank the God’s he doesn’t take wardrobe advice from Kanye.
Anyways, to be completely fair, the boys behind the president a few weeks back represent only a handful of the fewer than 4,000 billionaires currently walking the planet. And sure, there were plenty of other conservative-minded money-hogs who supported their boy with tens of millions in donations themselves.
But not all of them can be like this, can they?
Is Bill Gates the nicest billionaire? Or is he just the nicest “known” billionaire? And is he even nice?
All I know is that, if you’re a billionaire, you can do pretty much whatever you want. So I’m kind of looking for the list of them who weren’t on that stage, who didn’t donate tens of millions to political campaigns, and who don’t throw their weight and influence around to bend everyone to their will.
Billionaires like me, who like to stay at home and watch television on the biggest ##%@**&## television ever made.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 