American Plutocracy

Robert Reich is a master of statistics. He uses them to illuminate that we are living in a plutocracy. Plutocrats have most of the money. As a general rule, plutocrats donate to Republican politicians, and Republican politicians vote to serve the interest of plutocrats, which for the most part is to get even richer. Republicans are aligned against the stimulus bill and raise in the minimum wage to $15 an hour. In a Facebook posting yesterday, Reich noted: “The 1.3 trillion wealth gain by America’s 660 billionaires since the pandemic began would pay for a stimulus check of $3,900 for every one of the 331 million people in the U.S. and the billionaires would be as rich as they were before the pandemic.” 

Even the billionaires would get $3,900 each! Those worth about four billion, for example, would each get about one-millionth richer than they were before their stimulus check arrived. Richer ones, worth about forty billion (much much less rich than Jeff Bezos), would only get only one-ten-millionth richer. Really, there’s  not much in it for them.