Ranting About Billionaires

Is your yearly budget less than a million dollars? If you had a billion dollars, you could spend a million a year for a thousand years, and you still wouldn't run out, because all that time, your money would have been invested in accounts that pay interest and dividends, so more money just keeps rolling in.

Now, imagine you had not just one billion, not two billion, but a hundred billion, or three hundred billion. With 300 billion, you could spend a million dollars EVERY DAY, and you'd have money left over at the end of 22,000 years.

That sure seems like enough money, doesn't it? But the guys who have that much, or close to it, don't think it's enough at all. They can own dozens of homes in different countries, buy private islands, own personal jets and huge yachts, indulge in collecting rare automobiles or historical jewelry, go anywhere they like, purchase any clothing, any food they want, get cosmetic surgery every year, send their children to the greatest universities, spend the night gambling in Monte Carlo, ski at the most exclusive resorts, get the best medical care in the world, bribe politicians just about everywhere, build stadiums and skyscrapers with their name on it, and - just for a change of pace - donate millions to charity. But they still don't think they have enough. They are constantly scheming to get even more. Many of those schemes require taking away what other people - you and me - have.

They want the power to make us pay for the infrastructure and institutions that make modern life possible for them. While they make $5000 a minute, they begrudge us $15 an hour. They want to eliminate the rules that keep our food safe and our water clean, because they can make bigger profits if they don't have to be clean or careful.

Why? Why do they want to cancel the retirement income of the elderly, cut off health care for the middle class, or withhold food from schoolchildren? They want every possible penny in their own pockets. They already have more than enough, more than too much. But they aren't satisfied. Greed gnaws at them the way hunger gnaws at a starving animal. More, more, more, howl the voices inside them. The sight of comfortable people enjoying safe, healthy lives fills them with anxiety. Those people driving nice cars and living in pretty houses represent pennies that should be in the billionaires' pockets. Your retirement account is cash that they want.

They are much happier when the world around them is populated by hungry peasants dressed in rags and dying young, because then they can feel assured that they have taken everything for themselves.

Links:

♦ Billionaires Lying to Convince Us to Destroy Our Government
♦ Billionaires Hate Us

 

The Right Person For the Job

Imagine you have a problem with the electrical wiring in your home. You call a company that advertises as an electrical contractor. However, it turns out the owner of the company is not an electrician. He's a guy who used to manage a pizza place, and he often talks about the "concepts of electricity."

You're not worried, because he won't be doing the actual work. He just hired a head electrician. Until recently, this guy was a swimming instructor. He has never attended a trade school to learn the electrician's craft, but he does have several family members who are plumbers or carpenters, and claims to have some important ideas about electricity.

There is another recently-hired electrician who is actually a lawyer, not a licensed electrician. He writes a blog explaining that county building codes do not protect public safety. He thinks building inspectors should be replaced by yoga instructors and nutritionists.

The third employee was a licensed electrical contractor, but his license expired three years ago. According to Yelp reviews, he often tells customers that spaghetti is a good substitute for copper wire.

Knowing all this, would you go ahead and hire this company, or would you look elsewhere?

 

Cheating is Hard Work

When I was in college I had a 4.0 GPA. I'm not a genius! The main difference between me and the guys who flunked out was that I paid attention in class, and I studied.

Once in algebra class, after a big test, everyone was comparing grades. Most of the people around me had scores below 60. Mine was 85. One guy asked me how I did it. I explained to him that I had spent approximately 16 hours studying. "Well then, you deserve it," he said. He looked very sad, though. I think he had been hoping I would reveal some magic trick that anyone could do. Actually, that's what it was.

Later, when I became a teacher, I noticed there were many students who believed the only way they could get good grades was by cheating. They would put a lot of energy into devising clever ways of cheating. Sometimes they got away with it, but in the long run they did not do well, because they didn't learn much. They were never able to pass the carefully proctored final exams.

If only they had taken all the time, effort, and ingenuity that went into cheating and used it for actual studying, they would have easily graduated with honors. Instead they had to take classes over, and some never graduated.

 

Call Back Later

There was a time when all our phones were landlines. We didn't call them landlines; we just called them phones. They were attached to the wall by cords. Some people equipped their phones with extra long cords so they could walk across the room while talking.

My friend Char, who lived in a small studio apartment, had a cord long enough that she could get to any spot in the apartment while she was on the phone. On a couple of occasions, while we were conversing, I heard the toilet flush.

"If you're going to use the toilet while we're talking," I told her, "I don't want to know. Please flush after we hang up."

Now that everyone has a mobile phone, it seems that making calls from the toilet is a common practice. I notice this in public restrooms, where I often hear the person in the next stall chatting away. Some women like to use the handicap stall as a phone booth. (These are probably the same people who use it as a dressing room.)

At home, it doesn't occur to me to carry my phone into the bathroom. In a public place, my phone is in my purse and goes where I go. If it rings while I'm busy, I don't answer.

Some people, though, can't resist answering a call. And if the call of nature happens simultaneously with the call of the phone, they multitask. Some see their toilet time as an opportunity for privacy, and schedule their calls accordingly.

A recent study suggests the 39 percent of people take their phones to the washroom, and that nearly half of those people have dropped the phone into the toilet. This isn't good for the phones. I once managed to accidentally drop my phone into a glass of water, just a week after I got it. Fortunately, it was insured, and I got a quick replacement. As silly as I felt at the time, how much more embarrassed would I have been if the phone had vanished into the commode?

Although the obvious solution is to stop making calls in the bathroom, it seems unlikely people will change that bevavior. I suggest wearing the phone on a lanyard. Many people have already thought of this, and there is a wide choice of suitable products available from all the usual places.