Don't Let Your Kids Grow Up To Be Wealthy

They are the tiniest minority in America, numbering 585.  Most people don't know one.  And yet they are shamelessly pilloried by politicians.  They blame this group for every calamity in America from economic inequality to climate change.  Unlike other minorities, no one rises to their defense.

This diminutive faction is the nation's billionaires. The class has a total net worth of $2.399 trillion.  The exclusive club includes some members as young as 32 and two as old as 88.  Amazon chief Jeff Bezos tops the elite list with total wealth of $112 billion. Bill Gates is distant second at $90 billion.

Once upon a time, it was the American dream to become successful and prosperous.  Average citizens looked in admiration upon self-made millionaires who grew up with little and rose to stirring heights of capitalism.  Not any more.  Today billionaires are villains to be mercilessly disparaged.

Politicians have cast the wealthy as the new boogieman.  Self-described socialist Bernie Sanders has made attacking the "billionaire class" a cornerstone of his 2020 presidential run.  To listen to Sanders on the campaign trail, billionaires should be shackled in a stockade on the public square. 

"We live in a nation owned and controlled by a small number of multi-billionaires whose greed, incredible greed, insatiable greed, is having an unbelievably negative impact of the fabric of the entire country," Sanders ranted in an interview.  Sanders must be jealous that he is only a millionaire.

To underscore his disgust, Sanders took the social media to post the following Tweet: "How many yachts do billionaires need? How many cars do they need?  Give us a break.  You can't have it all."  Spoken like a man who owns three homes with his spouse Jane.

Another Democratic Party presidential contender Elizabeth Warren has made deriding the wealthy a staple of her stump speech.  "America's middle class is under attack," she grumbles.  "How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie."

To punish the rich, Warren has proposed levying a 2 percent additional tax on families with total assets of more than $50 billion and three percent on those with wealth that exceeds $1 billion. These duties would be in addition to her plan to hike taxes on the income of the richest Americans.

The future for billionaires looks gloomy with political newcomers such as New York's Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez bursting on the scene with even more draconian tax plans.  The 29-year-old politician has floated the idea of a 70 percent marginal top rate on incomes above $10 million.

That sounds more like confiscation than taxation.  Not surprising coming from a self-avowed Democratic Socialist.  Only one presidential candidate seems to be bucking the trend of bashing billionaires.  Perhaps, that's because he is one: former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

"I'm self-made," Schultz declared when he was deplored for self-funding his campaign.  "I grew up in the project in Brooklyn, New York.  I thought that was the American dream, the aspiration of America."  Polling from Pew Research suggests Schultz may be out of touch with today's generation.

In a nationwide survey in 2017, Pew found the dream for most Americans is "freedom of choice on how to live."  Having a "good family life" ranks second.  Third is "a comfortable retirement."  At the bottom of the list is "wealth."  However, prosperity makes the first three easier to achieve.

Still that doesn't explain the current visceral hatred toward the wealthy.  Nothing stirs up a crowd, especially of young people, like a verbal spanking of the rich.   Without delving into group psychoanalysis, the explanation might be envy and resentment of those with money. Who knows?

Even politicians are conflicted.  On the one hand they thrash the mega-rich, but use the other hand to take millions in contributions from billionaires, their surrogates and political shell organizations.  Would a sane person hand over money for the privilege of being verbally sprayed by a skunk?

Take Bernie Sanders as an example of this dichotomy.  Sanders made a big show out of the fact his 2016 campaign was largely funded by small donations under $200. However, OpenSecrets reveals that his largest donors were Alphabet, Inc. (Google), Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Boeing and IBM.

The CEO's of each one of those organizations are either multi-millionaires or billionaires. Apparently, they enjoy being lambasted as filthy rich jerks.  These heads of mammoth corporations are either daffy or sadistic.  Makes you wonder about their motive for funding rhetorical flagellation.

In the current political climate, counsel your children and grandchildren to strive to be middle class.  Politicians pander to this economic group.  No one can define the middle class any more, but that matters little.  Middle class is the safe haven from politicians' verbal hostilities.

There is only one problem with having every American pursuing middle economic nirvana.  Who will pay for all those grand schemes, such as Medicare For All and the Green Deal, unless the nation continues to churn out more billionaires?  Now that's a conundrum for Sanders, et al. to ponder.