Elon Musk Demonstrates Why Billionaires Should Not Exist

In an op-ed for The New York Times author Anand Giridharadas explains how billionaires have made it abundantly clear that they should not exist, citing the examples of Elon Musk, Sam Bankman-Fried, Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump.

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The Humanist Report (THR) is a progressive political podcast that discusses and analyzes current news events and pressing political issues. Our analyses are guided by humanism and political progressivism. Each news story we cover is supplemented with thought-provoking, fact-based commentary that aims for the highest level of objectivity.

#HumanistReport #billionaires #elonmusk

[DrinkTheKoolAid]

I have more confidence in aliens swooping down to save the planet than I do in billionaires lifting a finger to help a single dying child

[ronnibrant]

Billionaires do no exist without oppression, exploitation, and corruption. It is literally impossible to amass that kind of wealth without those three elements involved. There is no such thing as a good billionaire.

[matthewgagnon]

The only way billionaires exist is by stealing everyone else's wages. It means they could be paying their employees massive amounts more while still being very wealthy themselves. It's absolutely sickening.

[typeviic]

Today's billionaires are yesterday's kings, queens, and feudal lords.

[eaglesclaws]

I'm happy he is blowing up Twitter but that's too much power for one person to have over our economy.

[xuto]

Simply hearing the word "billionaire" should strike fear into most people, not adoration. They are predators. We are insects to them. Toys, food.

They should make you feel small, insignificant, preyed upon. And that should make you angry. We do not have to tolerate them. And we shouldn't.

[tureytayno]

The problem with greed is that it have no fill. You can have enough love, enough happyness but a greedy person feels that there is never enough wealth.

[TempestMauve]

In a world filled with finite resources, billionaires shouldn't exist simply because they take up much more than their fair share of living space.

[FluxNomad]

Are we basically seeing Robber Baron Philanthropy? Like way back Carnegie paying shit wages so he can raise the money to build concert halls and libraries?

[merriemelodiesfan]

I agree, if billionaires exist only to serve the sole purpose to harm others around them by holding people down, subjected to their whims, then they shouldn't exist and be taxed into oblivion. The United States would be a better place if billionaires didn't act like shitheads drunk with power and wealth, it's why I have burning hatred towards billionaires.

[megamattx]

If anyone wondering why Mainstream Media news sites arn't criticizing Elon Musk, it's because they are owned by billionaires as well

[YusufGinnah]

Absolutely agree!
There isn't any way in hell (or on Earth) that any single human being could have provided that much of value...
Either to society, the world or humanity as a whole...
That would justify them 'earning' such obscene quantities of wealth.

[bobbybishop]

The catering to corporations instead of the people is what needs to stop.

[bruceleeroy]

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are basically Lex Luthor and the Joker respectively.

[robsands]

The idea that someone can somehow "earn" billions of dollars is so ludicrous

[davidsenderodelsanto]

Being an older member of the human race I remember the 1970s when the scions of the Gilded Age, the descendants of those FDR titled "Malefactors of Great Wealth" had to close off sections of their ridiculous mansions to pay the utility bills, yet the rest of us lived lives that were while far from opulent, were comfortable and secure. The idea that in the first quarter of the 21st century we would have a social class that Bank of America executives would call the Precariat would have seemed impossible. Yet even then, in the early 1970s, the scheme for the restoration of the Oligarchy was being sketched by academics at the Mont Pelerin Society - named after their meeting place - a Swiss resort that should always carry the stench of death with it, a moral taint deserved as Wannsee, was hatched a plot to degrade the power of demos in order to elevate an atavistic aristocracy of selfishness. The Powell memo was a synopsis of this reactionary plot to permanently seize power by social engineering. The rise of Thatcher in the UK and the election of celuloide cowboy Ronald Reagan would make manifest what many considered to be a racist/classicist pipe dream. Read Michael Hudson if you are interested in how our contemporary dystopian hellscape was conjured.

[restlessoblivion]

No billionaire exists who hasn't killed their employees through overwork, bad labor practices, making them stay at work during a tornado, etc.
Put them all in a cell

[coweatsman]

TLDR: Beware of billionaires bearing gifts (er I mean grifts).

[nura]

13:58 What a chart! Thinking of the policy shifts required to flip annual income growth so catastrophically away from the <95th percentiles 📉 to the wealthiest 📈, as seen in 1980 vs. 2014.

Heard about a small business employee who went 14 years+ without a raise, starting sometime in the '80s. It seemed crazy to his wife, whose memories began in the '50s.
Being a millennial, it didn't strike me as unusual – wage stagnation's been a problem as far back as I can remember.

This chart captures it.

[thermodynamics]

Billionaires are bad enough. But billionaires who don't pay their taxes are incredibly awful.