One Trillion Dollars

Just a quick word about Elon Musk and the tussle over whether to pay him a trillion dollars as Tesla's CEO. In the November 6 issue, the New York Times asks the important question: "Would Elon Musk Work Harder for $1 Trillion Than $1 Billion?" (no link, because fuck the New York Times) I didn't read it because I don't give a shit what their answer is because, again, fuck the New York Times.

The question reminded me of something I've thought about for ever. Why do we think that billionaires making less money makes billionaires want less money? Do we do that with poor people? Working people? Do we believe that paying people less per hour makes them want and need more hours or fewer hours? Do we believe that taxing the money above a billion makes billionaires quit at a billion? Or go find a different job?

I'm convinced that the biggest lie in capitalism--among thousands--is that if Big Brain Masters of the Universe don't get their money (including their tax breaks and their public investments and etc.), they'll close up shop and tell everyone else to suck it. 

I think that's extortion, and I don't think it's true.

When it comes to how we think about money, I think there are two kinds of people. One kind of person thinks about the life they want to have and thinks of money as the way to get that kind of life.

The other kind of person thinks of money as a way to keep score in the big game of World's Greatest Human (aka Biggest Asshole).

For the first kind of person, money as a means to a material end might mean feeding your family, a decent car, a home of your own. For lots of people it's being able to pay your medical bills. Send your kids to college. Travel once in a while. You know, normal shit. For this kind of person, if you have enough money you can get the life of your dreams, so you work and save to have that life.

For the other kind of person, there's no such thing as enough money. It's not a means to an end, it's a competition. That means if you make a million and someone else makes two, you're losing. If you make a billion or ten, that doesn't put you ahead in the race against eight billion other people; it puts you behind a couple thousand other assholes. 

In other words, this kind of person can never get enough money because somebody's always got more or they're trying to get more. They're not working for enough; They're working for more, more than anybody else. 

Which is why, if Elon Musk lost 459 of the 460 billion dollars he now owns, he would never ever not in one billion years stop trying to make that 459 billion dollars back again -- and then a trillion more. That goes for the rest of the goddamn billionaires, too.

In the 1980s, people said, "Whoever dies with the most toys wins." That was greedy and selfish, but at least it was tangible. Toys could be played with. Today's billionaires have an empty hole right through the middle of them, and they can never earn enough or steal enough or inherit enough to ever fill it. (h/t Kevin Jarre, 
Tombstone)

We have too many goddamn billionaires, and billionaires ought to be illegal. 

It's hilarious to hear a bunch of middle-aged, middle class folks cry for the billionaires and vote to protect them from the communist socialist leftist antifas. 

I imagine it's especially hilarious to billionaires who shout "look over there!" as they scoop all the money into numbered bank accounts or crypto accounts or whatever else I wouldn't know about because I'm not a goddamn billionaire. 

I don't know a single billionaire, nor do 99.99% of the people screaming to keep our commie hands off the money owned by billionaires. "Be nice! Don't make them mad! They'll quit and take all the jobs with them! They'll stop making new iPhones and bad newspapers and weird trucks and delivering our toothpaste in three hours!" 

What is it we're really afraid of? What would we lose if we lost all the billionaires? 

What would we lose if one morning they all became just millionaires? 

It's stupid that the rest of us do all that screaming for them.

Now there's goddamn trillionaires.

If you want to know why things have gotten so fucked up, follow the money.

Further reading: Why is everything so fucked up?