For example:
I believe in rewarding hard work. But trillionaires shouldn't exist—especially in a country where kids still go hungry. https://t.co/BwtzdTHQlC
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 31, 2024
Fun fact: the pictured boat belongs to Jeff Bezos. It's called the Abeona, and at 246 feet, it's pretty big. But as this Daily Mail story describes, it's not even his main yacht; that would be the 417-foot Koru. Abeona is described as Jeff's "support yacht".
Good for him.
If someone said "Black people shouldn't exist", or "Jews shouldn't exist", I'm pretty sure most people would recognize that person as a bigot, and quite possibly a dangerous bigot.
And yet, you can get away with saying "trillionaires shouldn't exist", and most of those same people won't bat an eye.
Bernie Sanders, in fact, lowered that bar by a factor of 1000, saying it's billionaires that shouldn't exist; UAW president Shawn Fain, in his "EAT THE RICH" t-shirt, is also for liquidation; AOC is also on board (with the caveat: "as long as Americans live in abject poverty")
We need rebuttal to this bigoted rhetoric and Luther Ray Abel provides it (and points out other bigots): Trillionaires Should Exist.
But we all know that these complaints about the wealthiest are insincere — the grousing is envy and intra–social circle virtue signaling for those a tier below the self-made billionaires. No one hates the ultra-wealthy as much as the almost-as-wealthy trust-fund class:
In an open letter to political leaders gathered at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, more than 250 billionaires and millionaires said that they wished to deliver a clear message, “Tax our extreme wealth.”
The signatories of the letter, entitled “Proud To Pay More,” span 17 countries and include Disney heir Abigail Disney, screenwriter Simon Pegg and Valerie Rockefeller, an heir to the famed U.S. family.
Please, do donate your estates. Or don’t. Just stop pretending you’re good people for saying those slightly better off than yourselves are villains for owning stakes in companies that improve the quality of life for billions. (For those who like a deeper dive on the subject, Dominic Pino says as much more eloquently in a longer format here.)
At AIER, Gary M. Galles, is critical of the "Proud to Pay More" folks: Not a Very Virtuous Virtue Signal.
The open letter is full of self-righteousness disguised as reasonableness. But you don’t need to look very hard to find serious questions that seem to escape their notice.
The letter represents the views of a minuscule fraction of “the rich,” so that what they are really advocating is forcing far larger numbers of those who disagree with them about that “need” to pay most of the bill for what they want governments to do. In other words, the coerced charity its signatories want to impose means a more accurate name for their group would be Proud to Make Others Pay Most of the Tab. But that does not send a very virtuous virtue signal.
It's safe to say that the eat-the-rich rhetoric will encourage some to take violent action. And that will be as much a hate crime as any other KKK cross-burning or lynching.
Also of note:
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When you've lost the WaPo editorialists… Even they can't go along with President Wheezy: Biden’s LNG decision is a win for political symbolism, not the climate.
The main short-run damage the administration’s obviously political decision does is to the United States’ reputation for rational, fact-based policymaking, and for wise consideration of climate control in the context of geopolitics. You cannot change demand for energy by destroying supply: If the United States did indeed curtail LNG exports, it would just drive customers into the arms of competitors such as Australia, Qatar, Algeria and, yes, Russia. Quite possibly, some potential customers would choose to meet their needs with coal instead.
Either way, the effect on global carbon emission is likely marginal, even if it’s true, as climate activists maintain, that natural gas liquefaction and shipping are energy-intensive processes and increase the fuel’s carbon footprint. (That footprint, by the way, is mitigated somewhat in the United States by Biden administration emissions controls.) And the other ostensible concern behind the Biden policy — higher domestic U.S. gas prices because of shipping gas overseas — is overblown. Prices for gas in the United States have trended down even as LNG exports boomed from zero in 2015 to 86 million tons in 2023.
Of course, the WaPo fully buys into climate-change scenarios; but even that can't justify Biden's daft decree.
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"Bad Math" explains so much about Biden. Eric Boehm points out that the decision is yet another example: Biden's Natural Gas Export 'Pause' Is Based on Bad Math.
In the official announcement on January 26, the White House framed the decision to pause approvals for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities as a way to confront climate change, which it calls the "existential threat of our time." More technically, the pause will allow the Department of Energy to update its rules for permitting future LNG export facilities.
But the pause is a limited one. It will only affect exports of LNG to countries with which the U.S. does not have a free trade agreement, and it does not prevent exports from the eight LNG export facilities already operating—though it will slow construction on several other export facilities, including one in Louisiana that would be America's largest when finished. Even with the "pause" in place, the White House says America's LNG exports are expected to double by the end of the decade, thanks to America's booming natural gas industry and the energy needs of a world that's getting wealthier.
It's anyone's guess who'll be the first to freeze to death in the dark as a result. But that's far enough down the road so it won't impact Biden's re-election chances, so who cares?
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And yet another thing about the thing I didn't know was a thing until a few days ago. Jeff Maurer sets the record straight: The Taylor Swift Psy-Op is a Distraction from the Davos Orgy that's a False Flag for the Reanimation of Michael Landon's Corpse.
This week, some conservatives have worked themselves into a tizzy over a supposed conspiracy involving Taylor Swift and the NFL. The theory starts with Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. Swift and Kelce have signaled liberal views. When the Chiefs advanced to the Super Bowl last week, Fox News and Vivek Ramaswamy began alleging a “psy-op” — which is a military term for an effort to sway mass opinion — designed to elevate the Chiefs, Kelce, and Swift so that their eventual endorsement of President Biden will have maximum impact.
This is insane. The Pentagon is not working with the NFL to rig games to throw the election to Biden. I can barely comprehend how dumb someone would have to be to believe that. Especially when the truth is right in front of us: The Pentagon is working with the NFL to expose a recent high-society fuck fest in Davos, which will distract us from the Frankenstein-style reanimation of former actor Michael Landon, which will throw the election to Kamala Harris.
It’s obvious if you just open your eyes.
Warning: the details will make you wish you hadn't opened your eyes.
![[Moe Dipshitz]](/ps/media/moe_dipshitz.jpg)
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