Why are America's elites so needy?

Those solid gold swimming pools and diamond encrusted Hummers won’t pay for themselves, after all.

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Is it good news or bad news to know that Democrats signed off on the relief bill(s), fully knowing that a lot of this would happen? It was written into the bill that big and medium business owners would get most of the money, with virtually no oversight.
All part of the “compromises” that Dems (and only Dems) have to do to get anything passed at all.

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Why are American elites so needy?

Maybe it’s because they’ve decided that the only way to deal with the massive societal damage they’re causing is to double down so they can afford to finish their private fortress compounds before the inevitable collapse?

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…minus $200,000+ interest he’s yet to cough up.

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One of the reasons I’m no longer a Republican, tbh. I love the free market, but so much of legislation is captured in this country to defend entrench interests.

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What do you want, austerity for the wealthy? If you don’t give them free stuff, they won’t be willing to work hard exploiting everyone else. /s

Why are America’s global elites parasites so ngreedy?

another fix

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Given the situation at the time, I’d say good news. Being put into the position of, “we’ll let you dole out some money to stop some of the most vulnerable from starving to death or living in their cars or on the streets, but only if we get to give more money to the wealthy class, otherwise you get nothing!” is an untenable situation.
It’s a shitty system, which most of us here recognize. I think they did okay with the options they had during a hectic and brutal time. Not great, but better than nothing. I’m not sure what else they could’ve done in a timely manner. I’m totally open to being wrong about this.

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To answer the headline, it’s because we don’t riot enough. We should be more like the French.

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The most hilarious thing about the “super-rich prepper” movement is that the really seem to believe that when the shit hits the fan the people who run the bunker are really going to open the door for them instead of giving their reservation over to a person who knows how to farm or fix a generator or provide sexual services to the guy who just proclaimed himself warlord-for-life of the bunker tribe.

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for me this looks foremost as a problem of Mississippi, why is nobody blaming the state that’s rerouting the funds?

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I could see letting someone like Musk or Bezos into my post-apocalyptic community despite their complete lack of useful abilities or character, but they probably wouldn’t like the reasons.
:judge: :plate_with_cutlery:

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Yeah, after the story broke. If no one had ever looked into this, he would have kept the money. He says he didn’t know where the money was coming from, but he did know he was accepting money for speeches he wasn’t giving, so I find his excuse a little lacking.

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Once you reach a certain wealth point in America you hire a financial advisory firm if you’re smart. After that your “people” take care of your money making money.

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Well the article did mention that befriending your security staff and treating them very well prior to the apocalypse was a viable strategy to minimize that risk. But the ultra-wealthy at the table dismissed that idea out of hand and turned the discussion to the possibility of “obedience collars” for their ex Navy Seal staff instead.

There may be a point at which an excessive amount of wealth and power turns any human being into a Bond Villain. On the other hand, it may just be a case of self-selection.

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Bezos is kind of skinny, though

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Thanks. That was an interesting read.
My favorite analogy:

More than anything, they have succumbed to a mindset where “winning” means earning enough money to insulate themselves from the damage they are creating by earning money in that way. It’s as if they want to build a car that goes fast enough to escape from its own exhaust.

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Has it never occurred to any of these . . . “elites” that if they want to survive a civilization-ending event, they don’t need a bunker. Just get a property in a struggling rural agricultural town, plow money into the local economy, improve the schools, build and staff a medical center, and become a well-loved (or at least tolerated) patron of the local businesses. Or hire someone else to do it in your name. I bet less than a million dollars in the right community would get your name on buildings, honorarium, and, should the stuff hit the fan, a place where food, medicine, and security would be far, far more available to you far longer than any bunker could hope to hold out.

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That is literally how much of the aristocracy live today. But it’s as I said above: The old money knows how to handle themselves without ending up on guillotines because they have literally had to live through it (or not, as it were). New money doesn’t have that family memory, and they might find out that they should have emulated their more experienced peers.

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