So I was listening to Richard Wolff’s syndicated radio program Economic Update on WMNF the other day. Wolff is a professor and economist whose primary editorial thrust involves breaking down and simplifying the inherent flaws in American capitalism. I love Economic Update; it reaffims my views the same way watching FOX News every night must reaffirm my parents’ own perspectives on THE WAY THINGS REALLY ARE.
(The suspicion that listening to Economic Update for maybe 40 seconds would probably send my parents into paroxysms of outrage is, if anything, just a gleeful bonus.)
During this particular episode, Wolff brought up the personal wealth of David Koch, who is — how can I simplify this? — one of those entitled cretins whose worldview is completely removed from reality, due to his having been insulated from reality basically since birth. David Koch is congenitally wealthy and, in the words of Michael Crichton’s Ian Malcolm, “You know what assholes congenitally rich people are.”
Wolff put David Koch’s personal wealth at $42.7 billion, making him the 24th richest person in the world.
(REMINDER: He earned about ZERO DOLLARS of this, through THE ART OF DOING NOTHING AND BEING BORN RICH.)
Furthermore, by simply assuming investments made at a low rate, Wolff estimated that David Koch earns $6 million dollars a day on his wealth.
Six million dollars.
Per day.
For free.
Do you have a clearer idea about why poor people (after all, there are no more middle-class people, folks like David took care of that) hate the rich?
Capitalism at its finest.
Now, let’s move onward. Koch is a right-wing political activist, in the way that some of our readers are social-justice activists. You guys have the internet and your passion; Koch has $6 million in spending money every day, without putting a dent in the nut.
Is that democracy?
David Koch owns lobbyists. He owns PR firms. He owns senators and representatives and multitudes of other political insiders with influence.
And it probably costs him less than he makes in a day.
When Rebecca and I go out to eat at Elevage or Annata or Il Ritorno, we take the hit. We eat leftover pasta; that’s the trade. When you stretch to experience something extraordinary, you take the money from somewhere else in your budget.
What would you do, or agree to, for $10,000? $100,000? $1 million?
David Koch buys that influence without cracking the per diem.
Without taking a hit.
This is important, because it imparts value; the only reason things are worth what they’re worth is because we believe it’s true.
How valuable is your government if you know that the crazy amount of money spent to control it is, to someone else, less than a day’s profit?
Less than a day’s profit.
That’s what it costs David Koch, and those like him, to override democracy.
If you could do it for, say, $100 — much more than a lot of folks make in a day — would you buy that influence?
This article appears in Dec 4-10, 2014.