Austerity Is Only for Peasants

We are told this is a time for austerity. Taxes and fees for the middle class have to go up, salaries must be frozen or workers laid off, and services for the elderly and poor must be slashed. We must learn, we are told, to live within our means. But austerity is only for the bottom.

Those at the very top, we are told, require low taxes lest their feelings are hurt and they decide to "go Galt." (The Forbes 400, every one a billionaire.)

For the top one-tenth of one percent austerity is a joke. Now is the time for glorious excess. Here are some of the things our most wealthy people get while we peasants make do with ruptured water mains, shriveling pensions, and a health care system trying to bankrupt us all into early graves.

Billionaire Toys

• Hedge fund manager Tudor Jones (net worth $6 billion) bought his own, private game preserve in Africa. 
• Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (net worth $12 billion), Microsoft's Paul Allen ($12 billion) and Richard Branson ($2 billion) have their own, separate, private space programs.
• Ronald Lauder, whose only accomplishment was being born into the Estee Lauder family has a private art collection better than most art museums.
• Many billionaires own private islands. One, oil sheikh Hamad bin Hamdan Al Nahyan ($22 billion), signed his island in letter so big they can be seen from space.
• They even eat (and shit) gold because why the fuck not? (Note: gold has no nutritional value being it is just expensive dirt.)

The wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of Americans could live splendidly for a hundred lifetimes on their accumulated lucre. It doesn't matter to them if the economy is roaring or stagnant or devolves into a medieval cesspool. They are content so long as the rest of humanity willingly plays the pawn in their little games.

We are all prisoners in their toy chest.