America’s “Sick Culture of Wealth”

I need to stop watching videos – they are such a time sink. Because of the Donald Trump comedy show, I’ve been watching comedy videos, most especially Bill Maher’s, and boy, are they biting and funny. The problem is, I’m not doing anything but watching videos.

There were a few videos from Bill Maher concerning the antics of the wealthy. An example is the one regarding the “Sick Culture of Wealth”. This video touches on the furor caused by a killing of a well-known lion by a dentist, California’s water dispute amongst the wealthy, and the buying of politicians.

He is right: we are too obsessed with the wealthy or how to get more money. I know I rant and rail about the shareholder culture which is synonymous with the wealth culture where most, if not all, productive money go to the corporate chieftains and the nameless, faceless shareholders. The shareholder value mantra has been around since the ’80’s and I don’t see any real trickle down effect. Instead, we have constant layoffs, offshoring and automation and very little attempt to hire people (although I will say the unemployment rate has gone down to the level before the crash of the Great Recession.) And during that same period, all of that constant layoffs, restructurings, offshoring and automation allowed for more money to flow into the pockets of the rich.

And these people really didn’t do anything amazing to earn that money; they just laid off people. I don’t see the value in that.

Now, in the video, he highlights some bad behavior from the wealthy. Dentists are not normally regarded as filthy rich and in one of the numerous articles I read about the dentist killing the lion, someone asked, “How did a dentist become so wealthy? How much do they make?”

What a crazy upside down world we live in.