Let’s say you’re a millionaire. That’s a lot of money, right? Now let’s say you’re a billionaire. That’s a lot more money! But how much more?

Think of all those dollars as seconds on a clock. A million seconds would total 11 days – but a billion seconds equals nearly 32 years! Rich is nice, but billionaire-rich is over the moon – and the wealth of billionaires is now zooming out of this world. There are only 2,200 of these überrich dudes in the world, but the wealth stashed away by these elites hit a new record this summer, averaging more than $4 billion each. They’ve even pocketed an extra half-billion bucks on average in the midst of the COVID-19 economic crash.

Bear in mind that these fortunate few did nothing to earn this haul. They didn’t work harder, didn’t get one-digit smarter, didn’t create some new breakthrough product to benefit humankind – they could just crank back in their gold-plated La-Z-Boys and let their money make money for them.

Then there are multimillionaire corporate chieftains who are cashing in on their own failure. Having closed stores throughout America, fired thousands of workers, stiffed suppliers and creditors, taken bailout money from taxpayers, and even led their corporations into bankruptcy, the CEOs of such collapsing giants as Hertz, J.C. Penney, and Toys “R” Us have grabbed millions of dollars in – believe it or not – bonus payments! The typical employee at J.C. Penney for example, is held to part-time work, making under $12,000 a year. Thousands of them are now losing even that miserly income as the once-mighty retailer is shutting 154 stores. Yet, the CEO was paid a $4.5 million cash bonus before the company filed for bankruptcy this year.

And still, the corporate establishment wonders why the people consider it a club of heartless, greedy bastards.

Many Americans can’t believe that political coups are part of our country’s history – but consider from the Wall Street Putsch of 1933.

Never heard of it? It was a corporate conspiracy to oust Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had just been elected president. With the Great Depression raging and millions of families financially devastated, FDR had launched several economic recovery programs to help people get back on their feet. To pay for this crucial effort, he had the audacity to raise taxes on the wealthy, and this enraged a group of Wall Street multimillionaires.

Wailing that their “liberty” to grab as much wealth as possible was being shackled, they accused the president of mounting a Class War. To pull off their coup, they plotted to enlist a private military force made up of destitute World War I vets who were upset at not receiving promised federal bonus payments. One of the multimillionaires’ lackeys reached out to a well-respected advocate for veterans: Retired Marine general, Smedley Darlington Butler. They wanted him to lead 500,000 veterans in a march on Washington to force FDR from the White House.

They chose the wrong general. Butler was a patriot and lifelong soldier for democracy, who, in his later years, was critical of corporate war profiteering, and he was repulsed by the hubris and treachery of these Wall Street aristocrats. He reached out to a reporter, and together, they gathered proof to to take to Congress. A special congressional committee investigated and found Butler’s story “alarmingly true,” leading to public hearings, with Butler giving detailed testimony.

This is Jim Hightower saying… By exposing the traitors, this courageous patriot nipped their coup in the bud. But their sense of entitlement reveals that we must be aware of the concentrated wealth of the imperious rich, for it poses an ever-present danger to majority rule.

What is it about billionaires and multimillionaires that make them both self-entitled and clueless about the impacts of their greed?

Even when they occasionally make a stab at doing something right, they tend to get it all wrong. For example, while major corporations rushed out PR campaigns at the start of today’s devastating pandemic, loudly proclaiming all-in-this-together solidarity with their workers – shhhhh – most have quietly and quickly resumed their pre-pandemic policy of widely separating their rich fortunes from the well-being of their workforce.

Take supermarket giant, Kroger. Last March, as the pandemic spread across America, Kroger honchos publicly hailed grocery workers for staying on the job, despite the health hazard. They ran national TV ads announcing a $2 pay hike for employees, calling it a “heroes bonus.” Nice!

But only six weeks later – shhhhh – the honchos killed the bonus pay, even as the virus spread. Not nice.
Well, you might think, the economy was collapsing, so maybe the bosses had to skrimp. Hardly. Grocery sales and profits have boomed in the pandemic, and – as the investigative newsletter Popular Information now reports – Kroger’s profits have zoomed up by $1.2 billion since the disease surged last year.

Where did that bonanza go? To fat-cat executives and shareholders. Last September, Kroger spent a billion dollars on a stock buyback program – a corporate manipulation scheme that artificially jacks-up stock prices, thus enriching the already-rich handful of investors and executives who own most of the stock. How rich are they? One example: Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen’s latest annual paycheck was $21,129,648.

One man, one year. And, unlike the typical Kroger workers who draw only $27,000 a year, McMullen is not on the frontline putting his life at risk.

And yet, those on top of America’s financial heap wonder why working families spell “boss” backwards – Double-SOB.