Where are the benevolent billionaires?

I have a moral objection to charity. I think that it's a bandage over a seeping wound. We should be aiming to fix systemic stuff as a society, not letting small groups do desperate fund raisers so that stray cats and dogs have somewhere to sleep.

And also those who give are often those who don't have a whole lot to give.

But then you get told about the philanthropic billionaire. The rich folk who so kindly give away some of their money to things like malaria treatment, or pay off the lunch debt that some poor student in the United States has accrued.

Except where the fuck are you at the moment billionaires?

All over the world economies are crumbling as Covid rips the scab off a system that was bullshit and designed to keep poor people poor. Jobs are disappearing, people are being evicted from homes, the sick are having to work just to pay for medical costs. It's fucked.

In the US, 40 million people filed for unemployment. 

And what has happened to those billionaires over the course of this pandemic? Well their wealth increased by half a trillion dollars.

Half a trillion.

Is that even a real number?

So where are these billionaires now? Why are they not providing people with food and shelter and healthcare as the economies that they robbed from continue to provide them with a hideous largesse?

New Zealand had a billionaire hang out during Covid Part I. Gabe Newell, he's the founder of Valve which is a computer game company. His net worth is estimated at $5.5 billion dollars.

To give you some context of that wealth, that would have covered the entire country's wage subsidy and still left him with $400 million. Do you know what you can buy with $400 million? Pretty much anything.

And what did Gabe do for the people of New Zealand to thank them? Did he, I dunno, spend some money providing food for the hungry? Or insulate some homes or something? 

Nah. He put on a free concert with Ladi6 headlining. 

Thanks Gabe.

If you, as a billionaire, are increasing your wealth by obscene margins as the rest of the world burns and people die because healthcare systems cannot deal with the strain and burden put on them by an epidemic, then you are culpable.

No one person needs a billion dollars. You cannot spend a billion dollars. It's imaginary money. But if you have it, while others have none then you are, at your core, evil.

But what people have been crying out for during this crisis is support from governments. We need the Government to pay for our wages while revenue turns to dust. The Government needs to come to some agreement on commercial rents so businesses that are struggling can hang on to their shop fronts.

I reckon Gabe could have paid for some of those businesses rents, or some of those wages and it wouldn't have made the slightest impact on his ability to buy anything he wants.

Bill Gates has given $500M to helping get a vaccine for COVID. Thanks Bill. That $500M of your $114 BILLION wealth is really helpful. But you could probably afford to give $112.5 Billion more and still be one of the richest people in the world. 

So shove your idea of the benevolent billionaire. They don't exist. And nor should billionaires at all. The existence of just one billionaire is a damning indictment on society and how the system is rigged against the poor.

And these pricks become fans of big government real quick when shit starts hitting the fan. Just today, John Bishop, National MP Chris Bishop's dad - who is also a founder of the Tax Payer's Union - wrote the smuggest, most embarassing piece criticising the Government for working to help people get through Covid.

Fuck all y'all.