WHERE ARE YOU ON THE BLUE WHALE SCALE?

I just read a report about the 12 richest Americans, whose combined wealth now totals more than $ 1 trillion.

Now I'm trying to get a feeling for what $1,000,000,000,000 means in terms not just of wealth but of power and influence. Here's one approach, my blue-whale-scale.

The median American household is currently worth around $97,300. That means half of US households are worth more and half are worth less. For convenience, let's round that $97,300 up to $100,000. Remember, this is net worth, not income.

The ratio between $1,000,000,000,000 and $100,000 is a factor of 10,000,000.

That means that the twelve richest Americans are worth ten million times as much as the median US household. Or that it would take the combined worth of ten million median households to equal the  wealth of the 12 richest Americans.

Blue Whales can reach a length of 100 feet and weigh up to 330,000 pounds. Why am I bringing this up?

Credit: pikrepo.com

Let's represent the dozen people whose combined worth is a trillion dollars by a blue whale, earth's largest and heaviest animal. A blue whale might weigh in at 100 metric tonnes or 100,000 kg.

Now, picture a table that matches up wealth with weight. That's our blue-whale-scale. At the top is $1,000,000,000,000, the blue whale and 100,000 kg.  We'll keep dividing by ten as the sea creatures get smaller and lighter along with the wealth they represent.

For example, the next step down would be $100,000,000,000. Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are worth more than $100 billion each. On the whale scale, they would weigh in at 10 metric tonnes each and might be represented by one of the smaller whales, say a Minke, "just" 10 meters long.

It takes four divisions by ten to get down to the wealthiest one percent of US households, those worth $10,000,000 and up. On our whale scale they would weigh in at a measly one kilogram, or 2.2 pounds. That's way below whales now; closer, say, to a decent-sized trout.

We need to divide by another 100 to get to the median US household's roughly $100,000 net worth. On our blue-whale-scale, that family would weigh in at just 10 grams, about the same as two nickels. In the fish world, that might be represented by a sardine; you know, the kind you buy packed into a tin, or that swarm by the thousands as shown below.

A school of sardines near Costa Rica

Credit: Wikimedia

As blue whales make their majestic way through the oceans, I doubt that they worry much about, or perhaps even notice, the millions or billions of tiny fish who happen to share the ocean with them. I'm guessing it's the same with the multi-billionaires with whom we happen to share the economic, financial and political systems that we--like fish in the sea--live within.

Of course, if you're below the wealth median--for example in the 25 percent of US families whose net worth is $10,000 or less-you're not represented by a sardine on the whale scale, but by a guppy or a minnow.

And if you're in the 20 percent of American families whose net worth is close to (or below) zero--the best you can hope for is to be represented by krill--the swarms of minute sea creatures on whom--go figure--those huge blue whales feed.

Krill

Credit: wikimedia commons

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For Robert Reich's take on this issue, click here.

REA

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE (MULTI-BILLIONAIRES)

According to the Institute for Policy Studies, three men--Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett--now own more wealth than the poorest 50 percent of the US population. That's three individuals versus more than 162 million.

Bill Gates (2003)

Copyright World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org)

www.swiss-image.ch/Photo by Remy Steinegger

To get a sense of the enormity of this inequality, let's represent the average wealth of those 162 million people--a bit more than $1500 per person--by someone six feet tall. Then Bill Gates--worth $89 billion--would stand over 66,000 miles tall in comparison--towering more than one-quarter of the way to the moon! Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO has done well this year; on this scale he'd tower 72,000 miles. They would both dwarf "poor" Warren Buffett, who would barely top 62,000 miles.

If we total up the wealth of the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans we find that they own as much as the lower two-thirds of the American population, more than 200 million people, or 80 million households.

Most Americans don't begrudge rich people their wealth, believing rightly or wrongly that much of it was earned through talent, intelligence and hard work, and hoping that they too might someday join their ranks. However, they may be less forgiving when they realize that the ultra rich  leverage that wealth into near-total control over our political system and government. A recent study matched what many of us feel, showing that what most voters want simply doesn't count, while the demands of economic elites and well-funded special interest groups consistently win out in terms of legislation, policy and regulation.

Nor is there much reason to believe that the super rich take the needs of their poorer fellow-citizens into account as they groom candidates and influence elections, lawmakers and the executive branch of government. One can imagine that from the perspective of 72,000 miles, those 162 million people look like little more than grains of dust. Perhaps we should re-write "We the people . . ." to read "Wee the people . . ."

There are plenty of commentators, including many economists, who argue that this kind of inequality is inevitable, a necessary result of the grim laws of economics. That this is false can be seen by the fact that many countries--including well-off, highly developed nations such as Denmark, Sweden, Germany, New Zealand and the Netherlands--share their wealth much more equitably than here in the US. It's clear that laws protecting workers and unions, curbing corporate abuses, and reining in financial speculation do make a difference, as do policies using tax revenues to support health, education and equal opportunity across ethnic, class and gender lines.

According to the World Economic Forum, the US ranks 23rd out of 30 developed countries in terms of "inclusive development"--a measure of how fairly income, health and opportunity are distributed. That means that 22 thriving countries do it better than we do.

Solving any problem first requires recognizing that the problem exists, then deciding that there are steps we can take to solve it. If the fact that three individuals have more wealth--and the power and influence that goes with it-- than 162 million of us doesn't set off alarm bells about our democracy, I don't know what could. Shall we wait until just one person has more wealth and power than 50 percent of us? 60 percent? 90 percent?

We may not be able to change the laws of economics, but we can change the laws, policies and practices that push millions of Americans into poverty and debt while showering more and more wealth on the already wealthy. A good start would be to defeat the current Republican tax "reform," which will further enrich the richest few at the expense of most of the rest of us, not just the poor, but also much of the middle class, seniors and students.

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More on inequity at my post "Winner take all: 7 richest men own more than poorest 3.8 billion people."

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WINNER TAKE ALL--7 RICHEST MEN OWN MORE THAN POOREST 3.8 BILLION PEOPLE

Here's a quick quiz for you--match the names of the seven richest people in the world with their currrent net worth:

Jeff Bezos                                                      $89.3 billion

Warren Buffett                                               $84.1 billion

Larry Ellison                                                  $83.5 billion

Bill Gates                                                        $76.6 billion

Carlos Slim Helu                                             $64.8 billion

Amancio Ortega                                               $62.9 billion

Mark Zuckerberg                                              $55.5 billion

(Correct answer at bottom of this post)
                                                                            ___________
Now, let's add up their net worth:                  $516.7 billion

What's interesting about that? It's considerably more than is owned by the least wealthy 50 percent of the people in the world, around 3.8 billion people.

World wealth distribution (2012)

Credit: lioness.co.il

It's hard for me to come up with a good reason why seven men should have more wealth (and the power that comes with it) than 3.8 billion people. Can you?

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Current order from the top: Gates, Bezos, Ortega, Buffett, Helu Zuckerberg, Ellison.



        

HOW TO PAY FOR TRUMP'S $54 BILLION DEFENSE SPENDING INCREASE--A MODEST PROPOSAL

On Monday, February 27, President Trump announced his new "public safety and national security" budget. The centerpiece is a $54 billion raise for the military, to be paid for by an equal package of cuts to social, educational, environmental, health and other "non-essential" government programs. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of State reportedly are first in line at the chopping block.

David Koch, worth $39.6 billion--Will he be the first to pitch in?
Credit: Gage Skidmore

Unfortunately, $54 billion in cuts to those programs will do some serious damage. As quoted in the NYT article cited above, longtime Republican budget specialist Bill Hoagland comments "I don't know how you take $54 billion out without wholesale taking out entire departments."

In other words, boosting our safety and security by pumping up our military muscle will inflict a lot of pain on school children and their teachers, workers, poor people, disabled people, the unemployed, and those of us who have gotten used to clean air and water, safe food and drugs, and a functioning federal government.

However, there's a simple way to come up with $54 billion, and one that will only impact fewer than two dozen people rather than hundreds of millions of us. Why not ask Trump, his cabinet members, and his billionaire backers to help out?

A few minutes of online research shows that Trump and his cabinet are worth around $13 billion. If we add in just the top dozen Trump supporters--billionaires like the Koch brothers, Robert Mercer, Peter Thiel and Sheldon Adelson, all of whom pumped a lot of cash into his campaign--we find that they're worth around $163 billion. So Trump, his cabinet, and twelve of his biggest backers have a combined worth of $176 billion.

Given their obvious patriotism, and the fervent support for Trump demonstrated by their generous contributions to his election, I'm sure that these munificent ladies and gentlemen would be happy to contribute, say, 30% of their net worth to pay for the bigger and better armed forces we so urgently need. That would neatly cover the $54 billion Trump has earmarked, and, remarkably, all of those noble donors would still be incredibly rich.

Nor will their generosity go unrewarded if Trump's proposed tax cuts become law. According to Forbes, the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of the population will receive 24 percent of the $6.2 trillion in tax cuts, or just under $1.5 trillion, and will see their after-tax income increase by 14.2 percent. With that $1.5 trillion pie to divide up, I'm guessing it would not be long before those generous billionaires will be even richer than before. Talk about a win-win solution!

Ladies and gentlemen of the billionaire class, please consider this an open invitation, not just to Trump, his cabinet and his top dozen supporters, but to all 540 U.S. billionaires. With your combined worth of $2.4 trillion, just think of what you can accomplish.

Who will be the first to step up? Bill, Warren, Jeff, Mark, Larry, Michael, Charles, David, Larry, Jim, Alice, Sheldon . . .?