I reposted an article about Elon Musk on FB the other day that rendered a friend (who worships Musk unto a God) apoplectic with rage. A scuffle ensued and I deleted the whole thing. BUT I think I want to write about it here because I have my own issues with Musk and the rest of the rich cunts who pay no taxes and generally tra-la-la their way through life without so much as a hint of trouble or disaster.
The FB post was referring to the lawsuit currently working against Tesla for racist policies, segregated facilities and harassment.
I asserted that Musk was a rich asshole from a rich family, who wouldn’t have shit without the advantages he had growing up. Of course, the friend denied all that and insists that Musk is a great guy and the Lord and Saviour of Humanity™. Sigh.
Musk’s family was very well off in S Africa and did, indeed, own part of an emerald mine. Here is part of a Forbes article from 2014 (cached on wayback, since it’s been scrubbed from the active internet) where Musk talks about the emerald mine. So that is TRUE. It is not clear how much money they actually had or how much was from the mine, but they were well off by all measures.
It is difficult to find articles of value about Musk, since his media team is good at their jobs and have erased any and all evidence of Musk’s privilege from the internet. There’s a lot of chatter on Quora, but that is far from trustworthy. Here is a quora discussion of whether Musk was born into wealth that is pretty coherent.
So, let’s just say OK, he was upper middle class. Fine. BUT he is still white and he grew up in Apartheid S Africa, which greatly enhances his privilege beyond just money. He also got very fucking lucky with the dot com boom, which is how he went from a broke student to millionaire.
I stand by my contempt of Musk and all the other .1% who hoard the world’s money. I don’t give a single damn if they had a typical college experience or not, or were raised rich or not, they are still hoarding money that could do a helluva lot more good than electric cars and sending rich fucks into space.
Bezos, Musk and the rest pay practically no taxes, while we struggle to keep the bills paid and pay 30% of our meager income to taxes. It is NOT RIGHT. Have a look at this ProPublica article that shows the taxes the rich cunts DON’T PAY. Musk has averaged 3.x% up until this year, where he’s paying full taxes – and is crowing about it. The only reason he’s paying now is because he’s been called out for NOT PAYING. And, again, his media team has made sure to keep the facts about his tax avoidance buried so he can present himself as a nice guy and an everyman. He is not, that is PR bullshit.
Musk and Bezos are rich fucks who honestly could not possibly care less about the rest of humanity. They care about MONEY. They don’t pay taxes because they own the politicians who ensure that they don’t and never will. After all, the politicians are ALSO RICH FUCKS who like money.
I have nothing but contempt for all these fuckers. It’s real fucking easy to live a life where there are small, if any consequences. Lose a million? Eh, no biggie. Bankrupt out your busted ass company? No biggie. No consequences when you’re rich. I’d like to see any of these cunts live on $40k. JUST TRY IT. They’ve never known the struggle and they never will. THAT IS THE PROBLEM. When rich people run things, that’s when all the things that make a first world country start getting cut in the name of capitalism. Why do we need daycare? Why do we need arts in schools? Why do we need unemployment benefits? Why should we take care of the old and infirm? All those things do is “waste” money!! WE LIKE MONEY. All that stuff is CLEARLY socialism! We don’t want THAT. Paying taxes??? NOOOOO! We don’t want THAT. You peons pay the taxes, not US.
When the government feels that the peons need to pay taxes on unemployment and other government assistance, you know things have gone awry.
Our tax bill was almost $6k last year. We are still paying it off. We make about $45-50k for two of us. And we had to PAY an additional $6k because I got unemployment. THAT IS FUCKED UP.
And that is why we need to depose our rich masters and divvy up the spoils. Just a fraction of their hoarded wealth could end hunger for the whole goddam Earth!! MAKE THEM PAY THEIR SHARE. Or set up the guillotines. Whichever. I wouldn’t shed a tear for any of the super rich. They certainly shed no tears for US as we struggle along, nearing “retirement” age, knowing that we’ll never retire, nor will we ever get to travel and see the world like we’d planned. Nope, the closest we get to seeing the world is the Apple TV screen saver – and that, my bitches, is the true cost of these assholes hoarding money. We will NEVER get the life we wanted. None of us will. The American dream is a LIE and working more won’t help shit. The system is rigged and we will stay in the caste in which we ended up. People like Musk or even Zuckerberg, who got really lucky in the dot com era are just that: LUCKY. You can’t plan your life on LUCK. We are middle aged with shitty income. We’ve had only bad luck when it came to trying to have our own business(es). No one backed us up and we had no golden parachute to ease the pain of losing most of our money. Nope, we had to start over with shitty jobs and less than half the income we had. I promise you, none of the super rich have ever had that experience.
Since these people have never struggled, they simply can’t understand why they need to step up. No, it’s the rest of us that need to work harder, right? This attitude is pervasive in America.
The French Revolution was born of the people being sick of royalty hoarding all the money while they starved. Cobblestones flew, heads rolled. AND IT WORKED. I think America needs to figure out how to achieve getting rid of the rich in government and making them pay their share in general.
I just don’t think we have the stomach for it. Americans are being goaded into the Republican “we hate everyone who is not an ignorant hillbilly” camp, the Progressive “rich people will save us” camp or the Democrat “OMG I can’t deal with this shit” camp. The country is fracturing as we speak.
I don’t know what to expect, but I’m pretty sure it ain’t good. So we just keep swimming. We endure. And that is no way to live. :(