As the Sochi Olympics drone on with more concern for Bob Costas’ pink eye than for the medal count, those less interested in tricks on ice than financial sport — the wildly rich on this side of the Atlantic — have been racking up medals in stupidity and insensitivity.
Perhaps it’s the polar vortex, but in recent weeks a handful of the nation’s uber-rich have sounded outright gaga. That they all seem to have a gravitational pull toward TV cameras makes matters even worse.
They are angry, lashing out in the least productive ways. Rather than singing the praises of a capitalistic system that needs some fixing but can raise all boats, they are battening down the hatches and screaming out nonsense.
Adding to the lunacy, in the three years since Occupy Wall Street became household news, income for the top 1 percent has risen by 26 percent, while incomes remained static for the rest of the nation. Since 2009, the stock market has doubled.
The latest distasteful remarks came from Nicole Miller founder Bud Konheim, who felt compelled to tell viewers on morning television that an American making $35,000 a year would be rich if he only lived in India or “some countries we can’t even name.”
Evidently, “Let them emigrate” is the new “Let them eat cake”!
If Konheim takes the gold, the silver surely belongs to venture-capital legend Tom Perkins, who claimed that the super-rich in the US are being persecuted in the same way the Jews were by the Nazis. After a huge outcry, Perkins reeled in those comments a bit, but went on last week to propose that only tax-paying Americans be allowed to vote.
The blathering billionaires have even taken on Pope Francis, accusing him of deriding trickle-down economics and global capitalism.
Yes, it was evidently a news flash to some Catholic billionaires that the Jesuit who took the name Francis, patron saint of the poor, is worried about the fact that the 85 richest people in the world have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest!
Yet now, despite all that has passed during the financial crisis, those who have done the best feel entitled to lash out.
Message to Konheim, Perkins & Co.: Pick up your toys, and stay out of the sandbox and off TV. You’re making things worse.