The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for January, 2025

Well, Friends, a new year is upon us, and at just over a week old, it promises to provide broad new horizons of ass clownery with the start of the 119th Congress, the return of Der Furor to the presidency, and the spread of social, political, and religious lunacy across the nation and around the world. The evidence of this first week indicates that this will be another year in which the vast number of candidates will make the selection of individual ass clowns for dishonor difficult, but someone's got to step up to the challenge, and it'll continue to be yours truly.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, let's blare those trumpets and roll those drums as we announce the first award for the new year - 

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for January, 2025

and the winner is

America's Billionaire Class

You can argue, as many have, that the capitalist market system is responsible for the fundamental strength of America and the delivery of the standard of living we enjoy ... at least, the one we enjoyed a bit more when it was more affordable. But the capitalist market system has also produced the socio-economic structure we now have, in which 95% of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a tiny few, and the middle-class dream of home ownership and higher education has grown increasingly out of reach. It has produced a system in which the ratio of CEO wealth to worker wealth vastly favors the upper crust.

I firmly believe that hard work and ingenuity should be rewarded, and that a person who has created value for others is entitled to a portion of that wealth as a reward for their success. The problem we have today is that we no longer recognize the concept of enough. 

I like to think that I have enough. Enough to live in a comfortable home. Enough to put food on the table. Enough to help out my children when they need it. Enough to take an occasional nice vacation. I have enough.

But how much is enough if you're an Elon Musk or a Mark Zuckerberg? If you earn more in an hour than your employees earn in a year or two? If you can afford two (or three, or four) homes in different states or on different continents? Is that enough?

Elon Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars to get Der Furor elected. Enough to hire teachers and build schools, enough to improve healthcare, enough to repair crumbling roads and bridges. Instead, this man chose to spend a small part of his fortune to elect a flawed, incompetent charlatan to the presidency.

The billionaire class has spent an enormous amount of money contributing to Der Furor's inauguration events and parties. I'm guessing it won't be enough to help them when he eventually turns on them.

Billionaire CEOs with employees who live paycheck-to-paycheck have more than enough, and should be happy to share the bounty with those who do the work that makes them rich. At the very least, they should be prepared to pay their fair share of taxes to support the system that benefits them. They should recognize that, as President Obama once reminded them, to a storm of scorn, that they had a lot of help from ordinary people to realize their fortunes.

Read this report published in October of 2024 by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - "The State of US Wealth Inequality." Here are two of the Key Takeaways:

- The top 10% of households by wealth had $6.9 million on average. As a group, they held 67% of total household wealth.

 

- The bottom 50% of households by wealth had $51,000 on average. As a group, they held only 2.5% of total household wealth.

Household wealth distribution in the United States in the 3rd quarter of 2024 looks like this, according to data from the Federal Reserve as of December 20th, 2024:

- The top 1% owns $27.10 trillion.

- The bottom 50% owns $3.89 trillion. 

If you've had to decide between medical care and food, shelter, or clothing, or if you've had to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, you can justly criticize those at the very top of the economic ladder.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Right-Cheek Ass Clown for January, 2025 is America's Billionaire Class. Think about them if you are far enough down the economic ladder to realize that you and your children don't have enough.

And if you've had enough, plan to vote out the billionaires in 2026 and 2030.

Have as good a day as you can afford, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday, when we will try to spice up your January with some cartoons praising the horizontal tango.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo.