A few days ago I wrote about billionaire Jeff Greene's concerns about the state of the American middle class in Billionaire At Davos Lectures Americans On Their 'Lifestyle Expectations'.
Since then there's been an explosion of publicity for Mr. Greene across the internet, including this article detailing his five lovely mansions, in Beverly Hills, Palm Beach, Malibu, the Hamptons, and LA. Most of that publicity has been, across the political spectrum, er, a little negative.
In fact, his remarks at Davos caused tremendous outrage, with many calling him a hypocrite or a sociopath, or both.
In fact Mr. Greene may not be either, but a person from middle-class origins who made good for himself - very good - and knows that he got where he is by a tremendous stroke of good luck.
But what I find most interesting is the quiet changes that have been made since then to that original news story at Bloomberg.
You can see the original story as archived at (of all places!) Newsmax here. You can also see it in the URL of the Bloomberg article which still retains the original title in it though the title of the article itself has been changed.
Additions to the story now include:
“My greatest worry for our country is that globalization and the exponential growth of technology which have destroyed millions of jobs already, will undoubtedly eliminate millions and millions more jobs during the next several years,” he said. “Many manufacturing jobs that we lost will come back to the U.S., but most will be filled by robots and software.” ....
Green joined Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge in 2011, and vowed to donate 80 percent of his estate to his foundation.
“I started with nothing and have lived the American dream,” he said. “My office is right next door to the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach where I worked as a busboy and waiter working my way through college. Every day when I go to work, I drive by the Breakers and I’m reminded of the great opportunities I’ve had, and my goal is that these opportunities are again available to today’s busboys. That’s why I’m at Davos, in the Giving Pledge, donate to hundreds of charities and am willing to invest a lot of time and money in a conference.”
If you think the ultra-rich (or their PR firms) are not listening to what the 99 percent think of them and their plans for their wealth and for the rest of us, think again.
They're starting to learn to say more of the right things, like Romney saying that if he runs in 2016 he'd run on fighting poverty. Some of them may even mean the things they say.
The more the masters of the universe admit humbly that they're not a billion times better than the rest of us because of their money, or that what they do is not of a billion times more value, but that they were simply lucky, the better the chance to force change.
The obvious solution to the problems caused by income inequality is to re-institute a far more steeply progressive income tax that would provide funding for improved public education, infrastructure, public transit, housing support, inexpensive universal healthcare, and a guaranteed basic level of income for all in the face of a post-industrial economy with less need for workers.
Now all you billionaires who admit you were lucky and want to fight poverty - what are you going to do about it? Now, not after you're dead.
Will they use their wealth and influence to help lead a return to a truly progressive income tax such as it was in the Eisenhower era? Or will they, at the very least, stop viciously slashing out with all their might at even the slightest prospect of taxes being increased on themselves?
If not, their newly learned talk is just talk. Talk without action is just meaningless hot air.