Sunday, September 17: Rich Man Poor Man
It's nice to know that Elon Musk spends very little of his time happy
If you think about it, one of the great paradoxes of our times is that despite the massive wealth gap between the rich and poor being grotesquely large (and growing), the real, tangible differences in quality of life are, in some cases, barely even perceptible. When the planet is on the brink of climate collapse, no amount of money can truly protect you.
This excerpt from an upcoming biography on Mitt Romney, a guy worth literally hundreds of millions of dollars (~$300 million), paints a picture of him just sitting on the couch all weekend watching Netflix, eating stale leftovers, and scrolling, a feeling I’m sure we can all relate to. The man has no friends, no buddies to go visit little farmers markets with, no pals to make nachos with, truly a loser loner.
How ironic that the best these titans of industry and hoarders of wealth can think to do with all their free time and stolen wealth is the exact same thing any average person does on a free weekend.
Side Items
Demise of the American West: This article tells the fascinating story of how the distribution of the Colorado River has been overwhelmed by the population growth in the American Southwest. While human consumption in the area is obviously the highest its ever been, a solid 80% of the water drawn from the Colorado goes to irrigating ~5.5 million acres, most of which is used to grow alfalfa and grass to feed cattle. But the cattle being fed aren’t just in Colorado or California or even the United States...recent contracts have led to much of this water and the land it cultivates being shipped off to Asia and the Middle East
Private Utility to Public Good: The state of Maine is on the cusp of setting a new standard for how private utilities are operated. A ballot measure in November would turn the state’s private utilities public, which would be a huge step toward dealing with the climate crisis, and a helpful model for other states to follow. Maine voters will decide whether they want to combine the state’s two big private electric companies, Central Maine Power and Versant, into Pine Tree Power, a nonprofit, publicly run utility. The two corporations shipped $187 million in profits out of Maine last year, mostly to shareholders in places like Qatar, Norway, and Canada. If that money weren’t being sucked out of the state, advocates argue that Maine could lower utility rates by an average of $367 per household per year. It’s an admirable (and replicable) attempt to take on the fossil-fuel industry while promoting public ownership
Cometh the Hour: This article in the Wall Street Journal (protected by a pay wall of course), tells the story of Hisham Kassem, an Egyptian journalist and outspoken government critic imprisoned by Sisi and his clown cadre of yes men. It’s yet another example of the corrupt and repressive government silencing any influential critics ahead of next year’s pointless and predetermined elections. Kassem was sentenced to six months in prison yesterday, as President Sisi and his collection of garbage folk continue to put down any criticism and amplify any supportive propaganda they can muster. Truly pathetic