The Wealthy, Getting Wealthier

NOT ONLY is Jeff Bezos the world's wealthiest person, he is far and away that, leaving such trillionaires as Buffet and Gates in the dust. Had he not been somewhat subdivided due to a recent divorce, his net worth, it is estimated, would by now be around two hundred and ten billion, with a "B". Just goes to show; even the world's greatest private fortune cannot buy marital bliss, or maybe the money got in the way. Even more striking, the wealthy, already doing quite well before the Covid era, are doing much better in the midst of it, and figure to do even better if and when we ever emerge from it. Besos, for instance, who is strictly a hands off government leave me and my money alone libertarian who does not seem to enjoy giving much of anything to anybody, seems to have profited greatly from the social distancing regime in which retail brick and mortar business are suffering and dying daily. his Amazon dot com business is perfectly suited to purchasing from a distance, since that it what its for, and during an epidemic, is what we all want to do. Several factors contribute to the spike in billionaire wealth. The great government handout, in which the average American received twelve hundred dollars as a lifeline to help stave off pandemic and economic melt down starvation, also included some hidden ut tasty morsels for the very rich, having to do with tax write offs. than too, who can fail to recall the famous Trump-Republican tax cut for the corporate wealthy, from thirty six to twenty one percent, which went into effect several years ago, has yet to be repealed by a saner government, and has been enriching the rich quite well. The way things are going, eventually a single person will own all the world's wealth, and Jeff Bezos is off to a good start, the leading candidate to soak up all the money. Supreme Court Chief Justice Louis Brandeis said that we can have a democracy, or we can have economic inequality, but we cannot have both. We seem to have chosen the latter.