Motörhead - "Eat the Rich"
1987
As research for my new zine/blog Troller or Controller? I dug into the April/May 2024 issue of Forbes, which has a specific focus on billionaires. My goodness. I wrote down four words: Late Stage Capitalism Porn.
Lessee, it starts out with some Steve Forbes opinion pieces. He fully supports Israel’s invasion of Gaza and claims that they have made extraordinary efforts to minimize civilian casualties. He writes that the US should fully support Israel, which reminds me of a news story I read last winter that read like an Onion piece and said something like “US advises Israel to use smaller bombs to minimize civilian casualties.” His other editorial said the US should stop investing in renewable energies and instead invest in new businesses that create jobs. Uh Steve-O: renewable businesses are new businesses, maybe go back to that flat tax long con.
What else is in there early on? A list of upscale eateries that are all in New York City. (I’ll stick with Monk’s Diner.) We soon learn that billionaires are nicknamed “three commas,” then things lead into the main act as the prose coughs this up: “What a year it’s been for the planet’s billionaires, whose fortunes continue to swell as global stock markets shrug off war, political unrest, and lingering inflation. There are now more billionaires than ever.”
There is the list of the fourteen men (yes, they’re all men) who are worth $100 billion. We learn that “The combined net worth of the planet’s billlionaires has skyrocketed by 545% over the past two decades, to $14.2 trillion — quadruple the 111% rise in world GDP.” (The graph that accompanies this is outstanding. I mean, seriously nice work whether you think that unreal accumulation of wealth is good or bad.) I found out that Warren Buffett (number six) got into a beef last year with Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam over the price of Pilot truck stops. WTF? And oh hey: the blurb on Bill Gates (number seven) references Cheap Trick with a mention of “stiff competition.”
But enough about the established big shots. Billionaire newcomers include Magic Johnson ($1.2 billion), who was Sid Hartman’s guy before he was your guy, and TV’s Dick Wolf, who for some reason hasn’t plugged his $1.2 billion into a 24/7 streaming Law & Order channel (he blew his chance to put Homicide: Life on the Street episodes on the air with Peacock beating him to it.) Then there’s Taylor Swift ($1.1 billion), who “became the first billionaire musician based soley on songs and performances.” In your face, McCartney!*
There’s a page titled “Warbucks” that leads off with “Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has wrought death and destruction upon untold millions of people. Yet it’s been a boon, at least financially, for several members of the World’s Billionaires list.” War, amirite? Here we have eight men, three of who are war-profiteering from shipping Russian oil and sending Russia guns. There’s one Turkish gent who sent Ukraine a model of military drone so popular, troops wrote a folk song about it. If there’s one Ukranian folk song I would actually listen to, that one is likely it.
At the end there’s a quite good article skeptical of crypto currencies and their ilk that has a compelling page-long graphic and ends with the warning: “Buyer beware. The lunatics are running the crypto asylum.” Huh, actual investigative reporting and a takedown of the dudebros behind the various scams that are crypto. Bravo, even if it is buried in the back of the issue.
Finally, here’s why I love printed magazines. There’s an Aristotle quote on the spine. It reads: “Inferiors agitate that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior.” I may not make much money, but Forbes gets me.
*A separate small feature shows that Gibson is releasing a version of non-billionaire Jimmy Page’s 1969 double-necked guitar with a mere $50,000 price tag.