Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless

By Rob C.

Art by Rick McKee

TL;DR: The billionaire class is so disconnected they can’t define “groceries” or “affordability,” while most Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Trump is building gilded ballrooms while rent prices climb. Elon Musk is firing taxpayer-funded rockets 🚀 and generating children faster than X/Twitter generates conspiracy theories. Larry Ellison is playing Pac-Man with the media to control the narrative. This shameless oligarchy is not just oblivious to your pain; they are causing it, having consolidated wealth to a level where the country only works for the super-rich.

Donald Trump recently stumbled over the word “groceries,” making it sound like an arcane term from a dead language. He then followed up by demonstrating an absolute, breathtaking ignorance of “affordability.”

The reason is simple: for these disconnected, delusional wanna-be oligarchs, these words are a foreign language. They have no idea what it means to worry about the price of groceries, gas, healthcare, or housing. When your house costs more than some countries’ GDP and your bathroom is made of custom-carved Italian marble, “affordability” is something your accountant deals with, not a daily struggle you face at the checkout line.

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The Billionaire Boys’ Club: A Daily Parade of Parasites

The problem isn’t just Trump’s personal idiocy; it’s the entire billionaire boys’ club acting as if the rest of us are simply props in their real-life Monopoly game.

• Trump: Too busy building a gilded ballroom or figuring out how to re-brand the latest piece of tacky merch to care about the cost of living. He’s the poster child for the idea that success in America means: born rich and never having to know the price of milk.

• Elon Musk: While Americans struggle to pay medical bills, Musk is off firing rockets into space 🚀. It’s a fantastic scam, but let’s be honest: much of that development was jump-started and sustained by billions in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits—taxpayer dollars, not his daddy’s hard-earned blood money. He’s taking a taxpayer-subsidized joyride while his AI platform “Grok” spits out Nazi propaganda.

• Larry Ellison: The Oracle co-founder, through his son David, is playing a massive, high-stakes game of media Pac-Man, trying to control everything from Paramount to CNN 📺. This isn’t about profit; it’s about control and narrative power, ensuring that the stories you see and the facts you believe align with the oligarchs’ agenda.

These guys are not just rich; they are shameless. They get rich off the system—oftentimes on the taxpayer dime—and then use that wealth to ensure the system never, ever changes. And yet, there are still people who believe we should elect more of these parasites because they’re “successful.” Please. 🙄

The Economic Abyss of Inequality

The sheer disconnect is a direct result of historical choices that have systematically enriched the top 1% at the expense of everyone else.

Since the 1980s, the concentration of wealth has not just been rising; it has been soaring. Data shows that the top 1% of families hold, as of 2024, over 30.8% of the country’s net worth. Meanwhile, families in the bottom 50% held a mere 6 percent. The gutting of the middle class was the point.

This isn’t an accident; it’s the product of a legislative and judicial environment designed by the ultra-wealthy. They have used their money to eliminate regulations, secure massive tax breaks, and dismantle worker protections—all of which has created an affordability crisis that is deliberately out-of-reach for most Americans. They are not simply oblivious to your pain; they are the structural cause of it.

This process of economic warfare is precisely what I detail in my book Democracy for Sale - Part 4: The Billionaire Class. The ultimate truth is that the billionaire class is actively creating a country that only works for the super-rich, and the biggest danger is their delusion that they are still somehow one of us.

Don’t let the oligarchs win: Hit the like ❤️, smash the share 📲, and subscribe to keep the good trouble coming!

— Robert Cain, author of Democracy for Sale: How Corporate Greed Is Corrupting Democracy and Endangering the Planet.

Check out this video discussing how the influence of oligarchs and corporate extraction is intensifying America’s housing and affordability crisis: Matt Stoller: How ‘oligarchs’ and ‘extraction’ fueled America’s housing crisis.