If You're Rich, It's Your Own Bloody Fault

Income inequality has become a major issue in recent years.  From the perspective of the working class, it makes sense.  Our salaries and wages are stagnating while the rich get richer.  It doesn't help matters when they turn around and say that we're entitled for wanting to be able to make rent and pay for food.

Interestingly enough, rich people have weighed in.  Celebrities, most notably, have gone on record saying that they don't think that it's a fair system and that the distribution of wealth needs to be fixed.

The common response to this is "well, give it to charity".  Hilariously enough, they don't have a counter-argument for this.  They just shrug and go on spewing talking points.  To be fair, a lot of them do give money to charity, but there are a lot of worthwhile causes and these celebrities can clearly afford to give more.

But let's put charity aside, what they say that they really want to do is take their money and give it to other people.  I'm not sure where they got the idea that they needed the government to do this, but it simply isn't the case.  If you want to give your money away, there's nothing stopping you.

Again, Indiegogo, Kickstarter, Patreon, GoFundme, Fundrazr, if they wanted to, Zach Braff, Russell Brand, Thom Yorke, Warren Buffett, and Joe Hill could bankrupt themselves on these sites.

Here, I'll help get you started, here's a link to my patreon

http://www.patreon.com/egonlongshanks


Is that not enough? Here's another one

http://www.patreon.com/marzgurl


And another

http://www.patreon.com/user?u=145828


And another

http://www.patreon.com/lordkat


And another

http://www.patreon.com/thecinemasnob


And another

http://www.patreon.com/amaipetisu


And one more

http://www.patreon.com/nicolashamel


How about a couple of GoFundMe campaigns?

http://www.gofundme.com/g9wkc8

http://www.gofundme.com/fl0xc4

http://www.gofundme.com/cmyl9s


And an Indiegogo for good measure

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/atop-the-fourth-wall-the-movie#home


There, go nuts!


On top of that, there's paypal.  Or, they could buy things for random people off of their amazon wishlists.  It would be a nice surprise for the recipient and it would pump money into the economy as opposed to just letting it sit idle in a purportedly over sized bank account.

By their own logic, this would do wonders for the economy and it would alleviate them of the burden of wealth that capitalism has bestowed upon them.

Sadly, they won't do it.  For all their talk, the fact of the matter is that, deep down in places they don't like to talk about at parties, they like their money.  They like having multiple houses, a fleet of cars, a bowling alley in their basement, and an in-home movie theater.  Having all of this in and of itself isn't a problem.  They did, after all work for it, but it comes off as disingenuous to complain about wealth and how it needs to be redistributed and then decline when the opportunity to redistribute said wealth is placed right in front of you.

Heck, if these celebrities really felt like they were too rich, they could simply ask for less money.  Do you really think that a studio would argue if George Clooney or Tom Cruise responded to an offer with "No thanks, that's too much money for me.  I'll do it for a third of that"?  They'd be all over it.  The overhead would drop, allowing ticket prices to come down and it could even result in raises for the behind the scenes crew.  Not only would it help the problem that they are trying to address, but it would make the celebrity in question a stronger icon for the idea by living up to their own message.

Instead, they argue for more money.  From a business standpoint, there is nothing wrong with this, but again, this is a mindset that they denounce.

If you like being rich and want to revel in your success, that's fine.  If you can't stand by while people starve and want to give it away, choosing instead to live a modest life; that's fine too.  In fact, it's incredibly commendable.  You can't say you're in favor of one and do the other, however.  Could you split the difference and find a healthy middle ground? Probably, but even then, the rhetoric and level of commitment would have to be changed to reflect that.