Happy World Humanitarian Day to all of the white saviors out there, especially those who’ve enabled civil wars, such as Yemen’s and Sudan’s, to continue for decades because nobody has to pause and grow food, as was the case for all pre-20th-century wars.
Let’s look at White Savior In Chief Bill Gates. The Gates Foundation was founded in 2000 and has been operated with the stated goal of helping Africans in Africa. ChatGPT says that there about 400 million Africans in “extreme poverty” in 2000 who were completely helpless and dependent on foreign do-gooders.
Bill Gates has been able to ship nearly all of his Microsoft winnings, without them even being subject to capital gains tax, over to Africa. Because he skipped on capital gains tax and will skip on estate tax, therefore, it is the rest of us who must fund the federal government by paying taxes. Americans won’t even get “trickle-down” benefits from Bill Gates becoming rich because the tax-free money is spent on another continent rather than here. When a billionaire douche spends $1 billion on a neo-Mar-a-Lago house in Palm Beach we might reasonably be sick with envy. But the spending results in tons of Americans getting construction jobs, jobs making components for the house, and jobs maintaining the house once it is occupied. After 100 years, the owner(s) of the house will have paid roughly $1 billion in property tax to Palm Beach County, thus funding schools, roads parks, police, fire, etc. None of that happens when a rich douche is able to put money into a tax-free foundation and ship the money overseas.
How many fewer Africans are needy in 2026, after 26 years of these massive transfers of American wealth? ChatGPT says that the current number of extremely poor Africans is about 580 million. So the number of helpless Africans has increased by 50% during the lifetime of a foundation whose purpose is helping helpless Africans.
Here’s the White Savior in Chief in action:
Phil, just to be clear, for years I’ve been a huge proponent of people like myself paying much higher taxes. I just seem to forget on April 15th of every year…after all, do-gooders like me are busy, you know, flying on our G800s, visiting Little St. James Island, and what not.
https://x.com/TODAYshow/status/1838551328026402997
Before the Gates Foundation, everybody hated Bill Gates for antitrust violations.
After the Gates Foundation, everybody hates him for completely different reasons.
PR works!
> everybody hated Bill Gates for antitrust violations
Except for the thousands of millionaires M$ created.
Gates looks like he eats less than the baby momma.
Jeff Bezos says that a trillion humans = 1000 Mozarts and Einsteins. 580 million – 400 million = 180 million = 0.18 extra Mozarts.
How many extra Mozarts have you created today?
(And if they are “helpless” in Africa, they could all realize their full potential by moving to Europe. Problem solved!)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jeff-bezos-elon-musk-human-170119555.html
> Happy World Humanitarian Day to all of the white saviors
I’m a selfish misanthrope, so I don’t worry about being harmed during my charitable acts. I am grateful for the free bottled water from Sam’s Club when our water supply was washed out last year, though. The UN’s got your back, Sam’s.
@PhilBlogBot
Remind me on December 10 of the UN’s Human Rights Day (5 days, actually). I like to get human dignity at least 5 days per year. Thanks AI bro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Day
meanwhile
https://www.crfb.org/press-releases/gross-national-debt-reaches-40-trillion
Finally, Progress we can believe in. Is that what they mean when they call Democratic Socialists “Progressive” on PBS News Hour? “Eight Oh — Double the debt by 2032.”
OAG
Currently Fiscal conservatives are incharge.
> Currently Fiscal conservatives are incharge.
FisConINOs? Although sometimes it seems like no one is in charge of the pork-barrel monster. Here’s an interesting link to %increase in GDP by President:
https://www.investopedia.com/us-debt-by-president-dollar-and-percentage-7371225
I guess Ronnie had 160% in order to win the Cold War and W. Bush to wage the Wars on Terror. The new DemSocs are sure as hell promising more spending on freebies.
Ronald Reagan proposed a balanced program of spending cuts and tax cuts. Congress rejected all of his spending cuts and implemented some of his tax cuts, thus producing a massive deficit.
If I recall correctly. Reagan had to face Democrat – controlled congress.
Politics weren’t completely oppositional/defiant in the 1980s, IIRC. Now opponents (including ad hominem ones) interfere even if they don’t disagree with the policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_public_debt
> President Ronald Reagan’s economic policies lowered tax rates…and increased military spending, while congressional Democrats blocked cuts to social programs. As a result, debt as a share of GDP increased from 26.2% in 1980 to 40.9% in 1988, and it continued to rise during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, reaching 48.3% of GDP in 1992.
.> ..it fell to 34.5% of GDP by the end of Clinton’s presidency due in part to decreased military spending, increased taxes, and increased tax revenue resulting from the 1990s boom. The budget controls instituted in the 1990s successfully restrained fiscal action by the Congress and the President and together with economic growth contributed to the budget surpluses at the end of the decade.
If we had any sense, we would encourage people to work for a living and have the government support that. Of course, it is silly to say that the President is solely responsible for economic indicators, as per campaign sound-bites.