Chuck Collins: 10 ways in which the system lets billionaires burn us
Abigail Johnson, CEO of the Johnson family-controlled Fidelity Investments, is the richest person in New England, according to Forbes, with a net worth in 2024 of $29 billion.
The richest in the rest of New England:
Vermont: John Abele, $1.9 billion
Maine - Susan Alfond, $3.1 billion
Rhode Island - Jonathan Nelson, $3.4 billion
New Hampshire - Rick Cohen & family, $19.6 billion
Connecticut - Steve Cohen, $19.8 billion
Data from Congressional Budget Office
Text via OtherWords.org
I’ve spent my career highlighting the problems posed by extreme wealth. Not everyone buys it. “None of my problems exist as a result of someone else being a billionaire,” Greg B. recently wrote to me.
The problem isn’t individual billionaires, I told Greg. It’s the system of laws, rules, and regulations tipped in favor of the wealthy at the expense of working folks.
I wrote my new book, Burned by Billionaires, to help folks like Greg understand this system better. Here are 10 ways you — yes, you personally — are being burned by billionaires, pulled from my book.
1. They stick you with their tax bill. By dodging taxes in ways unavailable to ordinary workers, billionaires shift responsibility onto you to pay for everything from infrastructure to defense and veterans services.
2. They rob you of your voice. Your vote might still make a difference, but billionaires now dominate candidate selection, campaign finance, and policy priorities. The billionaires love gridlock and government shutdowns because they can block popular legislation.
3. They supercharge the housing crisis. Billionaire demand for luxury housing is driving up the cost of land and housing construction for everyone. Billionaire speculators are also buying up rental housing, single family homes, and mobile home parks to squeeze more money out of the housing shortage.
4. They inflame our divisions. The billionaires don’t want you to understand how they’re picking your pocket, so they pour millions into partisan media organizations and divisive politicians to deflect our attention. This divisive agenda drives down wages, worsens the historic racial wealth divide, and scapegoats immigrants.
5. They’re trashing your environment. While you’re recycling and walking, they’re zooming around in private jets and yachts with the carbon emissions of small countries.
6. They’re making you sick. Billionaire-backed private equity funds are buying up hospitals and drug companies to squeeze more out of health care consumers. Health outcomes in societies with extreme disparities in wealth are worse for everyone, even the rich, than societies with less inequality.
7. They’re blocking action on climate. Fossil fuel billionaires spend millions to block the transition to a healthy future, keep their coal plants open, and shut down competing wind projects. They’re running out the clock for our governments to take action to avert the worst impacts of climate disruption.
8. They’re coming for your pets. Billionaire private equity funds know we love our pets like family. To squeeze more money out of us, they’re buying up veterinary care, medical specialties, pet food and supply companies, and pet care services like Rover.com.
9. They’re dictating what’s on your dinner plate. The food barons — the billionaires that monopolize almost every sector of the food economy — are dictating the price, ingredients, and supply of most food.
10. They’re corrupting charity. Billionaire philanthropy has become a taxpayer-subsidized form of private power and influence. As philanthropy gets more top-heavy — with most charity dollars flowing from the ultra-wealthy — it distorts and warps the independence of nonprofits.
But there’s so much we can do to fight back.
You can talk to your neighbors about these 10 ways they’re feeling the burn and organize a discussion group. When your neighbor complains about their taxes, explain how the billionaires lobbied to shift taxes away from themselves and onto everyone else.
You can join campaigns to invest in housing, education, and clean energy by taxing the rich. If federal changes are blocked by the billionaires, work at the state and local level. Or you can join satirical resistance groups like “Trillionaires for Trump.”
Finally, you can learn more about inequality and how to fight it at Inequality.org, the website I co-edit for the Institute for Policy Studies.
Billionaires have the cash, but we have something they don’t: each other. And we’re tired of being burned.
Chuck Collins, based in Vermont, directs the Program on Inequality, and co-edits Inequality.org, for the Institute for Policy Studies.
