Why being the top 1% matters

It's not just that the rich in the nation and the world are rich.  Far from it.

It's not that they're rich and we want to take money from them, in order to "get even."

It's nothing like that.

What it is is that, because they are rich--some of them obscenely so--they are able to use portions of that money to create yet more, first of all.  Secondly, they are able to use even more of that same money of theirs to buy tax deductions and exploit our election and government system and tax laws to avoid paying taxes, thereby getting or keeping even more money but also keeping more money for themselves and keeping more money away from our nation and infrastructure for the nation's functioning and upkeep.

I was made aware today of just one more of those examples.

It seems the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, already a wealthy man, of course, wanted to make yet more money, as wealthy people are so frequently wont to do.

So what did he do?

Why, he set up his own TV station, for starters.

And then he sold the rights to broadcast the live television feed of his own Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team to that station, to himself, really.

Isn't that beautiful?

And think about it.

He owns a monopoly to begin with, in his Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team.

Then, he takes that monopoly and creates a 2nd monopoly, and feeds all that money to himself.

Because he can.

Ah, the beauty of being rich just now in America. Filthy, stinking rich.

And if there's something you don't like in our government or tax laws?

Why, just buy yourself a Federal or state representative, give them a relatively small 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 thousand dollar "campaign contribution" and voila! Law changed. And the benefits--frequently in the millions--are yours.

That, after all, is how and why the National Football League teams--yet more monopolies, each and every team--pays ZERO TAXES, every year, to you and I, to the US government.

Yes, you read that right. If you didn't know it already, the NFL, with all the millions and billions it takes from Americans every year, is a "non-profit."

Yeah, and I'm from Mars.