It amuses me to read about the billionaires building their bunkers so they can survive the apocalypse they have, to a large extent, created. They seem to imagine that the serfs left outside the bunkers will continue to feed and protect them as if they were worker bees serving the queen. I imagine not much time would pass before the supply of food and clean water and even oxygen was cut off and people were dancing on the bunkers like they were graves. Let's save them from that fate by seizing the wealth that deprives them of their humanity.
They are members of a very small, select, financial wealth class that needs dismantling for the greater good.
"fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires and billionaires holding unprecedented financial power, while billions of the world’s poor remain cut off from even basic economic stability."
"You can stand one foot away from it and peer at the drips and feel the same gravity that held Basquiat to the earth when he painted it in 1982." That's some profound writing, and observation, Hamilton. As we end this year of the snake, and shed those things we no longer need, may society join us by shedding billionaires.
Not the ultimate point, but per the essay, Griffin bought a copy of the EP, not the actual document. I'm sure there are things that are not for sale, that belong to the country, are in the Library of Congress. The signed Declaration of Independence is not available to the highest bidder. Another small point, it's nice that Griffin lent the painting to the Hirschhorn, so people who appreciate it can stand in front of it and be awed. It does show some recognition of the painting's actual value aside from money.
Be careful with that thought. Selling off national artifacts sounds like just the sort of perverse idea that would appeal to Trump. Hell they have floated the idea of selling off National Parks already……
Another point is that every actual painting (rather than reproduction) we get to see in a museum was bought by someone very rich and donated to the museum. Buying the painting enabled the artist to continue pursuing his/her art. Is there a better way? I don't know. If Basquiat had continued painting on walls people who saw those paintings would have loved them, and eventually they would have been covered by a liquor ad.
Judith I enjoyed your comments, but the theme here isn’t about the rich patronizing the arts. It’s about the suffering coming to humanity as a cost for the wealth disparities. I’m not yet on the very low end, but not secure either. I read this to try to orient myself to whatever I can contribute to making life possible for those who’ll follow me.
We don’t know from whom Griffin bought the Basquiat. There were likely some middlemen. I would discourage you from praising Griffin as a supporter of the arts.
I'm not praising Griffin so much as saying there's no reason to heap opprobrium on him for doing so, or to brand him a philistine for spending a lot of money on a great painting and then making it available to the public. I find it hard to understand the outrage directed at him for a use of his money that seems more worth appreciating than most.
This is an interesting question. What was his particular motivation for wanting that document? Did someone ask him? 1)To show that he could and thereby signal his power and wealth to continue clinching his membership in the billionaire club? 2)Or was it because, as you suggested, he actually thought about it as a way to symbolically bring back slavery by destroying the document?
Owning the EP and the Basquiat are acts of deliberate desecration. The irony of 'owning' the signed EP is inescapable. Plus aesthetically, someone like Griffin shood be collecting Dutch masters and maybe other Western European art from impressionism on back. 'owning' a modern piece by a black artist (who would have despised Griffin) is, again, an act of desecration.
The highest tax bracket is only 37% which means the richest get to just keep getting richer. Of course even that is too much and they hire a small army to shuttle their money around the world, away from prying eyes. It is framed as a great act of generosity (and a savings for them) that we poors get to look at the things they own.
Whenever I hear someone say a politician "bought" an election, I think an important point is being missed. These fucking assholes don't have any power that we don't allow them to have.
Ken Griffin isn't going to beat me to a pulp if I don't vote for his preferred henchmen. He has no magic powers. He can only convince us to punch ourselves in the face. Which seems shockingly easy to do.
I have a rich fantasy life. One favorite fantasy is that some wizard shows up and opens a series of magic portals leading to various parallel Earths, and people can go to the world whose political views most match their own.
What would be more delightful than people having to live with the consequences of their belief systems. I just hope I get to fast forward through the future history of these parallel Earths.
Once again thank you for painting a picture as it were of things known but often only viscerally experienced until presented by your mad wordsmith skills.
I wish that every progressive political activist would drop whatever they were doing and focus on one thing: Reducing the maximum political donation (to candidates. parties, PACs, SuperPACs, whatever) to under $100. My suggestion is setting it at a day's wages at the federal minimum wage, $58 right now.
High spenders win 94% of races. Over 80% of that money comes from millionaires and billionaires. Candidates who disagree with the rich don't get those donations and will remain a perpetual minority in government until ordinary people and the rich have the same spending power. Billionaires like this yutz will fund their hand picked servants to flood the airwaves and the internet with attack ads and oppo research.
Whatever your favorite political goal is, forget it. You aren't going to convince people who were carefully selected (by donation) to disagree with you. Tax reform? Ha! Fight climate change? Nope.
We need to make the sub-$100 donation limit a litmus test for any candidate and a laser focus for activism. It's the prerequisite change for any other change.
Thank you. This piece of research, reporting, and analysis was what I have been waiting to read. You took one billionaire example and relentlessly called out the SELFISH behaviour and connected all the dots to show us the rotten core. You pointed out how this model should not and will not fly in this democracy under fire. There is strength in knowing we are on the right side of history.
A perfect assessment of where Capitalism has taken us to.
I would probably boil this down: "From his walled 50,00-square-foot compound on 27 acres in Palm Beach, Griffin has done more than any other individual to create the political conditions that make Florida more hostile to black people, and LBTQ people, and women, and immigrants. Why? What is the reason for this? In order to ensure that political conditions are favorable for the success of Griffin’s hedge fund, and by extension for Griffin’s own net worth, so that he might buy grander estates, more expensive artworks, more exotic luxuries."
To a simpler explanation. The reason is misdirection. Give the proletariat someone/something to blame. The rich don't want us to see that they are living by the maxim: "Greed Is Good" - and they want it all.
So, here's a question for you Hamilton - maybe one you've already answered:
What happens when inequality reaches the point when people can no longer afford to buy stuff? When we can no longer "contribute" to the ever increasing wealth of the rich?
I agree with the premise, that the economic divide is one of the biggest underlying threats to this country. But there are subtleties being missed.
I might be disgusted that Ken Griffin owns a Basquiat. But the art market is an artificial economy anyway. At least he loaned it to the Hirshhorn. I'm also disgusted that Lincoln Center for the Arts is partially funded by one of the Koch brothers. So there's a paradox; the Arts can be appreciated and supported by people who are otherwise not the sort of people we would expect (ie, not "liberal" for lack of a better term). What about George Soros? Or Bill Gates, for that matter, who is not the most sickening of the bunch!
Secondly, why is it even possible for billionaires to win elections spending money? They may be assholes for wanting to, but the system allows it to happen. Needless to say, that system was constructed by people with those same interests (power and money). My old accountant used to recommend checking the "donate $3 to the Federal Campaign Fund" box on the 1040 form as a way to avoid one tiny audit flag! Seems kind of quaint now. Is it too late to fix this?
It amuses me to read about the billionaires building their bunkers so they can survive the apocalypse they have, to a large extent, created. They seem to imagine that the serfs left outside the bunkers will continue to feed and protect them as if they were worker bees serving the queen. I imagine not much time would pass before the supply of food and clean water and even oxygen was cut off and people were dancing on the bunkers like they were graves. Let's save them from that fate by seizing the wealth that deprives them of their humanity.
Its truly for their own good
Beautiful ending. Chef's kiss. No notes.
Cosigned.
They are members of a very small, select, financial wealth class that needs dismantling for the greater good.
"fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires and billionaires holding unprecedented financial power, while billions of the world’s poor remain cut off from even basic economic stability."
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/12/11/headlines/report_wealthiest_0001_hold_three_times_more_wealth_than_the_poorest_half_of_humanity
This should be hung in the Lourve then sold to Ken Griffin for sixty billion dollars.
on target, as always, the perversity today puts the Gilded Age to shame...
"You can stand one foot away from it and peer at the drips and feel the same gravity that held Basquiat to the earth when he painted it in 1982." That's some profound writing, and observation, Hamilton. As we end this year of the snake, and shed those things we no longer need, may society join us by shedding billionaires.
Did he buy the Emancipation Proclamation so he could tear it up someday and reduce people back to slavery?
Not the ultimate point, but per the essay, Griffin bought a copy of the EP, not the actual document. I'm sure there are things that are not for sale, that belong to the country, are in the Library of Congress. The signed Declaration of Independence is not available to the highest bidder. Another small point, it's nice that Griffin lent the painting to the Hirschhorn, so people who appreciate it can stand in front of it and be awed. It does show some recognition of the painting's actual value aside from money.
Be careful with that thought. Selling off national artifacts sounds like just the sort of perverse idea that would appeal to Trump. Hell they have floated the idea of selling off National Parks already……
yup. don't give any of these motherfuckers any ideas
Another point is that every actual painting (rather than reproduction) we get to see in a museum was bought by someone very rich and donated to the museum. Buying the painting enabled the artist to continue pursuing his/her art. Is there a better way? I don't know. If Basquiat had continued painting on walls people who saw those paintings would have loved them, and eventually they would have been covered by a liquor ad.
Judith I enjoyed your comments, but the theme here isn’t about the rich patronizing the arts. It’s about the suffering coming to humanity as a cost for the wealth disparities. I’m not yet on the very low end, but not secure either. I read this to try to orient myself to whatever I can contribute to making life possible for those who’ll follow me.
We don’t know from whom Griffin bought the Basquiat. There were likely some middlemen. I would discourage you from praising Griffin as a supporter of the arts.
I'm not praising Griffin so much as saying there's no reason to heap opprobrium on him for doing so, or to brand him a philistine for spending a lot of money on a great painting and then making it available to the public. I find it hard to understand the outrage directed at him for a use of his money that seems more worth appreciating than most.
This is an interesting question. What was his particular motivation for wanting that document? Did someone ask him? 1)To show that he could and thereby signal his power and wealth to continue clinching his membership in the billionaire club? 2)Or was it because, as you suggested, he actually thought about it as a way to symbolically bring back slavery by destroying the document?
Owning the EP and the Basquiat are acts of deliberate desecration. The irony of 'owning' the signed EP is inescapable. Plus aesthetically, someone like Griffin shood be collecting Dutch masters and maybe other Western European art from impressionism on back. 'owning' a modern piece by a black artist (who would have despised Griffin) is, again, an act of desecration.
Yes!!!
The highest tax bracket is only 37% which means the richest get to just keep getting richer. Of course even that is too much and they hire a small army to shuttle their money around the world, away from prying eyes. It is framed as a great act of generosity (and a savings for them) that we poors get to look at the things they own.
Whenever I hear someone say a politician "bought" an election, I think an important point is being missed. These fucking assholes don't have any power that we don't allow them to have.
Ken Griffin isn't going to beat me to a pulp if I don't vote for his preferred henchmen. He has no magic powers. He can only convince us to punch ourselves in the face. Which seems shockingly easy to do.
I have a rich fantasy life. One favorite fantasy is that some wizard shows up and opens a series of magic portals leading to various parallel Earths, and people can go to the world whose political views most match their own.
What would be more delightful than people having to live with the consequences of their belief systems. I just hope I get to fast forward through the future history of these parallel Earths.
Imagine Planet Wall Street.
Planet Trump.
Planet Clinton/Obama/Pelosi/Professional Managerial Class.
Planet Osteen.
But once they get there, they can't leave. And they live forever.
Let these people have the worlds they are trying to build. For all eternity.
Once again thank you for painting a picture as it were of things known but often only viscerally experienced until presented by your mad wordsmith skills.
What a wondrous sentence Alison.
Aw! Thank you! It's intimidating to write to writers so I appreciate this very much! :)
I wish that every progressive political activist would drop whatever they were doing and focus on one thing: Reducing the maximum political donation (to candidates. parties, PACs, SuperPACs, whatever) to under $100. My suggestion is setting it at a day's wages at the federal minimum wage, $58 right now.
High spenders win 94% of races. Over 80% of that money comes from millionaires and billionaires. Candidates who disagree with the rich don't get those donations and will remain a perpetual minority in government until ordinary people and the rich have the same spending power. Billionaires like this yutz will fund their hand picked servants to flood the airwaves and the internet with attack ads and oppo research.
Whatever your favorite political goal is, forget it. You aren't going to convince people who were carefully selected (by donation) to disagree with you. Tax reform? Ha! Fight climate change? Nope.
We need to make the sub-$100 donation limit a litmus test for any candidate and a laser focus for activism. It's the prerequisite change for any other change.
Thank you. This piece of research, reporting, and analysis was what I have been waiting to read. You took one billionaire example and relentlessly called out the SELFISH behaviour and connected all the dots to show us the rotten core. You pointed out how this model should not and will not fly in this democracy under fire. There is strength in knowing we are on the right side of history.
Thank you Laurel for an articulate, elegant and poised comment. You make the style of it an important part of the message.
HamNo, if you keep writing bad things about billionaires, then YOU won’t get to be a billionaire someday. Don’t you understand economics?
A perfect assessment of where Capitalism has taken us to.
I would probably boil this down: "From his walled 50,00-square-foot compound on 27 acres in Palm Beach, Griffin has done more than any other individual to create the political conditions that make Florida more hostile to black people, and LBTQ people, and women, and immigrants. Why? What is the reason for this? In order to ensure that political conditions are favorable for the success of Griffin’s hedge fund, and by extension for Griffin’s own net worth, so that he might buy grander estates, more expensive artworks, more exotic luxuries."
To a simpler explanation. The reason is misdirection. Give the proletariat someone/something to blame. The rich don't want us to see that they are living by the maxim: "Greed Is Good" - and they want it all.
So, here's a question for you Hamilton - maybe one you've already answered:
What happens when inequality reaches the point when people can no longer afford to buy stuff? When we can no longer "contribute" to the ever increasing wealth of the rich?
> cock his head like a golden retriever as he stares at them and wonders what they all mean.
Lovely.
I agree with the premise, that the economic divide is one of the biggest underlying threats to this country. But there are subtleties being missed.
I might be disgusted that Ken Griffin owns a Basquiat. But the art market is an artificial economy anyway. At least he loaned it to the Hirshhorn. I'm also disgusted that Lincoln Center for the Arts is partially funded by one of the Koch brothers. So there's a paradox; the Arts can be appreciated and supported by people who are otherwise not the sort of people we would expect (ie, not "liberal" for lack of a better term). What about George Soros? Or Bill Gates, for that matter, who is not the most sickening of the bunch!
Secondly, why is it even possible for billionaires to win elections spending money? They may be assholes for wanting to, but the system allows it to happen. Needless to say, that system was constructed by people with those same interests (power and money). My old accountant used to recommend checking the "donate $3 to the Federal Campaign Fund" box on the 1040 form as a way to avoid one tiny audit flag! Seems kind of quaint now. Is it too late to fix this?