“The nature of the workings of government depends ultimately on the men who run it.” V.O. Key
A few weeks ago an observation by a woman named Nathalie Robin Justice made the rounds on the internet:
If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkeys starved, scientists would study that monkey to see what is wrong with it. When humans exhibit this same behavior, we put them on the cover of Forbes magazine.
The quote went viral because it hit home.
A billion dollars is hard to fathom. After all, one million dollars is a significant amount of money. And since one billion is 1,000 millions, it’s really hard to comprehend the vastness of those resources.
So let’s use an analogy from a book I read recently called Making Numbers Count (by Chip Heath, who also wrote Made To Stick. I recommend both.).
Imagine you and a friend enter a lottery – with a catch. If you win, you have to spend $50,000 of your prize money every day until it runs out.
You win a million dollars! Congratulations! Your friend wins a billion.
So how long do you think it will take for each of you to run out of money?
As a millionaire, I’m sorry to say that you’ll run out pretty quickly – in 20 days. If you win on December 1, your project of spending $50,000 every day will be over by Christmas.
But your billionaire friend? Well – it’s going to take them a while longer.
To spend down $1 billion they will have to spend $50,000 a day, every single day, for 55 years.
While we hear a lot about Elon Musk as The Richest Man In The World, the truth is that the U.S. has a growing number of billionaires – 813 at last count. That’s four movie theaters full. Or five-ish Southwest flights. Heck – they could all fit on a single Airbus A380-800 if they wanted to (and didn’t have their own private planes, that is).
But while there are 813 billionaires – there are around 334 million Americans.
That means as a percentage of the population, billionaires make up the tippy-tippy-tippity-top – 0.0001%.
But that elite group of 813 billionaires holds more wealth than 66 million Americans.
Again to put that in perspective, a group of people that could fit onto an Airbus A380-800 holds more wealth than the combined populations of Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, and New Jersey.
That level of disparity is why those memes about monkeys and bananas resonate. When a small group of people amass so many resources they’re unable to use them up during their lifetime, while tens of millions of people have a hard time putting food on the table, folks start to question our society’s priorities.
Listen – I don’t necessarily have anything against billionaires. And we’ve had wealth disparity before – the Guilded Age comes to mind. But the so-called robber barons understood there was a limit to the American populace’s patience and funded things like public libraries to placate public opinion and soothe their own consciences.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Andrew Carnegie funded 1,689 public libraries in the U.S. – many of them in small towns. Over his lifetime he gave the equivalent of $10.5 billion to charities, foundations and universities. John D. Rockefeller also funded libraries, medical centers, and universities – single-handedly creating the University of Chicago from scratch (and then flatly refusing to allow the university to put his name on any buildings or infrastructure, so that the university would stand on its own). By the time of his death in 1937, Rockefeller had donated the equivalent of over $12 billion.
The libraries and medical centers they established still provide services and value to our communities – thanks to their philanthropy. We can see and appreciate their contributions – contributions that directly and tangibly impacted lives – so we don’t hold them in contempt.
Billionaires these days aren’t all supervillains, either.
We have people like MacKenzie Scott (Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife) who donated $19 billion to a variety of charities over just the last four years – a level of donations that Elon Musk publicly called “concerning.” We’ve got Bill and Melinda Gates – whose foundation has contributed $77.6 billion ($60 billion of that from themselves) to projects across the world to fight disease, poverty, and inequity.
Warren Buffett (with a net worth of approximately $147 billion) still lives in the first home he purchased in Omaha; upon his death most of his wealth will transfer to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (As someone who grew up outside Omaha, I can attest to his extraordinarily generous tips to wait staff at restaurants.)
Dolly Parton’s wealth doesn’t reach $1 billion, but that may be because she’s been so generous throughout her life. At a net worth estimated at $650 million, she donates two million books per month to kids under five years old around the country. The college students who work at Dollywood get free tuition and books. She’s funded new medical centers, the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, and millions in hurricane and disaster relief.
Dolly’s fellow Tennesseean Taylor Swift, whose net worth is now around $1.6 billion, has donated millions to disaster relief after hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes.
I could go on.
But there are … other billionaires. Those who are not so generous, and who seem to make philanthropic donations begrudgingly, when forced, for the tax breaks.
Unfortunately, it’s those billionaires that currently lead the country and have their fingers in the U.S. Treasury.
The Trump Foundation was dissolved by court order after a number of violations including self-dealing came to light. Elon Musk’s foundation missed its required mark of 5% donations in three consecutive years. In that time he saved approximately $2 billion in tax payments because of “donations” from Tesla to the Foundation.
And while Trump and Musk are the two most recognizable billionaires in the bunch, all told, out of 813 total billionaires in the US at least 13 will serve the Trump administration in an official role.
And rather than spreading massive resources across the country to better the good of all, they seem to want to stack the deck further in their favor by bending government to their will.
Right now, in a mad dash to cut trillions from the federal budget, Elon Musk is ripping the guts out of agencies, essential services, and programs that help people all over the world. His goal? In part, it’s to pay for tax cuts so he can keep more bananas. But reporting also shows that the purge of agencies and Inspectors General – which won’t benefit Americans – will benefit Musk personally by stopping (or at least slowing) investigations into his companies.
Of course Musk isn’t alone in his conflicts of interest. Democrats have already laid out how this billionaire-heavy administration poses many, many ethical problems – and flies in the face of the populist message on which Trump ran (and won).
It all leads to an obvious, unsettling conclusion. They’re building a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires.
The question is whether we the people will stand for it.
You know, if researchers found a monkey sitting on a pile of rotting bananas while other monkeys nearby starved, they’d be right to study the hoarding monkey. They’d be right in thinking there was something wrong with it.
But they shouldn’t stop the inquiry there. They should study the whole troop.
After all, the rest of the monkeys allowed the hoarding.
Let’s get to work.
Actions for the Week of February 11, 2025
Friend, things are heavy. But I’m here to tell you that you can lighten that load by doing something small – a “small deed” – to bring about the world that you want to see.
In doing so we tell the world, the universe, our leaders – and most importantly, ourselves – that we will not go quietly into that good night.
I call it Action Therapy.
That’s why in each Tuesday post I share a few “small things” – usually a Small Thing to Read, a Small Event to Attend, and a Small Call to Make or Action to Take. My intention here is to give you actions you can tuck into your week with ease – and know that you’re doing something today to make tomorrow better.
Join me in doing so, friends. It matters.
Small Thing to Read: Trump Can Be Stopped
There’s no shortage of good articles these days. But especially because things feel heavy, I wanted to share this one, called Trump Can Be Stopped: Other countries managed to fend off autocracy. By borrowing from their playbook, America can too.
This article is a wealth of information about how other countries have faced autocratic takeovers, and what we can learn from those experiences. We need that kind of practical information infused with inspiration.
One of my favorite paragraphs emphasizes our role in this fight:
The instruments at [Trump’s] disposal are formidable…. But he cannot use them to any effect unless a complacent public lets him. Without the acquiescence of state and local leaders, he cannot rig elections. Absent the collaboration of blue cities, he cannot round up and deport millions of immigrants. Unless people stay home out of fear, he cannot defeat a protest movement. If not for elections officials, district attorneys, business leaders, and universities “obeying in advance,” he cannot intimidate them into furthering his reactionary agenda.
Read the full article here.
Small Event to Attend: Big Tent Zoom TODAY at 4pm eastern (H/T Jess Craven of Chop Wood Carry Water!)
Today at 4:00 PM ET, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum and acclaimed journalist Katie Couric will join BigTentUSA for a compelling discussion on whether American democracy can endure the autocratic challenges posed by the Trump presidency and the far-reaching influence of Elon Musk, who has seized critical levers of power and authority within the federal government, seemingly giving him the ability to dismantle federal agencies at will.
They’ll examine the threats posed by unchecked power and explore what can be done to stop this dangerous takeover.
Small Call(s) to Make: No on Gabbard/RFK Jr. and NIH Funding
Note: if you can, call as often as once a day. The call volume truly does matter and shows that we are paying attention and won’t let up. There are two things I think you should call about this week where pressure is key: nominations and NIH funding.
Reminder: The capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121.
First: Gabbard and RFK
This week senators will vote on the nominations of Tulsi Gabbard and RFK, Jr. Both are extremely problematic – Gabbard because she’s a Russian propagandist and RFK, Jr. because he’s a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist. In a sane world neither would even be considered. But here we are.
If you want more information about any of the nominees, Indivisible has created a great website: https://www.nixthenoms.com/. There you’ll find more background and detail.
The scripts on these are simple:
Hi, my name is [your name] and I’m a constituent at [your zip code]. I’m calling to encourage the senator to vote no on Tulsi Gabbard and RFK, Jr. Gabbard has a troubling history of spreading Russian propaganda. RFK, Jr. is a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist with zero experience in healthcare. Thanks.
Second: NIH Funding
On Friday, NIH announced massive cuts to both current and future grant funding. The cuts are to so-called “indirect” costs – the overhead costs that research facilities must undertake to support the research that’s the subject of the grant. These costs can be 50% or more – and they’re being cut to 15%. Frankly, it’s impossible to comply with.
The kicker is that grant funding from NIH is a huge economic driver all across the country (including in red states). So red state senators are starting to speak out. Let’s lean into that, shall we?
The other half of this story involves NSF – the National Science Foundation. Trump’s plan is to cut the staff of NSF by 1/2 and their budget by 2/3. It would decimate the agency. 94% of its budget goes out the door in grants, awards, and education. Learn more here.
You can go here to see the exact projects that are happening in your state and in your congressional district. (Please share!)
You can go here to see the impact NIH funding has on the economy of your state. (Please share!): https://www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-state/
Yes, a temporary restraining order has been issued that restores NIH funding – and as of late last night it was extended nationwide. But we should look at this as a temporary reprieve and reach out to our elected officials to push them to show leadership here.
Script: Hi, my name is [your name] and I’m a constituent at [your zip code]. I’m calling because I’m very concerned about the cuts announced to NIH funding, the planned cuts to NSF, and the impact both will have on our community. [Add personal story if you can]. What is the Senator’s position on this illegal funding cut? What is s/he doing to protect this funding?
Thanks for reading, friend – I’m glad to see you here! You’re making a difference, I promise.
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Small Deeds Done 