The Richest Sociopath in the World

 

[ This article appeared almost a year ago at OpEdNews and Dissident Voice.  It was written before Jeff Bezos divorced his wife, MacKenzie, after 25 years of marriage. While the final settlement affects his total net worth, the important calculations and the overall thrust of the article are still solid.  Wealth inequality of this level is a grotesque, socially destructive artifact of capitalism.  I think I was able to capture the scale of Mr. Bezos's wealth and mind-numbing callousness to his employees and the country which has been instrumental in helping him build his empire.  Mr. Bezos had better hope that the "camel through the eye of a needle" warning was just the mad ravings of a smelly proto-hippie wandering in the desert way back a couple millennia ago. ]

Obviously the above pie chart is a put-on.  It is well-documented that working conditions for most employees of Amazon are abysmal, dehumanizing, bordering on the abuse we normally associate with slavery.

Moreover, the median employee's salary under Jeff Bezos' imperial lordship is $28,446.  No one working a regular job there has paid off their credit cards and is driving to work in a Mercedes.
Jeff Bezos is referred to as The Richest Man in the World and his personal fortune, while growing by $191,000 each minute, is currently estimated at $168 billion.

So "$28,446 vs. $168,000,000,000? While I can acknowledge the simple math, I find the contrast of such numbers on a gut level difficult to grasp.

To get a handle on such inequality, let's try approaching it from different angles.

One way to put the disparity into perspective is to recognize it takes Bezos just under nine seconds to earn what Amazon's median worker does in an entire year.

Another is to recognize that for a worker to go through Jeff Bezos' current personal fortune -- and of course, it continues mounting at accelerating levels as I write this -- at his/her current median annual income of $28,446 per year, WOULD TAKE 5,905,927 YEARS! That's close to 6 million years!
For Jeff Bezos himself to go through his current $168 billion, assuming his earnings stopped dead this very moment -- which as you and I know they won't -- SPENDING $1,000,000 A DAY, would take NEARLY 460 years. Yes, even spending $1 million a day, in the year 2475 he'd still have plenty of cash, tens of million of dollars mad money.  We can feel confident that he wouldn't be foraging through the dumpster behind 7-11.

Now, further consider that while the $28,446 median salary is above the national poverty line for a single individual if that person is the sole breadwinner for a family of four, it is marginally above it, which is why many Amazon employees must rely on government assistance to keep from starving.
As well as calculation, I did some speculation -- a simple exercise in imagination.

Apparently Bezos' wealth generating machine is raking it in so fast, he's currently making $11.5 million per hour ... every hour ... 24 hours a day ... seven days a week. $11,500,000 per hour!

So here's what I was picturing in my mind's eye ...

If for 40 hours of the 168 hours in a week, Bezos were willing to scrape by on a mere $5,840,000 per hour, he could give every one of his 566,000 Amazon employees a $10 per hour raise.  Of course the remaining 128 hours in each week, Bezos could continue earning his normal $11.5 million per hour, not having to share any of it with the pathetic slobs who work for him.

Rhetorical question: Does Jeff Bezos have any concept of what that $10 per hour increase would mean to his employees?

I'm not going to even suggest here I'm offering this for Bezos to entertain.  There are so many advantages to him both as a putative member of the human race and the employer of over a half million workers -- advantages that are so OBVIOUS -- if they haven't occurred to him by now, then his brain functions in ways beyond my understanding.  For one thing, he could point to his new fig leaf of "generosity" and ask people to stop calling him a selfish prick.  Second, Amazon employees I'm sure would respond to his largesse with greater company loyalty and increased tolerance for his onerous working conditions.  And he'd still be the richest SOB on the block and could mock the pauperish Bill Gates and Warren Buffett as pitiable wannabees.

Consider . . .

The most poorly paid Amazon employee now makes $12 per hour.  The $10 per hour raise I proposed would boost those $12 per hour workers right up there with Costco employees, who make an average of $21 per hour.  And with the across-the-board $10 per hour increase, Bezos' higher paid employees would be earning among the finest wages in the world provided by a major corporation.
And by golly, there's a plus side to the plus side . . .

Bezos's bold and gracious gesture would result in a public relations coup of cosmic proportions!  Amazon would no longer be demonized -- well, not quite as much -- by us bleeding-heart lefties as a capitalistic scourge and one-way ticket to Hell for the future of mankind, even if its environmental record is appalling and its business model generally the stuff of steroid-laced neo-feudalism.

Granted, Bezos would have to do some belt-tightening.  He'd have to watch his pennies but could probably manage it, eh?  Maybe he could skip a couple meals and do some of his own weeding at his estate.  After all, after lavishing the $10 per hour raise on all of his employees, he'd only be pulling in $1,705,600,000 per week.  I know I know!  Like me you're probably getting all teary-eyed for the poor guy.

Let me get to the extremely anti-climactic conclusion of this lament qua analysis.

Since nothing will change until the system itself changes, meaning the one in place now that creates, incentivizes, and lionizes the obscenely wealthy -- reference current holder of the Office of President of the United States of America -- I can only recommend this ...

We have been labeling Jeff Bezos as 'The Richest Man in the World'.  Yet, quite honestly I don't personally know any human, man or woman, who behaves like this gluttonous chunk of self-indulgent meat.  It actually makes me nauseous to think we're members of the same species.

Thus, from now on let's use the correct terminology.

Let's call Jeff Bezos what he really is . . .

THE RICHEST SOCIOPATH IN THE WORLD.

We could probably order bumper stickers to help correct the record . . . from Amazon, of course.


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]



The Richest Sociopath in the World

It’s Not Hillary’s Physical Health That’s The Issue . . . It’s Her Mental Health!

 

Muhammad Ali hardly spoke publicly during the last decade of his life because of his Parkinson's Disease.  What a tragic loss for the world.  Ali was funny, insightful, inspiring, brilliant!

There is much talk that Hillary Clinton's aberrant behavior -- bouts of coughing, physical weakness, public freezes, and the constant attendance by a mysterious "doctor" at all media events -- signals that she too is suffering from this incapacitating affliction.

If Hillary Clinton is elected and does indeed have Parkinson's Disease, we can only hope that this horrible, debilitating disease quickly progresses, ravages her nervous system, that she is immobilized and silenced by it, rendered completely mute.  Because too often what comes out of her mouth consists of self-serving lies, treacherous distortions and fabricated narratives, threats to other world leaders and nations, destructive fantasies unhinged from any moral anchor or basic decency, these being so extreme and strident they've become an existential threat to the human race and evidence she is totally detached from reality itself.

On the other hand, this Parkinson's business -- although very convincing evidence and analysis has come to light -- at this point is all speculation.  I'm not a doctor and I have no way of knowing the state of her physical health.  She's certainly not telling.

What is not a matter of speculation is the state of her mental health.

Much has been made of the video of her laughing about Gaddafi's anal rape with a knife, mutilation, and death at the hands of monstrous terrorists.  "Oh look, how jaded she is, how she celebrates such brutality."  Indeed, even the most tactless diplomats in the past would have sugar-coated this barbaric incident with some well-crafted language:

"It is, of course, unfortunate when any national leader's life is ended this way.  Mr. Gaddafi may in our view have been less than acceptable but he worked hard for the people of Libya.  Such savagery cannot be condoned under any circumstances."

Ms. Clinton apparently sees no need to embrace such standards.  Then again, neither do other hardened criminals and psychopaths who, unburdened by considerations of shared humanity or unaware even of the "optics" of such insensitivity, take joy in the suffering of perceived enemies, thus view the taking of human life as a sport, or an occasion for a joke.

Hillary Clinton is the textbook definition of a sociopath.

What are the key symptoms of sociopathy which I believe apply?

• Glibness and Superficial Charm
• Manipulative and Conning
  They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.
• Grandiose Sense of Self
  Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."
• Pathological Lying
  Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.
• Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
  A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.
• Shallow Emotions
  When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.
• Incapacity for Love
• Callousness/Lack of Empathy
  Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.
• Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
  Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
• Irresponsibility/Unreliability
  Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.

Hillary Clinton sees herself as some grand chess master, shaping the world -- in particular the Middle East -- to her liking and that of Israel.  Her muscular world view and truculent foreign policies are parallel to and probably inspired by the geopolitical ramblings -- by the way, since recanted -- of Zbigniew Brzezinski, author of the seminal neocon manual for world conquest and global empire, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.  Hillary Clinton's evident ambition is to sit in the history books next to Margaret Thatcher, Disraeli, Alexander the Great . . . perhaps even more fittingly, Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan.

This selfish woman will do anything and everything to promote and deify herself.  No cost is too great, no amount of human suffering will be spared, everyone in her path will either genuflect or be destroyed.  She will do whatever it takes -- even if it requires nuclear war -- to achieve the ascendant place in the history books she believes she deserves.  A warped sense of destiny fueled by narcissism and lust for power demands it.

This is the real sickness of Hillary Clinton.  Two aspirins and a glass of orange juice won't help what ails this demented creature of pomp and entitlement. Nor will pumping her full of Levodopa.  It's temporary and cosmetic.  Hillary's pathology is enduring and systemic.

Electing this monster -- as opposed to the monster served up by the Republican Party -- to the presidency would be like injecting leukemia cells into the body politic of America.  The country is already being hollowed out from the inside by the greed of those she identifies and associates herself with.  It's both appalling and frightening to see the MSM regularly cast this ruthless, self-serving, social climbing lapdog of the .01% as a "progressive" and the candidate of the common people.  Are we really that stupid?  That gullible?

This election is sure one for the books.

It's as if America keeps searching for that one final nail for the coffin of its misguided and increasingly floundering empire.

Hillary Clinton might just be that nail.


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

It’s Not Hillary’s Physical Health That’s The Issue . . . It’s Her Mental Health!