The world doesn’t need billionaires.
Forbes puts the number of billionaires in the world at 2,668 in 2022.
Elon Musk became the richest person this year. His net worth fluntactes because a lot of his money is in stocks but roughly he is worth about $200 billion. That is $200,000 million. It is an unfathomable amount of money.
There is no need for anyone to have that amount of money. There is no way you can spend all that money. I think anyone who hits a billion dollars should be given a gold star and forced to give anything they make over a billion dollars to charity.
It can be their choice of charity.
Most of these billionaires don’t even pay their fair share of taxes. Loopholes and tax havens should be closed for the ultra-rich. Someone like Musk would likely not notice a million dollars missing from his bank account but that is life-changing money for the average person.
It used to be that rich people would donate money to build hospitals and libraries to have their name on something. Now it seems like in order to flaunt their wealth, they have to build rocket ships.
Billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson along with Musk are investing in space tourism. Bezos and Branson even took a joy ride to the edge of space this year. Millions of dollars were spent as they raced each other to the skies. The idea that space tourism is the next big thing is worrisome.
Not only do I think that is an incredible waste of money but the cost to the environment is also sky-high. There is a lineup of (slightly less rich) people willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for a trip to space. These minute-long trips will not likely give scientists major new insights, it just seems, for now, they are a vulgar display of wealth.
The carbon footprint of this consumption is also disgustingly high. Some estimate that emissions of one of these flights is 100 times higher than a regular flight on earth. There are also unknown risks that need to be studied more from the space tourist flights, including the release of soot that could hurt the stratosphere and the ozone.
I could think of a hundred better things to spend money on. First of all, billionaires could contribute to helping the environment, instead of hurting it.
Global hunger has been called the world’s most solvable problem. Last year, U.N. World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley said it would take an estimated $40 billion each year to end world hunger by 2030.
Elon Musk just bought Twitter for $44 billion, which some say he is currently driving into the ground while simultaneously killing free speech. He could have saved himself four billion, some embarrassment and helped to end world hunger for one year instead.
While ordinary people, like you and I, are working tirelessly to make ends meet and paying a large chunk of our pay in taxes while also volunteering to raise money for things like a splash pad or a new library in town, billionaires are literally throwing their money into space and hurting the environment at the same time.
It’s time that stops.
READ MORE: Christmas shopping doesn’t have to be a chore
@MariscaDekkema
marisca.bakker@interior-news.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.