nice circle

  • pyre@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    7 days ago

    2016 promise: drain the swamp (not fulfilled)

    2024 promise: drown in swamp (pre-fulfilled)

  • BigMacHole@lemm.eeEnglish
    9·
    7 days ago

    Billionaires OBVIOUSLY will use this Opportunity to ENRICH their Workers as they are Known to Do. After all NO ONE gets to be a Billionaire without COMPASSION and RESPECT for the Working Class!

  • Darrell_Winfield@lemmy.worldEnglish
    755·
    8 days ago

    Seeing as politics is always a bunch of self serving in-crowd of rich folks, I’d really like to see this for the previous few presidents to know if this is a unique thing to Trump.

    • CaptDust@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      46·
      8 days ago

      I’m too lazy to keep looking, but here’s a small sampling. Ambassador positions to friendly countries tend to go to friends/donors and not worth comparing. DOGE can’t be compared, as it doesn’t exist. Figures are whatever I found at the top of google, not adjusted for inflation or value the years they were in office. Big enough gap that it didn’t matter. Maybe someone else can check Bush?

      2013 Obama - $6M

      • Secretary of Commerce - Penny Pritzker - $3.6B
      • Secretary of Education - Arne Duncan - $4.8M
      • Secretary of Interior - Ken Salazar - $2M
      • Small Business Administrator - Karen G Mills - “At least” $705,000
      • NASA Administrator - Charles F Bolden - “At least” $537,000
      • Darrell_Winfield@lemmy.worldEnglish
        231·
        8 days ago

        Thanks for looking into what I’m clearly too lazy to do! A quick lazy Internet search shows that Biden’s cabinet appears to be mostly “only” millionaires according to this.

        That article also compares Biden’s to Trump’s previous cabinet. And references Obama’s. I would like to note that framing this all as “measly millionaire” is so disconnected from the remainder of America.

        • Someone@lemmy.caEnglish
          24·
          8 days ago

          Millionaires seem pretty reasonable, its not surprising for someone who’s presumably had a decades long career to own a house and a bit of savings. If we’re being generous the difference between a billionaire and a millionaire is the same as the difference between a millionaire and someone living in the street, in reality the difference is about a billion dollars.

          • OminousOrange@lemmy.caEnglish
            5·
            8 days ago

            Except the difference between billionaire and millionaire is considerably more vast than that, and humans are quite poor at understanding that intuitively.

            One million seconds is about 11.6 days. One billion seconds is 31.7 years.

            It’s an issue when people think of that leap of million to billion as you have, as it greatly discounts how much these leeches have sucked out of working people.

            • Someone@lemmy.caEnglish
              3·
              7 days ago

              I guess I didn’t emphasize the end of my post enough, I completely agree.

              The difference in lifestyle of someone with a net worth of $1000 or $1m could just be that one of them owns their own house and the other rents. Someone with $1b has absolutely nothing in common with either of the other two, they could probably spend 90% of their life savings and not have a noticeable change in their lifestyle. The guy with a million is still going to think about a couple thousand dollar purchase, and the guy with a thousand doesn’t really have a choice.

              • OminousOrange@lemmy.caEnglish
                1·
                7 days ago

                Ah, yes, I misunderstood that very last statement saying the difference is [actually] about $1b. Apologies.

          • jacksilver@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            8 days ago

            Yep, that’s the same thing I was going to say.

            Most people qualified for a cabinet position are going to be 40+ with a tenured professional career. Which means you’d expect most of them to have a couple million.

        • CaptDust@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          12·
          8 days ago

          The margin between top 1% and top 0.1% is vast, Trump’s admin is the 0.1% wrestling away complete control by any measurement.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    49·
    8 days ago

    Wow look at all the people totally qualified to represent the common citizen!

    I’d also be interested in a chart like this that not only shows net worth now, but the net worth of their parents when they were born. This kind of wealth tends to ultimately require generational wealth. I’d wager most if not all were also nepo-babies.

    The idea that we should idolize the rich because “if you work hard, you might get rich too” is abhorrent Reaganite nonsense.

    Edit: this chart floating around some other communities comes close.

    • MutilationWave@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      8 days ago

      If you could get hundreds of millions of dollars for someone in exchange for a do-nothing-ego-stroking title, would you do it?

      I mean, I don’t know you but I assume you’re too decent to be a politician.

    • zephorah@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      7 days ago

      Trump is appointing and he’s a little suspicious of disloyalty so it’s probably something to do with his want of a check on or back up plan for Elon.