“Soaring more than 50 miles into the hot, glaringly bright skies above New Mexico, Richard Branson at last fulfilled a dream that took decades to realize: He can now call himself an astronaut.” [“Branson Completes Virgin Galactic Flight, Aiming to Open Up Space Tourism” NYT, 7/11/21]
That moronic piece of puffery came from — you guessed it — the paper of record, The New York Times. Nine days later, another billionaire made the same trip going ten miles further. This time even the White House weighed in— “This is a moment of American exceptionalism.” (Jen Psaki, White House press secretary). What comes next? Universal cheers of “USA, USA?”
In this article we will concentrate our fire (or ire) on the American billionaire, Mr. Amazon Bezos, the second billionaire cavorting around space. The first one to waste billions on an ego-fueled odyssey is Richard Branson, a world class tax cheat like Bezos — the difference being Branson is cheating the British people, Bezos American taxpayers. One thing they have in common —neither has used the money and power that comes with it to make this earth a better place for the billions who inhabit it. When ego and arrogance rule, the results are wasted opportunities and mindless self-serving gambits — in this case in space
Bezos was at his slimiest in his first news conference after his billion-dollar joy ride. “I also want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this,” For all of us who never dreamed we were paying for a billionaire’s wet dream, it came as a major shock.
The rebuttals were quick, acerbic and alas, little publicized — “Space travel isn’t a tax-free holiday for the wealthy. We pay taxes on plane tickets. Billionaires flying into space — producing no scientific value — should do the same, and then some!” [Rep. Earl Blumenauer,(D-OR)]. In fact, not only is Bezos defrauding U.S. taxpayers, the feds are unindicted co-conspirators. While no tax-payer money directly funded this space trip, the federal government has plunked close to a billion dollars into the company. Blue Origin has also snagged lucrative government contracts, one worth over one-half billion dollars, to say nothing of using NASA technology, also paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
Even the usual suspects in the political swamp chimed in. Bernie —“not a single billionaire has donated to our campaign [2019],” put on a show of indignation not personally, he wouldn’t dare but through one of his hired hands— “Class warfare is Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson becoming $250 billion richer during the pandemic, paying a lower tax rate than a nurse, and racing to outer space while the planet burns and millions go without healthcare, housing, and food.” [Warren Gunnels, Sanders staff director]
Bezos is the classic case of an unhinged billionaire setting his sights on controlling the universe. He’s already in the driver’s seat on planet earth so leaving it becomes the next challenge. He was spot on when it came to seeing the pandemic as a business opportunity. Starting with a measly $113 billion on March 18, 2020, Bezos used the pandemic lock downs to parlay his pot of gold into a $212.4 billion windfall, an 88% increase in net worth. But a problem soon emerged: all that wealth meant a huge tax liability. Billionaires don’t like to pay taxes preferring instead to pay accountants so they don’t have to. As his income was rising higher than his space capsule, Bezos paid no federal taxes in 2007 and 2011. In 2011 with a net worth of $18 billion, he even managed to snag a $4,000 child tax credit.
Which brings us to his less than immortal words upon disembarking from the New Shepard capsule — “Best Day ever.” How does that play against a real astronaut making a real contribution to space exploration forty-two years ago —“one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
While he was having his best day, most of the earth’s people were not.
| “Some of Europe’s richest countries lay in disarray this weekend, as raging rivers burst through their banks in Germany and Belgium, submerging towns, slamming parked cars against trees and leaving Europeans shellshocked at the intensity of the destruction [at least 200 hundred were unaccounted for in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany]. In the Northwestern United States, a region famed for its cool, foggy weather, hundreds had died of heat. In Canada, wildfire had burned a village off the map. Moscow reeled from record temperatures. And … the northern Rocky Mountains were bracing for yet another heat wave, as wildfires spread across 12 states in the American West.” |
Meanwhile in the northeastern U.S. raging floods and tornados destroyed peoples’ homes and caused massive damage to infrastructure.” [New York Times 7/20/21]
Bad enough, but in the developing world, climate catastrophes threatened the lives of hundreds of millions wiping out crops in Bangladesh, leveling villages in Honduras, and threatening the existence of small island nations.
Leave it to Jeff Bezos to come up with the billionaire’s answer to the misery that might well be the future of life on earth: — “If you want to protect the earth, save the earth, we have to go to space.” Nailed it, didn’t he? Clearly a plan to save all billionaires (hundred millionaires might qualify) by scooting off this decimated planet and setting up shop somewhere else while the rest of us cope with dwindling natural resources, shortages of food and water and a gradual inability to live the comfortable lifestyle we naively believed would last forever.
To resurrect his street cred as a beneficent mogul (isn’t that an oxymoron?), Bezos, the founder of Amazon, one of earth’s biggest polluters, announced in February 2020, a $10 billion giveaway to climate-oriented charities. One caveat — guess who selects them? But that wasn’t the only highlight of 2020. In June 2021, the company reported that its carbon emissions in 2020 increased 19%, equivalent to 60.64 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Amazon is a bigger polluter than entire countries like Ireland, Portugal and Singapore.
Bezos clearly has some family business to take care of. For all his posturing on making a dent in environmental degradation, Amazon’s business model is a climate crisis in itself. Shipping anywhere often within 24 hours and in road vehicles takes millions and millions of tons of oil and gas, the “ne plus ultra” of drivers of climate destruction.
In case you don’t know, the climate crisis is almost wholly owned by the world’s oligarchs. According to the annual United Nations Emissions Gap Report in 2020, the world’s richest one percent are bigger polluters of the earth than the poorest 50%. Rather than chest-pounding over a $10 billion contribution, the world’s wealthiest should ‘reduce its carbon footprint by a factor of 30” to stay in line with even the modest goals of the 2015 Paris agreement. Billionaires cavorting in space grow that footprint exponentially.
What is the benefit to mankind of privatized space travel reserved for the very wealthiest? In fact, most Americans find themselves paying the piper in the form of increased taxes to make up for the revenue tax-cheating billionaires swindle the government out of.
“The ultra-rich are being propped up by unfair tax systems and pitiful labor protections. Bezos pays next to no U.S. income tax but can spend $7.5 billion on his own aerospace adventure. Bezos’ fortune has almost doubled during the Covid-19 pandemic. He could afford to pay for everyone on Earth to be vaccinated against Covid-19 and still be richer than he was when the pandemic began.” [Oxfam]
Every one of these three billionaires, Bezos, Branson, and Musk (his space journey soon), prancing around space in their extra-terrestrial capsules have enough dough to make life a heaven on earth for the world’s people. According to UN officials, “$30 billion per year is needed to end world hunger.” An easily attainable goal for the likes of Messrs. Bezos, Branson, and Musk (total net worth $375 billion). That they choose instead to make a run at polluting another planet should be a cause for outrage not celebration. The only good that could come out of this outrage is that when they leave, they stay gone and spare the earth their poisonous presence.
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