Under the guise of “honoring” graduating seniors whose own graduation ceremonies were cancelled due to the pandemic, a gaggle of millionaires and billionaires produced a lavish affair designed to show that rich people really care. Opening their wallets would have been a far better signal. As anyone with a working brain would have noticed, U.S. graduating seniors need much more than two hours of well-wishes and music. The world they’re destined to inhabit comes complete with a faltering economy (unless you’re a billionaire and run a large corporation), plutocratic leaders busy looting the treasury for their BFFs, banks and other financial behemoths taking their pound of flesh from the debt servitude of students and a thriving fossil fuel industry fat with government subsidies. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ever-growing problems young people will face as they try to beat the odds. The clock is already ticking on what lies ahead. The major problem — pricey post-high school education and training that will force close to three-quarters of them into debt servitude, many for life. How hard is it for the immensely wealthy like Lauren Powell Jobs (widow of Steve, worth $27 billion), ex-President Obama (worth $40 million) and LeBron James (worth $500 million) to figure out that high school seniors need a lot more than windy soliloquies, pious sermonizing and a torrent of well-wishes. Even the money raised is destined for causes that will not benefit students or help solve their financial problem. Want to know how low the 1% can go? Read “Hypocrisy is the Real Winner When the Billionaire Class ‘Honors’ High School Seniors.”
