Time's Up & Warren Buffet

From last Sunday, the Golden Globes were interesting, especially the way the attendees chose to show their support for the recent women’s movements against gender inequality and sexual harassment, “Time’s Up” and “Me Too.” Black was the protest color with most men in black tuxes and most women in black gowns. Most of the gowns were very elegant and classy, unlike too many of the gowns from past Globes and Oscars. Most noteworthy was the speech Oprah Winfrey gave when she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement. She was slim again, she was beautiful, and she was eloquent when she spoke of the women’s movements. And there was speculation about her possibly running for president in 2020. I hope she does. I would certainly vote for her. I think most of the women and a lot of the men in the country would vote for her. She may be a billionaire like Trump, but she she’s a whole lot smarter than Trump. Anything to get that boob out of the White House. So, yes, Oprah, run, please run. The other thing that struck me about those in attendance: so many looked so much older than I want them to look. Kirk Douglas looked like a seriously deformed mummy and Barbra Streisand looked like she could be his daughter. How did so many of these actors and actresses get so much older than I remember them? Time flies, time flies. I wonder how the Oscars will go and how all these people will look.

In a Time Magazine interview (January 15, 2018), Warren Buffet spoke of the cryptocurrency craze and warned against investing in any of it. He also mentioned that in the last 25 years, the  total wealth of those on the Forbes 400 saw an increase in their fortunes go up 29 times, from $93 billion to $2.7 trillion—“while many millions of hardworking citizens remained stuck on an economic treadmill. During this period, the tsunami of wealth didn’t trickle down. It surged upward.” Twenty-nine times! That means that if I had a million bucks in the stock market in 1982, I would have twenty-nine million bucks today. That makes the recent tax bill a huge mistake, with most of the tax cuts going to the rich, while for most of us, those of us who are not on the Forbes 400 or are unable to have savings in the rising and rising stock market, losers. There will be, as Buffet suggests, no trickledown. Just a huge increase in the fortunes of the already wealthy. In that old song, “Ain’t We Got Fun,” we hear again, “The rich get rich and the poor get poorer. In the meantime, in between time, ain’t we got fun.” No, Donald and all your billionaire buddies, we ain’t got fun.