Blue Moon of Josephine.

We estimate that 3.4 billion individuals – or 71% of adults worldwide – have wealth below USD 10,000, while the group of millionaires, who comprise less than 1% of the global population, account for 45% of total wealth.[source]

SO. It seems the rich are indeed getting much richer. There is a truly massive gap in the distribution of wealth and it just keeps getting wider and wider and wider.

I’ve had most of this post sitting in draft format for quite a while. But just today, I learned that Joseph Lau, the billionaire Hong Kong real-estate tycoon, paid a record-breaking US$48.4 million for a cushion-shaped internally-flawless fancy vivid blue-coloured diamond, called the “Blue Moon”. He named it “Blue Moon of Josephine”. And he bought it for his seven year old daughter. 

For his seven year old daughter!

Is it just¹ that a few individuals are now living more-than-what-you’d-call-‘comfortably’-than-ever-before while so many struggle and go hungry elsewhere? Like starving to death hungry. What about the rest of the world?

If this is what the aim of capitalism is, then it’s a totally flawed mentality. I don’t want to be a part of that society.

But I’m not just referring to poor people either. Because there are 7 billion people on this Earth, and with news like this, I’m starting not to give a stuff about humanity anymore. I’m actually talking about animals. And plants. And you know what? In the long run, we’re going to realise that we need animals and plants in order for our species to survive. Someone has to speak for them.

So while many species are threatened with fucking extinction (primarily due to habitat destruction), the world’s billionaires are driving around in air-conditioned Maybach fucking limousines and most of them are doing sod-all to rectify this gross imbalance. Is that a reasonable state of affairs? My answer to that is no it fucking-well isn’t ²

I sincerely hope that a billionaire reads this post. I really do. Do you know what I’d say to you? Right after you tell me how many million dollars you spend on charitable things here and there to ease your conscience a bit.

I’d say:

“Could you spare that 0.01% of your wealth? Oh so you’ve given a hundred million dollars to some charity? So that’s 1%. What about the other 99%? How about giving a wee bit of a bigger fraction, eh? Like 10%. Or 20% or better yet, 80 or 90%? I mean, you’d still have billions of dollars to play with, wouldn’t you?”

Do I need to remind the ultra wealthy of this list? Or this one? Or if you have balls-of-steel, how about this one?

If the world’s billionaires wanted to they could actually be responsible for saving a loads of species rather than contributing to their demise. Why not adopt a truly worthwhile cause?

I guess what I am opposed to isn’t really the uneven distribution of wealth. Neither am I envious or jealous. It’s more that from my point of view the ultra-rich seem to be just being plain stingy when it comes to giving. Especially in terms of conservation. Here’s one rich dude who is an exception. By all means show me an example of another.

The average citizen is just trying to pay their way and save up a bit for their retirement. Perhaps if billionaires weren’t so greedy, they’d lower the prices of their goods and services a bit. And then the ordinary folk might have a bit more spare change to donate to charities now and then. Wouldn’t that be a better way to solve global problems? To get the bulk of people to do it.

Because if all the people in the first world countries gave one hundred dollars per month to charity, well, that would add up to 1.2 trillion dollars per annum, wouldn’t it? Are the world’s uber rich actually giving away that amount of money each year? No, that certainly doesn’t appear to be the case. Rather, the way it is now, multi-multi-billionaires look like the heroes. But no. They force us to upgrade to crap like Windows 10 “for free”… only to charge us next year for Windows 11³.

Sorry, but to me, if you still have a billion dollars’ worth of assets, or even a hundred million, you’re not doing nearly enough yet to win over my approval.

1. and by ‘just’ I mean ‘fair’, but nobody thinks it is ‘fair’ to use the word ‘fair’ anymore because it makes you seem immature.
2. I’m making absolutely no apologies for my language here, either.
3. The world doesn’t need Windows 11. The world doesn’t even really need Windows 10. Or windows 8. We’ve just been conned into it. Because if I buy a printer next year, it won’t work with Windows 8 anymore. How the fuck is that meant to be sustainable?