Billionaires

Bottom Lines Top Dollars

Which group of 2604 people made $900 billion so far during the 2020 pandemic while 400 million people around the world experienced income loss? Which group of people have, in the last 12 years, grown their ranks by more than 250%? Which group of people does the world love to hate but maybe secretly wish they were a part of, even if it is totally against their current self-interest? You guessed it! BILLIONAIRES. This echelon of the global elite has wealth that is beyond comprehension, but what does having so much wealth concentrated in the hands of the few do to the world? In this episode of Bottom Lines Top Dollars, the Ladies Who Crunch take on the uber-rich and say the word "guillotine" more than either of us have ever said in one conversation before.

Some of the questions we ask in this episode: Can we truly understand the scale of having more than 1 billion dollars? Who are the billionaires? Where does their wealth come from? Is being a billionaire fundamentally immoral? How do billionaires protect themselves from taxation (or worse, revolution)? Is billionaire philanthropy what will save us or is it just sleight of hand? How does wealth concentration threaten democracy & the survival of the planet? Are there other economic models that are more sustainable and environmentally sound than unrestrained, exponential and extractive growth? What kind of cultural beliefs help prop up wealth and income inequality& And, finally, what can we do with policy, taxes, and culture to change the course of wealth and resource hoarding?

It’s time for the guillotine of the mind and the Ladies Who Crunch drop it down!

The Ladies Who Crunch are Hadassah Damien and Laura Boo. More information about us and this podcast can be found at ladieswhocrunch.club.

Special thanks to our researchers Ariel Federow and Handy Levine.