0.1 per cent of the US population owns more wealth than the bottom 90 per cent.
That is a phenomenal statistic and means that some Americans are seriously minted.
I suppose we must surmise that Trumpy owns 0.05 per cent of US wealth but we can’t be sure as he won’t let anyone see his tax returns.
But the extremity of that polarization is disquieting at the least. And I suppose it really explains a lot of what we are seeing in American politics today and producing such impossibly nauseating and smug human beings like Trumpy and Roger Stone.
In business as well this polarization pervades. I think the average remuneration of a US CEO is about 15 million bucks a year.
But it’s when money and its influence seep into the fine pillars of justice that we should really begin to worry. And this is manifestly happening in the US. What with the joke impeachment trial and now Bill Barr, the Attorney General for god’s sake, looking like he’s about as malleable as the bunch of crony half-wit Republican Senators swearing oaths, swallowing and spewing lies in the most esteemed and lauded chamber in the country.
Sickening what?
It’s a national televised extortion racket of the highest level, smack in the face of plain and evident truth.
But that’s where we are I’m afraid and that’s enough of that.
On this side, we still have the PPE Oxford thing and all the dullness which goes with it. I’m with Dom Cummings on this and desirous of some radical changes in the old blobosphere. I can’t wait till the Conservatives get a bloke or lass from somewhere like Govan into their ranks and make them Chancellor. That would be entirely refreshing and good for all. Someone that responds to Boris with an ‘Aye’ or ‘ok pal’ or ‘hud ye’r wheesht’ or even may I suggest ‘ok outside now’. That would stop the irksome waffling.
Of course, I am not averse to well spoken public school/Oxbridge/Harvard types. Indeed I went to a public school myself. But give me a Billy Connolly type and accent any day.
They said that about Churchill. Not that he had a Govan accent, but that his voice carried great weight.
The voice does count for a lot. And I’m afraid Boris is too blustering for me. Fine in a Wodehouse book. But Churchillian? Nay.
Onto sport.
Wales are intimating that France will cheat at the scrum in their forthcoming match? Doesn’t everyone cheat at the scrum? The straight put-in now goes directly to the number eight. The poor hooker is snookered.
And there is an awful lot of dirty play now seeping into the international game which is a shame. The poor blokes can’t have more than two beers without being dumped, coaches are being blamed for poor performance and the national anthems are becoming the highlights of the match because there is so little open play and good old fashioned rugby. It’s like watching rugby league or, god forbid, scottish football.
And I’m of the opinion that bonus points should be awarded now for national anthem singing. Then we could maybe shelve that Eurovision Song Contest thing, like we shelved Europe.
It’s a knockout.
Remember that one? With that smarmy presenter chap, Hall, now in jail.
That was at least entertaining. Amusing even. The programme I mean.
Like when I mentioned to this hedge fund manager, Jann, who’d just joined Wentworth Golf Club for a squillion bucks.
Me ‘Oh my Dad’s friend used to live in a house on the 17th fairway’
Yann ‘Wow that’s cool’
Me ‘But he ended up in Wandsworth’
Yann ‘it’s nice there too’
Me ‘ No. The prison’
I actually have a friend who ended up in Wandsworth. And you couldn’t meet a nicer bloke.
Funny old world.