Cats Don’t Move.
Neither do two of the world’s richest men. This can’t be a coincidence, can it?
“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” Warren Buffett
Out in my back yard, there are two cats sitting on the fence. If one of them gets curious about something, it’ll jump down, gives the object a sniff, then jump back up on the fence again. Trouble is, the only way to do that is from the top of the composter. Inevitably, if one cat tries to get back up, the other sits directly above it on the fence.
Nothing the cat on the composter does — or, I guess, says — will make the other cat move. They just stare at each other, or look at a bird, or swear under their breath, saying something like “You’re a jerk.” Since cats are jerks by nature, it’s not much of an insult. For all I know, it’s a compliment.
Cats don’t move, in other words. You can have a vacuum that sounds like a 747 and they still won’t move. You practically have to suck their tails up the nozzle to get them to at least acknowledge your existence.
In layman’s terms, it means that every Trump supporter owes about $67,000 — or their trailer, which they don’t own, so they’re $67,000 away from ever owning one.
Why am I telling you this? Because two of the richest men in the world, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, don’t move, either. Not in the same way as cats, but they’re still immovable. Nothing makes them budge — even a 22 trillion dollar national deficit. In layman’s terms, it means that every Trump supporter owes about $67,000 — or their trailer, which they don’t own, so they’re $67,000 away from ever owning one.
As far as Gates and Buffett are concerned, that’s not a problem. At least not one that can’t be solved by — wait for it — democracy correcting itself.
America is still a great country in their estimation, and democratic correction, as Gates explained to Jeffry Goldberg in The Atlantic, will eventually make America great again — not that it isn’t great now.
These two billionaires believe there isn’t a better country in the world. America has eight of the top 12 universities, and a diversity of population that’s pretty fantastic. It’s certainly helped make these two men filthy rich, and made the Gates Foundation one of the world’s leaders in combating childhood mortality and infectious disease around the world.
Just polio alone has been reduced in incidences from 300,000 to just 37 new cases worldwide. That’s a miracle itself, but just one of many that comes from the largesse of The Gates Foundation (Buffett just made a $31 billion dollar contribution, which helps considerably with that largesse).
You know how every presidential hopeful talks about taxing the rich? They say the rich hold 70 percent of the wealth, so why not make them pay a little more?
It’s small consolation to the person realizing they’ll never own their trailer, but Gates believes there’s an answer for that, too. You know how every presidential hopeful talks about taxing the rich? They say the rich hold 70 percent of the wealth, so why not make them pay a little more?
Only, presidents don’t end up taxing the rich. They give them tax breaks, despite the IMF declaring that tax breaks to “job creators” doesn’t work.
It should work, but you know how capitalists are. A dollar saved on tax breaks is a dollar earned, right? They’d rather give raises to senior staff. Money stays with the moneyed, just as a good position on the fence stays with the cat that doesn’t bother jumping down on the ground to sniff a twig.
That’s terribly unfair, according to someone like Bernie Sanders, but capitalists are just as unmovable as those cats on the fence — and just as jerkish. Not that they worry about being jerks. They’ve got all this money, so they can have soundproof windows. When you’ve got soundproof windows, you barely hear someone calling you a jerk. Besides, like cats, if you’ve been a jerk for a long time, it starts to sound like a compliment.
This gets a lot of cheers at Democratic conventions, but all it takes is one person yelling “socialism” and every trailer park in America goes for their gun belts.
Now Bernie Sanders is a pretty immovable character, too, believing the fairer distribution of wealth is necessary. This gets a lot of cheers at Democratic conventions, but all it takes is one person yelling “socialism” and every trailer park in America goes for their gun belts. Even cats know that’s the time to get off the fence and hide before bullets start flying.
Gates, on the other hand, knows these rich jerks, and figures he can get money out of their cold, clammy hands without them being suspicious.
As Gates explains in the same Atlantic article, The Gates Foundation is overseeing what he calls “peer-pressure-driven philanthropy,” which is essentially telling fat cats that he, Melinda and Warren are all dedicating their fortunes to improving millions of lives (considering they’ve got trillions, that could make buying trailers a whole lot easier).
Philanthropy sounds better than taxation, and anyone can get behind good deeds if those good deeds confirm your richness. So far, the Gates Foundation has gotten 157 pledges, which Gates admits isn’t enough, but at least it’s more than the government is doing.
It spreads good will, and out of consideration and good will comes truth. Not necessarily the truth we understand as truth, but at least something resembling truth.
Gates also believes this largesse, and the philanthropy it represents, somehow leads to more considerate people. It spreads good will, and out of consideration and good will comes truth. Not necessarily the truth we understand as truth, but at least something resembling truth.
As Gates explains, “People want success, they want education that works, they want healthcare that works [but] to the degree that certain solutions are created not based on facts, I believe these won’t be as successful as those based on facts.”
In other words, once everyone stops lying about what we can do to improve health and financial stability, we’ll get to the truth — which is we won’t have any improvements unless there’s money, and there won’t be money unless “peer-pressure philanthropy” starts to snowball.
Money and truth are somehow connected, and Gates figures — not unwisely — that if he and Melinda and Warren throw in a bunch of bucks, other filthy rich people will want to copy them. Once they do, and the economy improves, and lives improve, we’ll become a fact-based nation throwing around facts and truth like cats in a cyclone.
If lies were nakedness, we’d be the biggest nation of streakers going.
This, of course, begs the question, Is any of this even possible given the way lies are tossed around now(again, like cats in a cyclone). President Trump alone is guilty of over 13,000 lies during his term in office, and there’s no telling how many more he’ll tell to avoid impeachment.
Between his porkies and “fake news” porkies, it’s going to take a lot of philanthropy to make democracy “self-correct” itself. That’s about as easy as waiting for the tide to go out to see who’s been swimming naked. If lies were nakedness, we’d be the biggest nation of streakers going.
It’s a good analogy, though, and Buffett tells some great ones. In his mind, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. He believes we already have a system that works, and the fact that it works is what keeps it working.
“It took us 150 years to get the 19th Amendment,” he said, “but things get better.” So it’s just a matter of time before we see the benefits, or we learn to count our blessings because we’ve got it so damn good.
“We’re an aspirational country in a sense,” he said, “and this country has a mechanism that allows aspirations to work their way into society with a lot of fits and starts. We get there eventually.”
Freedoms aren’t there so you can shoot your loud neighbour, or act on some evangelist’s call for immigrants to be returned to their homelands in a good Christian way.
I believe Gates and Buffett, but I also believe democracy needs to be explained once again to all those who think it’s about loaded guns and beer. Freedoms aren’t there so you can shoot your loud neighbour, or act on some evangelist’s call for immigrants to be returned to their homelands in a good Christian way.
Freedoms shouldn’t be like those two cats on my fence. It’s not about who doesn’t move — it’s about who does. Facts may reduce the level of jerkishness in this world, but we have to get there first.
Now I just have to convince those cats outside of that.
They’re still such jerks.
Robert Cormack is a novelist, journalist and blogger. His first novel “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available online and at most major bookstores. Check out Skyhorse Press or Simon and Schuster for more details.
