Hunter and Joe, Plutocrats and Hypocrites Extraordinaire
It’s hard to believe, but they even surpass Republicrats and Republicrites in phoniness and laughing at the hoi polloi.
The Wall Street journal recently ran a 2,420 word essay that details the sordid international dealings of Joe Biden’s son Hunter and Joe’s brother, James Biden.
Unfortunately, the article is 2,420 words too long for the tweet generation, which constantly demonstrates the inverse relationship between the time spent on social media and the understanding of complex socioeconomic issues and history.
The article doesn’t say this, but it’s ludicrous to believe that Joe didn’t know anything about the sordid dealings of his son and brother. When Hunter was traveling back and forth to China and the Ukraine, Joe couldn’t have possibly thought that his son was going to China to pick up a carryout order of Kung Pao chicken, and to the Ukraine to buy a bushel of wheat.
The Biden family hypocrisy is extreme, because it runs completely counter to the blather of the Democrat Party about white privilege, income inequality, inherited wealth, and the political power of Wall Street. At least with Trump, every American with an IQ above 80 understood what he was: a flimflam man, a shady businessman, and the host of an inane TV series. Given that he operated in the cesspool of New York real estate, New Jersey gaming, and network TV, how could he be otherwise?
The hypocrisy began with Hunter going to Yale University. No doubt, he got extra admission points because of his last name, just as Ted Kennedy got extra admission points at Harvard due to his last name. This from universities and a political party that espouse diversity and rail against white privilege.
The hypocrisy continued with Hunter working for a Wall Street investment firm that sought investments from oligarchs in China and Russia. Stated differently, someone from the top 1% in America hobnobbed with the top 1% in a communist country and a former communist country.
An acceleration of the hypocrisy occurred with Hunter getting into a financial bed with a Chinese oil and gas tycoon. Hunter must’ve performed very well in bed, for the tycoon gave him a 2.8-carat diamond and gave $5 million to Hunter’s law firm. At the same time, daddy Joe and other leading Democrats were spouting pieties about global warming and slamming the fossil fuel industry.
There are other hypocrisies, but the biggest of all was Hunter trading on his family name. It’s the hypocrisy that should compel Americans to storm the Imperial City in D.C.
Why was it hypocritical to trade on the family name? Because Joe, Hillary, the Cuomo clan, and other two-faced Democrats rail against inherited wealth and favor steep inheritance taxes while making sure that their kids get something more valuable than money: the connections, networks, and influence bequeathed to them through the family name.
This was worth $50,000 a month to Hunter in the Ukraine alone, not counting all the other investment returns accruing from his last name. (For comparison, the median per-capita annual income in the USA is $56,490)
Then there is the popular tax dodge of plutocrats on the left and right: establishing a nonprofit foundation and making their kids officers in the sham charity. The kids get a comfortable salary, invaluable prestige and influence, expense-paid travel and accommodations, and invitations to sit on other boards.
Contrast that with some schlemiel of a plumber without political power but with other people’s excrement on his hands and clothes works. He works ungodly hours to build a plumbing business, with the goal of leaving it to his kids so that they can climb higher in society than he did. But politicians favoring a steep inheritance tax think it is unfair for Joe Palooka to pass on his business. At the same time, in a case of cognitive dissonance or just an ugly double standard, they don’t hesitate in passing on power, prestige, influence and connections to their kids.
The good news is that the plutocrats will be overturned someday. The bad news is that socialists will do the overturning.