Come now, let us now praise famous Billionaires and their riches which dazzle us. They are true inspirations for all of us little people. According to them If we apply ourselves, very soon we shall all become billionaires. We are fortunate indeed to live in the times of the Bro Billionaires. The Billionaires care naught for themselves. They only wish for a "Festivus for the rest of us." All we have to do is believe in Billionaires and do as we are told. Then all will be well. If you can’t trust a bunch of Billionaires, who can you trust? They care enough to provide for us the very best government money can buy or rent.
Uncle ChatGPT says that as of the extrusion of this column in late October, Elon Musk had given $446 million to Republican candidates. Uncle Chat says the total given to Republican candidates by their 10 largest donors is $1.1 billion dollars. One can buy a lot of friendly government for over a billion dollars. Yet the billionaires ask nothing in return. They only care about what is best for the people they would never allow in their country clubs. Their commitment to effective altruism brings large tears to my eyes. I am touched by their generosity. As Candide said: “All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.”
I can only hope that the goodwill and the piles of cold hard cash spent by Elon Musk and his billionaire buddies bring them joy. They ask for nothing else. Their happiness will trickle down like warm yellow rain on the heads of us Common Folk. Sages say money can’t buy happiness but it can surely rent it for a while. Money might even be able to buy Data Centers. Time to admit we have too much water and don’t pay enough for electricity. We must share the warm wet happiness trickling down on our heads from the Billionaires with their Data Centers. Data Centers will relieve the little folks of the need to get up and go to work on Monday morning because their jobs will be done by Super Duper algorithms. Imagine the freedom from work and useful lives granted to simple folks by hundreds of happily, loudly humming Data Centers, drinking rivers, swallowing electricity, and jobs. It will be the New Jerusalem.
There will have to be some minor adjustments. After a few weeks without work and pay, hunger will begin to set in once the common folks deplete their savings. The Billionaire class learned from the French Revolution of 1789 and the 2026 one that common folks get a bit cranky when they are hungry and cold. With Data Centers spreading widespread unemployment hither and yon, the huddled masses might go from being merely superfluous to dangerous overnight. What to do? What to do? Fortunately, our old pal Jonathan Swift back in 1729 came up with a Modest Proposal to deal with widespread poverty in Ireland. He proposed Irish parents sell their children to wealthy British landlords as food for their dining halls. Selling children would supplement the income of their parents. It would also reduce the amount of food child free Irish families needed, thereby leaving more food for the wealthy.
With a bit of modification of this Modest Proposal, Billionaires could resolve the excess Common Folk Problem. As the birthrate in America has dropped precipitously, just having the Common Folks sell their children for food to Billionaires would still leave millions of childless unemployed Common Folks around to make trouble for the Billionaire class. Remember the 1973 movie Soylent Green starring Charlton Heston? It was set in 2022 in New York City in a time of climate dysfunction resulting in starvation of the masses. Crops had failed, oceans were dying, and the Common Folks had to depend on a synthetic food produced by the Soylent Corporation. As Gomer would say: “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” The Soylent Corporation was recycling old people’s bodies into synthetic Soylent Green food products.
Some workers will still be required to labor for the Billionaires. The Billionaires could require mandatory conversion of useless unemployed Common Folk into Soylent Green culinary delights to feed the remaining few necessary workers. This would keep them happy and fed while eliminating the great mass of unnecessary workers through conversion into Soylent Green Happy Meals. Voila. Marie Antoinette’s admonition to “Let them eat cake” when told the Poor have no bread was tone deaf. Billionaires telling Common Folks to enjoy Happy Soylent Meals sounds warm and fuzzy. Focus Groups have tested and approved this messaging. A small plastic toy could be included with each meal.

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)