I ran across a video from some channel of two guy driving through downtown Los Angeles, showing the economic devastation that has taken place.
I didn’t count, but as they drove through Hollywood and Sunset Blvds – some of the nation’s top tourist areas and also the retail area for some of the richest neighborhoods in the country – at least a quarter of total businesses have been shut down. In some places, it looked like as many as half.
What’s more, most of the people walking around were not tourists or the local rich – they were homeless people. There are encampments of tent cities all through the area.
It’s truly incredible to see. You’re hearing about this in New York, but this is the first time this year that I’d seen drive-by footage of downtown LA.
You should flip through the video, but here are some screenshots:
The guys who made the video are pretty tapped in, and at the end of it they go to a car customization shop, and show that business is booming there, with an entire lot, stretching out onto the street, of cars that cost hundreds of thousands or over a million dollars. One of the guys says that Ferrari and Lamborghini are actually selling out of their stocks.
What you are witnessing with this coronavirus hoax is a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the upper ruling elite.
You have to wonder: what good is it to have a $500,000 super-car, if you’re driving it through tent cities? Do these people get off on that?
I have never been rich, so I don’t understand the rich mindset, but when I picture it, I think of it as being like, you’re rich and well dressed, and you’re hanging out with a bunch of other good-looking, well-off people. If being rich is about lording over peasants and drug-addicts living in tents, then it’s a mindset that I simply cannot fathom.
However, this seems to be the new elite mindset: it’s not about being a bit better off than those around you, and living in extravagance while others are maybe a little bit jealous but still doing alright: it seems that it is about flaunting ultra-wealth to a bunch of shuffling, mumbling drug-addicts.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the third world, and being white, I’ve ended up hanging out with a lot of people who are rich, just because I’m a novelty (kinda like a circus freak, but not in a nasty way necessarily). In the third world, the ultra-rich feel some kind of connection to the people; they will eat street food, they will mingle with the peasants, and they have some sense of obligation. They all try to start businesses and hire poor people, they also contribute to community programs, and try to bring the people up. From Latin America, to Africa, to Asia, this is what I’ve seen.
The new ruling class in America appears to enjoy the fact that they are living in outrageous wealth while surrounded by people who are completely destroyed. Even if they don’t enjoy it, they’re not bothered enough by it to speak out. How many Wall Street people have you seen come out and say “we need to think about the fact that the middle class is completely disappearing in this country?”
I am not a communist, and don’t have an issue with the concept of a rich ruling class. I think that all societies in history have been that way, and I don’t think there is any way to change it, and I am not sure that changing it would be desirable anyway. But I do think that the rich should have a sense of responsibility to the rest of the people.
That said: I don’t know what the rich are thinking. Maybe they indeed don’t like this.
Of course, even if Wall Street people did feel that way, they wouldn’t be able to say anything, because it is now considered immoral to question the lockdowns. The only thing that matters, according to the government and media, is doing lockdowns, and the economic effects don’t mean anything at all. So maybe there are rich people who don’t want to destroy the middle class, but just know that if they speak out, they will be attacked?
Joe Rogan is rich, and he left Los Angeles, because he couldn’t stand being rich in a place where he was surrounded by squalor. He’s also done his best to speak out against the lockdowns, and what it is doing to average people. So, no one knows how many rich people have that sentiment.
But whatever the case: this is disgusting.