I’m a progressive, and nothing pisses me off more than other progressives being useful idiots for the right wing agenda.
What’s the point of whining like this if you’re not willing to understand the political realities of the US government and the current Democratic and Republican parties? Biden didn’t WANT to give up most of his social agenda, but he was forced to give it up in order to get ANYTHING done at all. Manchin and Sinema (may she step on legos barefoot every day for the rest of her life) blocked any attempts to get the social programs through the reconciliation process, and that doomed them because they certainly couldn’t pass the filibuster. Do people think Biden WANTED his social programs to be blocked?
The fact is, because of fifth columnists like Manchin and Sinema, the social programs will be blocked by united GOP obstruction until the Democrats have enough votes to overcome them. If a greater number of dissatisfied progressives actually came out to vote for progress instead of staying home wishing for perfection, we might have had a 52-48 senate majority and the BBB plan might have been passed nearly in its entirety. Instead we had a coal baron and a future Fox News correspondent block all the environmental and social programs that came up for vote and Biden was forced to compromise his vision.
I’m halfway convinced that people like the author of this article don’t really want progress, they want revolution. They don’t actually care about people getting hurt, they just want to see the utopian future they dream of being directly implemented. Newsflash, revolutions are usually a bad thing for the poor. The people who have the most capability to generate and apply force usually come out on top in a revolution. Those people aren’t the poor, they’re usually elites who currently aren’t in power. If the US had a general revolution right now, the new power structure would likely consist of the “good” billionaires and their military leaders, who would eventually coopt the power structure to make certain they stayed on top as usual. Society would be disrupted, millions would suffer, and fundamentally very little would change except the titles of the people exploiting labor.
If you don’t attempt to understand history and the structure of the systems that govern you, you will be continuously taken advantage of by those that do.
The trick is to hire SEVERAL groups of people (read: wealth management advisor teams from major financial institutions) and let them each manage a $25M+ chunk of it. You’d want to have 2-3 different groups, and then a simple portfolio you manage yourself that trades in market-tracking ETFs and highly rated government bonds. That gives you the combination of excellent security with minimal personal maintenance. And you get all the perks of being a wealth management client from several large institutions like below-market loan rates and unique investment opportunities. Also, the really big institutions like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have lots of resources available for financial education for their wealth management clients.
That’s the best advice for someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing. Never give one person the keys to your entire net worth, THAT’S how wealthy people end up broke.
In this hypothetical, even if JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs collapsed or embezzled your funds (which is INCREDIBLY unlikely), you’d still have more than enough wealth to live comfortably for several lifetimes in your other accounts. Just make sure your accountant knows where everything is, because you don’t want to go to prison for tax evasion.