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Pandemic Profiteers Add Billions To Their Fortunes — By Darwin Porter
You hardly need to be told that the virus crisis has devas- based technologies.”
tated millions of households and forced small businesses to As brick-and-mortar stores continue their decline and
close, paralyzing such industries as tourism and the airlines. bankruptcies, Collins also foresees vast new profits for the
In contrast, since its outbreak, dozens of American billion- ultra-wealthy from electric cars, sustainable power, and
aires, some of them labeled in the press as the “Pandemic space travel. He also predicts a dim future for the former
Profiteers,” grew richer. fossil fuel barons.
JEFF BEZOS: Founder of Amazon in 1994, he’s now the Indeed, Petroleum King PHILIP ANSCHUTZ, who is
richest man in the world, with a fortune that, since Covid, heavily invested in fossil fuels, recently saw his fortunes
grew from $48 billion to $200 billion. It’s now the world’s largest online decline. Even worse (for him, at least) many of his vast holdings are in
sales company, forcing the closure of shopping malls across the coun- movie theaters and music and sports arenas, whose revenues suffered
try. Incidentally, Bezos spent his teenaged years in Miami. His newest devastating declines since the onslaught of Covid.
dream involves the “suborbital” (non-orbiting) launch of commercial Ironically (and ominously) as high-tech billionaires added to their vast
human spaceflight. empires, the U.S. government recorded a record-breaking deficit of
MARK ZUCKERBERG: Enough gold bars have almost buried him $3.1 trillion for the fiscal year that ended in September.
under their avalanche. In recent years, his fortune rose from $55 billion Robert Reich, who served in the governments of Gerald Ford, Jimmy
to $100 billion, making him the fourth richest person on earth. Born only Carter, and Bill Clinton (he was U.S. Labor Secretary from 1993 to 1997),
in 1984, the media magnate and co-founder of Facebook launched his loudly agrees that Donald Trump’s tax cuts of 2017 massively bene-
social networking service from his dormitory room at Harvard in 2004. fitted billionaires and “mere” millionaires. Reich has publicly exposed
By 2012, it had a billion users, and by then he had become the youngest fifteen Republicans in the Senate and House who served on the com-
self-made billionaire. mittees that revised the tax laws. Each of them benefitted from tax cuts
★ See AND hear Darwin Porter every month on Zoomertimes TV. ★ that averaged $314,000 annually.
The previously mentioned Chuck Collins, the philanthropist, claimed
Tune in on YouTube (search zoomertimes TV), on Facebook. that rich people frequently hire “wealth defense lawyers,” who conceal
★ com/Boomertimes, or on BoomerTimesFL.com ★ vast reservoirs of cash in dynasty trusts, tax havens such as those in
the Cayman Islands, and in anonymous shell companies.
ELON MUSK: A native of South Africa, the Tesla and SpaceX czar According to Collins, “When the day dawns that the government
witnessed his bank account rise in recent years from $25 billion to $92 will have to deal with deficit spending, I suspect that these super-rich
billion. An industrial designer and engineer, he’s now the fifth richest fellows will become freeloaders, skipping out the back door of the
person in the world. On November 14, he revealed that he probably restaurant without paying their tabs.”
has COVID-19. “Two tests came back negative, two tests came back
positive, so I probably have it.” Darwin Porter, sometimes with the collaboration of Danforth
BILL GATES: He recently retained his position as the second richest Prince at www.BloodMoonProductions.com, is the author of at
person on earth thanks to a net worth of $112 billion. least 50 seminal biographies of celebrities who
WARREN BUFFET: He remains in fourth place among rich Americans THE SEDUCTIVE SAPPHIC EXPLOITS OF include Judy Garland, Donald Trump, James Dean,
MERCEDES
with a nest egg of $74 billion. DE Bill & Hillary Clinton, and Ronald Reagan and his
ACOSTA
Very few women are on the list of über-rich Americans. JULIA KOCH H Hollywood’s Greatest Lover v e r intensely competitive wives (Jane Wyman and Nancy
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of Koch Industries appears as number sixteen among the wealthy, with Davis). His most recent biography is an overview
a war chest of $45 billion. At the age of 58, her goal is to have a billion of the arts-industry socialite Mercedes de Acosta,
for every year of her life. “From Garbo to Dietrich, from Eleonora Duse to Isadora Duncan, lover, muse, and mentor to some of the most influ-
from Eva Le Gallienne to Tallulah Bankhead to Katharine Cor-
nell—even to Valentino’s two wives—star seducer Mercedes de
Acosta was the Perfect Sapphic Lover.”
—Alice B. Toklas
An oddball appears conspicuously on the list of Americans with DARWIN PORTER & DANFORTH PRINCE ential and empowered actresses of the 20 Century.
ANOTHER UNORTHODOX OVERVIEW OF CELEBRITY AND FAME FROM
th
enormous inherited wealth. He’s CHUCK COLLINS, the great-grand-
son of Hot Dog King Oscar Mayer. When he was 26, he gave away his For information about how you can meet him for
fortune, and has spent the rest of his life urging rich people to take up an overnight at his home in New York City, click
liberal causes. He is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, on https://AirBnb.com/H/Magnolia-House or
a Washington-based think tank. contact DanforthPrince@gmail.com.
He often speaks of income inequalities, citing the “racial wealth
divide” as dangerous. If the status quo remains, he predicts that the Be sure to listen to Darwin’s discussions with
rich will get richer, the poor poorer. He anticipates breathtaking future Anita at regular intervals on Zoomertimes TV.
profits for members of “the Billionaires’ Club,” new developments in Boomer Times: Bringing you better access to a
video conferencing, prescription drugs, online retail sales, and “Cloud- familiar friend. Darwin Porter
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