Holding billionaire class accountable

To put this into perspective, let us start by visualizing how much one billion dollars really is. An influencer named @minnaleejamison on Instagram explained this using grains of rice. One grain is equal to $100,000, 10 grains are equal to $1 million, and 10,000 grains of rice are equal to $1 billion. In 2024, the median household income was $83,730, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, so not even a whole grain of rice. While nearly a quarter of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, the top 1% are pouring their excess money into more investments.

One of the main differences between the top 1% and everyone else is how their dollars are spent. When you look up a billionaire’s net worth, like Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, Google will tell you he is worth $482.5 billion. Musk may not have this amount in liquid cash (available cash on hand), but his billionaire status still stands. Billionaires tend to reinvest their money into assets, while working Americans put money toward savings accounts that don’t grow that much, lean into ownership, pay debts and purchase items that immediately lose value.

It takes creativity, skill, confidence and sometimes an inheritance boost to create massive wealth. Companies run by billionaires have helped with societal advancements like electric cars, high-speed computing, medical technology, space exploration and satellite communication. Those companies also provide investment opportunities for regular people and well-paying jobs.

Yet there is a dark side to billionaire status. You cannot always get an equal piece of the pie, right? Billionaires in industries like technology, food and beverage, and manufacturing (to name a few) are repeat offenders for poor employee compensation, greed, environmental harm, political lobbying influence and tax evasion. One of the greatest technologies of our time is artificial intelligence. It scours the web for key data that helps consumers gain access to information in a matter of seconds. Sounds great in theory, but apart from making us a little less able to think critically for ourselves and seek information on our own, it is damaging the environment and people’s lives at a petrifying rate.

One of many case studies is Mark Zuckerberg. He is sitting on a net worth of $221.9 billion, unimaginable to most of the population. His company, Meta, has a rapidly growing data plant in Georgia, where residents are now paying high electricity bills, have trouble getting clean water and are unable to see clear skies from the amount of pollution being produced. Most commonly, data plants are located in rural areas that do not have proper infrastructure to sustain a rapidly growing industry, hurting the community and its people.

Apart from environmental factors, billionaires have a heavy hand in lobbying, influencing policies that affect the average American, simply because they have the funds to do so. Lobbying occurs throughout many industries, one being ultraprocessed food. From 1998-2020, the industry spent $1.15 billion lobbying for taxation, label requirements and marketing restrictions, all of which contributed to higher revenue. While companies and lobbyists continue gaslighting consumers into thinking their products are safe, we are finally seeing some truth come to light. On Nov. 2, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu filed a lawsuit for ultraprocessed food manufacturers for blatantly lying to consumers about their product’s safety and health benefits (if any).

The lawsuit is intended for 10 of the largest food and drink corporations, including household brands like Kellogg’s, General Mills, Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo and Nestlé, for contributing to rising rates of chronic diseases. Currently, as of Dec. 3, the Food and Drug Administration does not have a uniform definition for ultraprocessed foods, possibly giving more leeway to corporations and lobbyists. Again, billionaires in the industry, like others, are more concerned about annual revenue instead of average Americans facing health consequences from consuming their products.

Above everything else, when people say “tax the rich,” it implies less of the self-made millionaires and more so the billionaires who have a hand in important decision-making affecting us all. For better or for worse, money talks, and it screams, “let them eat cake” (or maybe a partial grain of rice).

Giselle Espinoza can be reached at giselle@smdailyjournal.com.