Billionaires In Space And Homeless On The Streets: Our New Gilded Age

Feed the poor or reach for the stars? We must do both.

VSS Unity, the first spaceplane of Virgin Galactic (go4liftoff.com)

Over the past several days there have been a lot of my fellow Social Justice Warriors decrying the vanity-fueled spaceflights of billionaires Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, and for the very best of reasons. After all, if the ten richest billionaires applied just their profits made during the pandemic, they’d be able to fully vaccinate everyone on the planet against COVID-19 — and they’d have money left over. That one fact proves how devastating unregulated capitalism is to the world’s poor and dispossessed. The sociopathy of the ultra-rich was on full display when during a post-flight interview, Jeff Bezos said:

“I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this. Seriously, for every Amazon customer out there and every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my heart very much, it’s very appreciated.”

His lack of empathy was quickly noted on Twitter:

With AOC’s heart and passion and burning intelligence, I earnestly hope she’ll be president someday. (Twitter)

So it continues as I write this, with those of us on the Left vilifying the…