These days when I talk about “rich” people it is considerably different than when I was in my twenties. Back then it was unbelievable that someone could become a millionaire. It was difficult to believe that amount of money could be earned by anyone except for the mega-rich. Today it’s almost unbelievable. If you own a large home in a nice neighborhood, have two cars, and good paying job, your net worth is probably more than a million. I couldn’t even imagine trying to guess how many millionaires are playing pro sports. It boggles the mind. As outrageous as that is, the uber rich remain in a separate class all their own. To them a millionaire is seen as a low rent bum. Let me show you what I mean.
William Randolph Hearst once purchased a pair of Cellini saltshakers for the low, low price of $500,000.
Henry Ford once stated to Hearst after he had been complaining about never seeming to have any money: “That’s a mistake,” replied Ford. “A man ought to have $500 million or so in cash for a rainy day.”
Once when a reporter asked John Paul Getty if he was really worth over $1 billion, “Yes, I suppose it’s true, but $1 billion doesn’t go as far as it used to.”
A young Nelson Rockefeller was sailing his toy boat in a pond when another boy asked, “Where’s your yacht? “Whaddaya think I am, “he replied,” a Vanderbilt?”
When an elderly John D Rockefeller, Sr, learned that members of his family intended to give him an electric cart to ride around his estate, he told them in no uncertain terms, “I rather have the money.”
Howard Hughs started out as a very presentable young playboy with the world at his feet. He ended up as a starving, paranoid recluse trapped in a room watching old movies.
The oil billionaire H. L. Hunt wrote and published a book in which he proposed that citizens voting power be proportionate to the amount of taxes they paid.
H. Ross Perot had a coral reef dynamited at his oceanfront home in Bermuda because it interfered with his boat slip.
Armand Hammer once bought an important manuscript written by Leonardo da Vinci and renamed it the Codex Hammer.
William K Vanderbilt once stated, “I am the richest man in the world. I am worth $194 million. I would not walk across the street to make $1 million.”
They live in a different world in a galaxy far, far away. They barely have the ability or the desire to stoop so low as to talk to someone considered a “blue collar” worker.
I thought the title of this post would get your attention because we as Americans aren’t all that surprised when we hear how much most of the world seems to hate us. People hate us, countries hate us, individuals hate us, and yet millions of them put their lives at risk to escape their own countries to come here. I find that to be a conundrum and it needs to be examined and we’re going to do it right now.
I consider myself to be a proud and patriotic American. That being said I feel that most people on this planet have little or no respect for our country, our people, our culture (if we have one), and our politicians. When Donald Trump was president everybody on the planet including the people in this country had nothing good to say about the man. I’m finding now that Biden has been elected, other countries are already taking potshots at him as are many of our own citizens. He’s too old, he’s crotchety, he can’t remember anything. What the hell are we doing? We hate to be hated but insist on hating others including ourselves. Many of those comments I mentioned were obtained from British television and those folks don’t hold much back when criticizing.
I would gladly tell most of them if asked how little I care about their opinions on America. It’s like when you were in high school and somebody picked on your sister. It’s okay if you do it but no one else better try. I fully understand why the rest of the world shows us such little respect. We are as always our own worst enemy. I won’t even begin to discuss reality programming which makes the entire planet think we’re a bunch of mouth-breathing, arrogant morons. It’s hard to argue that fact when so many millions of Americans are so addicted to watching these staged soap operas that permit idiots to exploit their 15 minutes of fame at our expense. Fake drama, fake plot lines, and generally just a lot of BS.
There is so much weirdness in America these days it boggles the mind. I know by now to expect the absolute worst and when it doesn’t happen, I celebrate. I’d like to send a big shout out to the Media and Hollywood, for producing such crap and broadcasting it worldwide. Without fuel a fire will go out, so people, please stop fueling the damn fire.
I was thinking last night while surfing around the TV network sites, how would a reasonably religious and intelligent person living anywhere on the planet feel about America after watching an hour of TMZ or the host of reality shows clogging the airways.
I know that America and its Americans will continue moving down this road regardless of the consequences. That’s our right as free citizens to be as stupid and unmindful about others as we seem to be. However, we should really stop whining about everyone on the planet hating us. We have to get over that crybaby BS and take the heat for all the stupid crap we continue to do and then transmit it to the rest of the world.
Every time we have one of our wacko celebrities out of the country on tour, they’re seen as representing all of us. That’s about as scary as it gets for me. How about you?
Have you ever had your credit card information stolen by someone? I have.
For the second time in a year my bank sent me a notice that I’m being issued a new credit card because mine may have been compromised. No explanations as to how or when or why, just shut up and do it. I hate pushy people, pushy governments, pushy companies, and now this pushy bank. Ordering me to change cards without giving me the specifics seems to be a tad arrogant. If it’s just a preventative measure then tell me that. I don’t appreciate being treated like a moron child, being ordered around by a know-it-all parent. That may have worked when I was five but trust me, I’m no longer five.
I allow these people the privilege of using my money to make money for themselves but this Big Brother attitude pisses me off. It seems to be the way of things these days especially with the government and Big Business. They see us as a pack of slobbering idiots who need their hands held to make any sort of decision.
Now I get to spend a couple of hours today on the Net changing my credit card numbers on a myriad of websites. I suppose I shouldn’t complain since they are allegedly protecting my money and accounts but talking down to me is unacceptable.
Over the last five years I’ve had my information stolen twice when unauthorized purchases were made in Canada and Europe. Throw in two changes of debit cards (because of hacked companies) and three new credit cards (for unexplained reasons) and OMFG what the hell is going on. If you’re doing something to benefit me all that’s required is a simple explanation. I guess it’s too much to hope for in these days of big government and big business arrogance. They’re too busy to deal with the feelings of the “great unwashed”.
I sometimes wonder whether it would be worth it to remove myself from the grid entirely and go back to writing checks and mailing payments. Is simple convenience worth all of this grief and aggravation? I don’t want to get too crazy but maybe it’s time for some common sense to enter into my approach to the Net, my use of credit and debit cards, and banking in general. I need to think on it for a while longer and try to come up with some good solid solutions to this nightmare.
I’d ask the bank for help but they’d just replace all of my cards once again and send me that condescending form letter as well.
I love passing along information that will possibly help some of you travelers out there in making your vacation or long weekend trips worth doing. I’ve just spent the Memorial Day weekend in Dallas and it was one of the best holidays ever. There always seems to be a few bothersome issues when traveling which tend to gripe my ass and that’s the topic for today’s discussion.
I really only have one travelers tip for you based on my recent travels. Never fly the freaking friendly skies of United because believe me they’re not that damn friendly. United Airlines sucks and I intend to spell out the entire nightmare they put me and a few hundred of my fellow travelers through on Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday night, Wednesday’s wee hours of the morning and into Wednesday afternoon.
My trip began perfectly with a flight to O’Hare in Chicago last Friday, on time and no problems to complain about. I was filled with holiday cheer and was having good thoughts about the entire world and everyone in it. That lasted approximately two and a half hours until the United Airlines curse began. I was due to land at Dallas/Fort-Worth at 11:15 pm and my ride was waiting patiently for me. Honest, he really had nothing better to do than to waste his time waiting for United to get their act together. Finally after some typical airline BS I arrived in Dallas late. Being the forgiving soul that I am I cursed quietly under my breath and just let it go. I really do hate to be forced into any situation being controlled by any airlines but since it’s one of those times when they have you by the cojones , you’re screwed.
My holiday weekend was terrific with barbecues, tacos, and smoked steak headlining the menus. Unfortunately the fun had to end and as we drove to the airport for my return home I began to have premonitions of the coming disaster. As we flew out of Dallas a storm front arrived and eventually extended all the way to Dulles in Washington making for a really bumpy ride. We landed just ahead of the front and I had only thirty minutes to make my connection for the second leg of my journey to Maine because we arrived a little late.
United in their indisputable logic required me to run like O.J. Simpson across the terminal, jump into a shuttle bus to reach another terminal where I arrived out of breath and barely made the flight. All of us cattle herded ourselves into a small version of the Boeing 707 that held approximately a hundred idiots like me. Starting out the steward had difficulty making his safety announcements because his microphone appeared to have a loose wire of some sort. It was screeching from the feedback so loud no-one could understand him. Then the pilot announced a fan equipment failure and a half hour delay. That delay caused us to miss our take off window before the storms hit and we then had to sit through a wall of thunderstorms trapping us on the tarmac. Two hot and sweaty hours later the pilot tells us the flight has been cancelled because of other maintenance issues.
We were directed back to the terminal into the supposedly capable hands of the oxymoronic "Customer Service" crew. They herded us into a line of almost two hundred other people and offered only three Customer Service agents to handle all of our problems. As we waited endlessly in that line they announced we should call 1-800-UNITED1 for additional ticketing help.
To make a long story short the morons had me on hold for one hour before I got to talk to a human being who then told me there were no flights to Portland until Thursday with very few seats available on them. He then passed me along to another so called expert who put me on hold again. My phone ran out of power at that point and I was forced to stand around for another hour in that line to get help from their three overwrought agents. I felt bad for them but unfortunately this nightmare was about me. Also during that time my luggage, a small carryon that I had been forced to bag check in Dallas, had been sent into the black hole that is the United baggage claim system and disappeared.
Their first recommendation when I reached an agent was that I upgrade to a first-class ticket for an additional $226.00 and they could get me on a flight to Boston within the hour. Then I could rent a car and drive the rest of the way to Maine at my expense of course. I won’t repeat exactly what I said because it was extremely rude and crude. Lets just say that agent immediately understood I wasn’t interested.
I’d like to take a moment here to thank the lovely and friendly blonde lady from Yarmouth, Maine whose name I never got. She was sweet and calm and kept me from erupting into a full blown maniacal rant while we stood in that line. As I promised her, I have nothing but nice things to say about her. I told her about this blog and she was worried I might say something derogatory.
I strong armed that United agents into finding me a flight on another carrier, US Airways, but I had to shuttle across Washington DC to Reagan National Airport ($30.00 for a fifteen minute ride) and arrived there at midnight. I should also tell you that United refused any compensation to any of the travelers even though most were forced to get motel rooms that averaged $150.00 a night (I wasn’t one of them to be sure). They claimed the cancellations were totally due to the weather and never mentioned any of the maintenance issues we’d been told about by our pilot. Maintenance issues require them to compensate travelers so I wasn’t all that surprised when they didn’t hesitate to screw us all. A bunch of lying, uncaring, arrogant assholes to categorize them as nicely as possible.
I have to tell you that I had a lovely night sleeping on the floor of the terminal at Reagan National airport with eighty of my now closest friends who also refused to be coerced into paying out of pocket for motel rooms. I finally flew home to Portland today with US Airways and arrived at three o’clock this afternoon. Along with all of the other BS, I lost my Kindle Reader as I was scurrying around trying to get home. I hadn’t had a decent meal for thirty hours and I had the pungent aroma of a disgusting farm animal or so I was told by my better-half when she picked me up.
Thanks for nothing United Airlines. May you and your entire operation rot in hell. You’ll never see me again.
everyuselessthing.com 