A Day for Thanks. Not Thankful for Desperation (Not a Fantastic Future, Mr. Musk.)

Who today, on Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., is looking forward to a feast with family and friends, and who is looking for something to steal, someone to rob, some place to get some cash? Who is spending time trying to figure out if the turkey is ready, and who is working out a way to make a quick buck? I’ll tell you who, the desperate.

As it’s Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. this seems an appropriate day to write about things I’m thankful for.

1. A loving partner.
2. Friends and family.
3. Good health
4. Safe place to live.
5. Work that I enjoy and allows me to live as an self-employed artist — I’m a photojournalist and commercial photographer.
6. Various cameras to foster my photographic creativity.
   (I may not have a BMW or Mercedes, but I do have a Leica!)
7. Being debt-free.
8. A career that inspires others to create art.

Things I don’t have that I wish I did:

1. A small home of my own, not a rental.
2. Financial security. (My retirement plan is don’t retire–fortunately I love my work.)

it got me thinking about someone who isn’t like me, who has much more money. Someone like Elon Musk. I wonder what’s he thankful for?

1. All the money in the world.
2. Tesla cars or any car in the world.
3. Rocket ship to space.
4. Ability to colonize Mars.
5. No taxes. (Since he takes no salary, he can’t be taxed.)

What he isn’t thankful for:

1. Friends. (Billionaires don’t have friends, they have hanger-ons, but no real friends.)
2. Loving partner. (Three times divorced–all the money in the world doesn’t buy love.)
3. His plans to end human suffering on earth. (He’s busy working on that Mars landing.)

Now to be fair, Musk doesn’t have to use his money to fix society’s ills, and it looks like that’s exactly what he’s choosing to do. He’d rather walk around the red planet. I know if I had that much money, I’d look for a simple solution to help people up off the street, but that’s me.

You may not know this but Musk has a net worth of $290 Billion, that’s billion with a B, which if we just want to think about $1 billion–it’s a big number to get our heads around–here’s what you can do with $1 billion.

Well, first, let’s make it simpler. Here’s what you can do with $1 million, with an M. (We’re talking slumming with just $1M. ) If you can budget your life to live on $100k a year, you can live on $1 million for 10 years.

If you can budget your life to live on that same $100k a year, you can live on $1 billion for 10,000 years. Multiply that by 290 and Musk can live on $100k a year for just 2.9 million years. I guess he’s going to be okay.

Hopefully he’ll find a fountain of youth on Mars. He’s going to need it.

Well, so it’s not Musk’s job to offer a handout to those with the least. To send soup. Or Zuck’s. Or Buffet’s. Or Bezos. Or Gates. They’re all busy with other things to do. I bet they’re each headed to some kind of a Thanksgiving feast today.

A rainy morning and the ghost of a man, Washington D.C.

So without their getting involved, someone has to make a plan for those without a feast. Without a roof. Without a meal. Without a plan except to survive by any means necessary.

Someone has to step up and I know what needs to be done. Are you ready for this? This is it, this is exactly the answer to the crime that strikes daily on police blotters in every town and city in America. This is what’s the problem that we need to fix and before we can fix it, we must define it.

We have desperate people. Desperate people will do desperate things. Humans have a survival instinct. Those who have nothing to lose don’t worry about losing everything if they get caught in a crime. Desperate people are the main problem, and the result of growing wealth gap and loss of middle-class income in America. As long as there is desperation, we are certainly not the greatest country in the world.

As long as there is desperation, we won’t have a “fantastic future”, Mr. Musk.

We need a war on desperation.

A war on that debilitating condition that exists which manifests as a result of some people making all the money and others not having enough to even have the basics. Some people in America are living among the street trash and are essentially discarded. What choice do they have to work within the laws, to bother with doing what’s right?

There are corporate CEOs making incredible salaries and their own workers not making enough to live, working for a non-living wage. Why should they? What kind of a system is this capitalism that allows one to make so much, and another to make nothing?

The haves might have a lot, but they’re living in a world full of have-nots that make it unsafe for everyone, haves included. The desperate are like an animal backed into a corner, they have no choice but to fight to survive. We need a war on desperation.

Maps to the stars’ homes, and someone with nothing, Hollywood CA.

We need to be thankful for what we have, and everyone needs to have something to be thankful for. From that person living under the bridge all the way up to the Musks of the world.

We need to rid the world of desperation.