I was not the winner of the $1 billion dollar Powerball lottery.
All the fantasies I had about being able to fly to Brazil on a private jet sipping champagne with Rosie at my feet, gone. I would not be able to buy niece Cate the horse stable she richly deserved. Nor immortalize my parents in a foundation that supports immigrant education. Or live on a ship that took me to whatever destination whimsy told me I should go to. Create a micro loan nonprofit that benefited single working mothers in the US to help them start businesses. Lend meaningful support to political candidates whose vision for this country whose intent was to lift people up not create a permanent underclass.
I could go on. But you get the idea. All the fantasies you have after you buy your lottery ticket and before the drawing reveals the winning number.
On the morning after heartbreak, I was on the Stairmaster at the gym contemplating the tragedy that had just befallen me. If you are unfamiliar with this apparatus, it was clearly designed out of some Munchian nightmare where you are condemned to walk up an endless flight of stairs. It is torture. The only way I found to make even the least bit tolerable is to use one of the features of this machine called the monument challenge. It allows you to challenge yourself by climbing to the top of various skyscrapers around the world. That morning my goal was to climb the 117 flights to the top of the Empire State building.
The only way to survive this torture is to let your body do what your body needs to do and send you brain into a different direction. I get some of my best thinking done while climbing these virtual buildings.
On this morning, I was doing a little self-comforting. Not winning the lottery was certainly a disappointment but I am doing okay. My wife is smart, beautiful and funny. I live in a nice town. I have an apartment that is more than is more comfortable. I live on two continents and have a dog who likes to sleep on my toes when I write. I don’t worry about where the next meal is coming from as demonstrated by the fact that I am on this nightmare machine trying to keep the pounds from multiplying.
It occurred to me that I have been very fortunate in life. I grew up at a time where the American dream was still alive. A country that believed that everyone who worked hard would be successful. Who on the heals of the great depression had created programs to make sure every kid had the opportunity for a good education, could go to college and get a degree without committing financial seppuku. If you were poor we would make sure you had enough food on your table until you could take care of yourself and where a medical emergency didn’t result in you having to live in your car or on the streets.
We were a generous people who took care of those less fortunate that us because the Great Depression taught us that “other than a grace of god go I.”
Somewhere about the 20th floor I happened to look up at one of the monitors that fronted the Stairmasters and saw the Combover Cesar. I will be honest. I looked away. Looking at him is hard enough generally but when I am on the edge of exhaustion he is too much.
But sadly, he invaded my thoughts.
It made me think about how the Duke of Deflection had perverted the American Dreams. Instead of helping people up he has done all he could to keep people down. Some examples:
More people will go hungry because he reduced SNAP funding by $187 Billion at at time of burgeoning unemployment and uncontrolled inflation.
10s of millions of people can no longer afford health care because reduced ACA subsidies and draconian cuts to Medicare have.
Education grants designed to help teachers in low income areas have been eliminated creating a scarcity of teachers in areas where education should be their primary escape route.
College education has become unaffordable even to the middle class especially and programs to help them like AmeriCorps grants and the elimination of the SAVE program designed to ease the burden of student loans.
Meanwhile, he has helped the rich get richer. To name just a couple
The 2017 Trump tax cuts — many of whose individual and business provisions were extended or made permanent in 2025 — lowered taxes on corporations and business owners. Apparently, when a billionaire keeps more of his money it is called ‘growth.’ When a single mother gets help buying groceries it is called ‘dependency.’
The estate-tax exemption was dramatically increased, allowing very wealthy families to pass tens of millions of dollars to their heirs before the federal estate tax even enters the conversation. Nothing says rugged individualism quite like being born on third base with an accountant standing nearby to explain that you hit a triple.
Investment income continues to enjoy advantages that wages do not, including preferential long-term capital-gains rates and the stepped-up basis at death. The tax code apparently believes money works much harder sitting in a portfolio than a nurse does working a double shift.
And the carried-interest preference still allows many investment managers to have compensation taxed as capital gains rather than ordinary income if the statutory requirements are met. Because if there is one group America has historically failed to protect, it is private-equity managers.
The American Dream, Trump Edition
By the time I reached the upper floors of my imaginary Empire State Building, it occurred to me that Trump has not really abandoned the American Dream. He has simply revised it. In his version, the dream is not that every American should have a fair chance to become prosperous.
It is that Donald Trump should have a fair chance to become even more prosperous while serving as president.
The numbers are difficult to dismiss as mere political rhetoric. Trump’s latest financial disclosures show enormous income from crypto, licensing, golf clubs and other businesses.
Reuters has estimated that the Trump family has made billions from crypto ventures since he returned to the White House, including hundreds of millions from the $TRUMP meme coin. At one point, the top holders of that coin were even rewarded with a private dinner with the President of the United States. In the old days, rich people bought a table at a fundraiser. Progress means now you can buy a meme coin and perhaps get the President with dessert.
Then there is World Liberty Financial, the Trump-family crypto venture, foreign-backed investments and licensing deals bearing the family name. None of this proves that every presidential decision was made to enrich the Trump family, and the White House denies conflicts of interest.
That may be the clearest definition of Trump’s American Dream. Cut the ladder for the people below you. Build an escalator for the people above you. And make damn sure the escalator stops at the gift shop, where everything has your name on it.
I reached the 117th floor exhausted, sweaty and still not a billionaire. But I did come away with one comforting thought: apparently, I had misunderstood the lottery. The Powerball drawing was not the game I needed to win. I should have run for president.
Winston Churchill once said that if you were not a liberal when you were young you had no heart, and if you were not a conservative when you were older then you had no brain. I know I have both so what does that make me?
Blame it on Rio
The Powerball Presidency
I had a rough week last week.
I was not the winner of the $1 billion dollar Powerball lottery.
All the fantasies I had about being able to fly to Brazil on a private jet sipping champagne with Rosie at my feet, gone. I would not be able to buy niece Cate the horse stable she richly deserved. Nor immortalize my parents in a foundation that supports immigrant education. Or live on a ship that took me to whatever destination whimsy told me I should go to. Create a micro loan nonprofit that benefited single working mothers in the US to help them start businesses. Lend meaningful support to political candidates whose vision for this country whose intent was to lift people up not create a permanent underclass.
I could go on. But you get the idea. All the fantasies you have after you buy your lottery ticket and before the drawing reveals the winning number.
On the morning after heartbreak, I was on the Stairmaster at the gym contemplating the tragedy that had just befallen me. If you are unfamiliar with this apparatus, it was clearly designed out of some Munchian nightmare where you are condemned to walk up an endless flight of stairs. It is torture. The only way I found to make even the least bit tolerable is to use one of the features of this machine called the monument challenge. It allows you to challenge yourself by climbing to the top of various skyscrapers around the world. That morning my goal was to climb the 117 flights to the top of the Empire State building.
The only way to survive this torture is to let your body do what your body needs to do and send you brain into a different direction. I get some of my best thinking done while climbing these virtual buildings.
On this morning, I was doing a little self-comforting. Not winning the lottery was certainly a disappointment but I am doing okay. My wife is smart, beautiful and funny. I live in a nice town. I have an apartment that is more than is more comfortable. I live on two continents and have a dog who likes to sleep on my toes when I write. I don’t worry about where the next meal is coming from as demonstrated by the fact that I am on this nightmare machine trying to keep the pounds from multiplying.
It occurred to me that I have been very fortunate in life. I grew up at a time where the American dream was still alive. A country that believed that everyone who worked hard would be successful. Who on the heals of the great depression had created programs to make sure every kid had the opportunity for a good education, could go to college and get a degree without committing financial seppuku. If you were poor we would make sure you had enough food on your table until you could take care of yourself and where a medical emergency didn’t result in you having to live in your car or on the streets.
We were a generous people who took care of those less fortunate that us because the Great Depression taught us that “other than a grace of god go I.”
Somewhere about the 20th floor I happened to look up at one of the monitors that fronted the Stairmasters and saw the Combover Cesar. I will be honest. I looked away. Looking at him is hard enough generally but when I am on the edge of exhaustion he is too much.
But sadly, he invaded my thoughts.
It made me think about how the Duke of Deflection had perverted the American Dreams. Instead of helping people up he has done all he could to keep people down. Some examples:
Meanwhile, he has helped the rich get richer. To name just a couple
And the carried-interest preference still allows many investment managers to have compensation taxed as capital gains rather than ordinary income if the statutory requirements are met. Because if there is one group America has historically failed to protect, it is private-equity managers.
The American Dream, Trump Edition
By the time I reached the upper floors of my imaginary Empire State Building, it occurred to me that Trump has not really abandoned the American Dream. He has simply revised it. In his version, the dream is not that every American should have a fair chance to become prosperous.
It is that Donald Trump should have a fair chance to become even more prosperous while serving as president.
The numbers are difficult to dismiss as mere political rhetoric. Trump’s latest financial disclosures show enormous income from crypto, licensing, golf clubs and other businesses.
Reuters has estimated that the Trump family has made billions from crypto ventures since he returned to the White House, including hundreds of millions from the $TRUMP meme coin. At one point, the top holders of that coin were even rewarded with a private dinner with the President of the United States. In the old days, rich people bought a table at a fundraiser. Progress means now you can buy a meme coin and perhaps get the President with dessert.
Then there is World Liberty Financial, the Trump-family crypto venture, foreign-backed investments and licensing deals bearing the family name. None of this proves that every presidential decision was made to enrich the Trump family, and the White House denies conflicts of interest.
That may be the clearest definition of Trump’s American Dream. Cut the ladder for the people below you. Build an escalator for the people above you. And make damn sure the escalator stops at the gift shop, where everything has your name on it.
I reached the 117th floor exhausted, sweaty and still not a billionaire. But I did come away with one comforting thought: apparently, I had misunderstood the lottery. The Powerball drawing was not the game I needed to win. I should have run for president.
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About 34orion
Winston Churchill once said that if you were not a liberal when you were young you had no heart, and if you were not a conservative when you were older then you had no brain. I know I have both so what does that make me?