So, apparently there are billionaires who will pay $250,000 to see the wreckage of the Titanic. I suppose if you have an extra $250,000 to burn through gawking at a sunken luxury liner might be a way to do it.

I don’t wish anyone ill. It is sad that people died in this tragedy nonetheless I find the whole past week more than a little irritating. First, how much government time and money was used to find these billionaires. I agree you have to look for them. It is the humane thing to do when people are trouble. Let me rephrase that when rich people are in trouble. When poor people are in trouble due to their bad decisions, the answer is to leave them on the streets because they will never learn their lesson from their mistakes unless they suffer. But OK, I understand the need to search for missing rich people despite the less than gracious response to other people in trouble.

I feel the same way about rescuing untrained people from Mount Everest. People want to climb Mount fucking Everest because they have the $65,000. They are untrained mountain climbers and they are, just for the thrill of saying they climbed Mount Everest, endangering the lives of the sherpas and the other trained mountaineers on the climb. Climbing Mount Everest should be something you work your way up. It certainly isn’t a starter mountain. Of course, the wealthy person’s story is all that is really important. The poor people that have to rescue the stupid mother fuckers are just a footnote.

And what a story it is. Billionaires in a missing submersible. The press went crazy over this one. There were countdown clocks of when exactly the oxygen would run out for the people trapped. Stories from previous submersible passengers dredging up their horror stories and how they knew some disaster like this was imminent. There were engineers discussing the poor quality of the materials used in the building of the submersible. 24/7 reporting on the fates of these 5 people while, at the same time, the Greek Navy was trying to save hundreds of desperate refugees floundering in the Mediterranean. You will be excused if you didn’t know about this particular disaster as the coverage wasn’t quite the same for the poor immigrants. Funny how the drowning billionaires trump the drowning immigrants but not particularly surprising.

Then there is the money. $250,000 to see the wreck of a ship on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. $65,000 to climb Everest. That’s a lot of money and these people can afford it. Which is incredibly disappointing if not anticipated behavior. I thought one of the benefits of low taxation for the wealthy is that they would use their excess cash to invest in their businesses thus helping everyone. That they are spending their money on these expensive thrills is unsurprising evidence that they are not good stewards of their own money.

And this is not an isolated incident. They spend billions on space travel and losing law suits, on giving money to other wealthy people, on hush money to cover up their crimes and on buying fake vintage wine. Just like the poor, they waste their money on crime, sex, thrills and drinking. The price tag they are paying is just a bit more. This is the problem. To be told that we can’t afford to help the poor is a lie, the world is afloat with extra money. It is, however, being used at the whim of people who have too much money and not enough sense. The outrageous sums these people have paid for their fun would be better spent on giving every poor person in America some housing which included a life time supply of cigarettes and alcohol.

In any case, spare me the lecture on the rich being good stewards of money. I don’t believe it.