Wealth Inequality Propaganda

I came across this YouTube video in my feed the other day, though there are so many of these videos I wonder if people ever stop to consider the source of these ideas, or what the actual call to action is.

The video starts with a young woman wearing clean white clothes in her clean white apartment stating “Surprise! The wealth inequality in this country is now so bad, it is essentially economically equivalent to being alive during the Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI ‘Let them eat cake’ era.”

The wealth disparity is the same as it was in Marie Antionette’s time? Really? Those are nice rags this peasant is wearing as she blasts her opinion with no repercussions to more strangers than any of her preaching predecessors were capable of reaching from their town squares. That looks like a nice clean place she lives in too; running clean drinking water at her fingertips, sanitary sewage disposal, electricity on command, she even has enough free time to talk nonsense to strangers from the comfort of her own home. Has no one told her: “You are more wealthy than any peasant of the past”? There certainly is a wealth gap, why aren’t more people talking about it?

The military uses an aptitude test to screen out people whom they have found are too dumb to be trained to do anything useful. Rounding, it’s about 12.5% of the population (people with an IQ <83) are too dumb to be useful to the military. And yet people like this woman complain that more people don’t have high paying jobs? Could it be that people are too dumb to have high paying jobs? She quotes some random guy from social media referring to him as an economist because he has the word economics in his bio, and she can’t seem to understand why all jobs aren’t high paying jobs? I can tell you what I am seeing, people are so dumb that money flows away from them. They don’t want to work, they just want to get paid, better yet, taken care of by someone else. Does that sound like anyone with a high paying job? Have you ever worked so hard that you spent the night at your place of business only to wake up and get back to work? That is the kind of work dedication people with high paying jobs have. They aren’t sitting around waiting to get paid, they are taking the initiative to get shit done. Noone is telling them what they need to do, they figure that out themselves as they go. Money just finds them when they aren’t even looking for it.

Yet this prevailing complaint about wealth inequality still exists? Why? Because people want more money for doing less work. Without any understanding of economics, one could believe that raising the minimum wage to a million dollars would solve all their problems, when in reality the ripple effects would cause even worse wealth disparity. More people would be unemployed than ever. Forget 12.5%, at least 60% (probably higher) of the population becomes a useless employee at that wage! If you had a million dollars, would you want to give it to someone who just wants to get paid and sits around with their hands in their pockets until you give them something to do? The real question everyone needs to answer is why should anyone pay you anything?

Quantity of Money is Not Wealth

Quantity of money is not wealth. Money is a medium of exchange. A tool used for trade. This person needs to go visit a country where people survive without running water, without running sewage, without electricity, a place where people live in rags. Those places still exist in the world today. I would love to see the reaction of the people there when she starts complaining about how bad she has it. But whining on social media about how you deserve a higher paying job because there are smarter people than yourself that make way more money is not an actual problem with the economy you live in; it is an obvious outcome when people benefit from economic freedom. There is only one person holding you back from having a high paying job, and it’s you. If you lived in a communist country that wouldn’t be the case, but since you don’t you can bet your ass you are the problem you have been looking to fix.

You want proof? Let’s compare the food availability between modern peasants of the USA and the peasants under Marie Antoinette. Here is a chart comparison:

The food in this girl’s fridge is more exotic than anything any peasant had access to in that time period. I am saying this knowing full well that this girl probably has less than a handful of items in her fridge. Based on her reasoning skills displayed on her video, one could assume she probably blames the economy for her lack of cooking knowledge and skill. Or perhaps she makes so much money from feeding her followers intellectual nonsense, that she herself can eat out every meal; cooking is beneath her. Her left-overs, if she bothered to save them, would be far more exotic than any king’s meal from the 18th century. But this context is trivial when compared to the sinister intent of internet content with messages like these.

First the Myth

Many people believe that Marie Antoinette, the French Monarch, was told at a party that the peasants were starving to death and had no bread to which she responded “Let them eat cake,” as she herself was stuffing her face with some. However, the phrase appears in Rousseau’s Confessions (written before she was queen) and was never spoken by her; it was propaganda. A drop in the Propaganda bucket against her that led to the Frech Revolution which ended French Monarchy. King Louis XVI was convicted of high treason and guillotined. The last thing Marie Antoinette ever said in real life was an apology to her executioner for stepping on his foot. But the truth rarely conjures up enough disdain to justify brutal and bloody revolution. So “Let them eat cake” is the phrase attributed to the woman envied by those who were starving for food and truth. 

We Live in Abundance

You see, I know that the reader of this blog post, if American, has never seen a bread riot; a common occurrence in France during that time. But for someone today to make any claim that there is a wealth problem in American which is similar to a time they themselves believe peasants had no bread while their political leaders were eating cake at parties…well, I have many questions. Why is so much food thrown away in our country? Why is there an obesity problem? Why does the country export and import so much food? Why is so much money given to those who live in poverty? Why do I see videos of people on food stamps bragging about their food hauls which makes my grocery trips look skimpy?

Now I have been asked many times by homeless drug addicts for money. And almost every time they claim it is for food. But does anyone actually believe them? These unfortunate people are so addicted they rob, cheat, and steal to feed their addiction. Empathetic human beings like myself who don’t want to physically harm such a person by giving them the means to destroy themselves give them food, not money. Despite the fact that the government forcefully takes money from me to provide food to those in poverty. This situation is nothing like the one in pre-revolutionary France. Had she discussed the similarity in terms of national debt, she might have been able to raise awareness to the true economic concern in regards to inflation. But providing economic education is the guise of her video not the intent. Using the word “economical” doesn’t give merit to an opinion or in this case hide her intent. The intent is the same as that which the propaganda against the French monarchs led to, or the Bolsheviks, or the Khmer Rouge; rile up the proletariat with lies and create so much angst it justifies bloodshed of the bourgeoise. Keep in mind, she is doing this with a smile on her face, comparing our day to a time where the people felt it was justified to commit such violence.

There is just one problem, those in poverty have never had it so good as they do in America today. Bread lines and bread riots litter the history of countries that enforced a socialist economy, while capitalism offers bread freely and more than can be eaten. People who have no scruples about dumpster diving, feed themselves doing just that in New York City. Not advocating that way of life, just saying that is how much surplus food there is in our Country, not the case in Louis XVI’s France. I wouldn’t be surprised if this youtuber herself throws food away daily.

As a father, let me lend you some free advice. If someone is convincing you that their problems (real or imagined) are more important than your own, you are being conned. If you are a citizen of the USA, you are not living under a Monarch, nor a fat dictator who thrives on your labor and loyalty while you yourself are dying from starvation. No matter how much it is repeated on tell a vision (no I did not misspell that), or social media by people claiming they are (what does she call herself?) Your Rich bff… If you focus on your own problems for a change, you will be able to think your way out of poverty legally. Poverty is the starting point for everyone. The more you work, the more raises and promotions you take on, the more money you make, and the more you save and invest (if you are smart). You can’t do that in a socialist planned economy. You are born into the same class you die in. Which is funny because that is what she is calling for. Her message is clear, the economy is rigged, and the 1% are taking all the money away from the peasants who perform all the labor who no matter how much they try, are starving to death, this demands a violent revolution! Hopefully now, you can count how many lies one would have to believe in order to fall for that socialist projection propaganda. The YouTuber Your Rich BFF might just be a paid propagandist and not your friend at all.