Chris Johnson | Posted on January 11, 2022 |
My new nonprofit will help a group whose suffering is often overlooked
The past decade of my professional life has been 99 percent dedicated to nonprofit causes that help people in need, preferably with a hand-up instead of a handout.
Sure, I sit down and write a little Nobel Prize for Literature contending book every now and then or spend a good 20 minutes knocking out another Pulitzer Award for Commentary contender for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. But, mainly, I work my tail off so that other folks' lives might be a little better.
Every now and then, though, I run across a group of folks in need that falls through the cracks — people who deserve our love and support to lift them out of the depths of despair that only people in their particular predicament can understand.
I'm talking, of course, about America's much-maligned wealthy population. This class warfare you poors are waging is hurting the mental health of rich folks — something you might could understand if you could afford to see a therapist. Just because the wealthy often pay lower effective tax rates, are the only people who can run for and serve in Congress, who laugh off thousands in the same legal fines that might bankrupt you, can assault people and still be pro sports heroes, can have embarrassing encounters at massage parlors dismissed and erased and still keep owning a sports team, can pay off porn stars and other concubines and still be a darling of evangelicals, and can skirt immigration rules to play a tennis match when normal folks wouldn't get the same entitled hearing doesn't mean that the wealthy don't have problems. And if you don't believe the rich have problems, just listen to them complain about the state of affairs when they return from an afternoon on their boat.
But fear not, rich folks. I'm here to help. I've formed a new nonprofit — The Suffering Rich — to help you in your moments of perceived need. And we've already released our first commercial:
Hi, I'm Chris Johnson, and I'm basically the Sally Struthers of charity work for the wealthy. I'd like to tell you about The Suffering Rich. Cue the sad music …
Kimberly used to smile, but that was when she and husband Steve had the biggest house in the neighborhood, a 6,000-square-foot home technically owned by Steve's business, Steve's Hedge Funds and Pyramid Schemes R Us. Then, the Tipkins had to go and build a 6,500-square-foot home. With your help, Kimberly and Steve can build a 575-square-foot addition and reclaim the joy they once knew.
And meet Jimmy, who just arrived in Atlanta. Notice his face. No, that's not a deformity. He's pouting because the pilot of his private jet called in sick after having his hands cut off by a bookie. Jimmy had to fly first-class in the same metal container as coach people and breathe their contaminated air of poverty and hopelessness, something aided by his refusal to wear a mask. With your support, we'll get his pilot a new pair of artificial hands, and Jimmy can fly again — something he desperately needs after being banned for punching two flight attendants.
The plight of the rich often is overlooked. The rich know that if you work hard enough, you will get wealthy. That's why there are so many millionaire teachers, janitors, brick layers and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, the really rich — particularly those who spend half their days in meetings or on golf courses or who have the responsibility of making sure a short-sell stock bet pays off by destroying companies and jobs (or an island's ability to thrive … such as Puerto Rico's bond holders) — have it especially hard.
Did you know that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are now audited by the IRS at nearly the same rate as Americans who receive the Earned Income Tax Credit (folks who typically earn less than $20,000 per year)? This is totally unfair for our precious rich communities to be lumped into a category with these inferior poors. Therefore, at The Suffering Rich, we will encourage more auditing of those poors who don't usually fight it and less auditing of the rich who successfully dodge about $250 billion in taxes annually. Trust us, it's way too hard to get money out of the rich. And if it were wrong to squeeze the poor and working class at tax time, why don't they just hire more lawyers and tricky accountants like the wealthy do? Huh?
Besides, if the bottom 20 percent of Americans are more charitable by percentage given than the top 20 percent, then they clearly have money to waste on such frivolous causes as sick children, abused animals and environmentalism.
And, speaking of the environment, our rich need your help urgently if that doomsday glacier in Antarctica indeed collapses (which could happen in a few decades, years or minutes) and unleashes feet of sea level rise — forcing America's struggling millionaires and billionaires to move their beachfront mansions 20 miles inland where all those working class folks are basically squatting.
And don't even get us started on how inflation has negatively impacted the rich. Twenty years ago, you could buy a congressman for mere tens of thousands of dollars. Today, they have PACs, and buying a congressman can cost more than a million dollars. It's disgusting.
So, please visit TheSufferingRich.com, and send some money to me so I can think more about how I might be able to help the rich.
Someday.
Here are a few visuals that might help you understand the true suffering of the rich compared to the bottom 80-90 percent: