{"id":1594,"date":"2026-06-13T18:37:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=1594"},"modified":"2026-06-13T18:37:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:37:03","slug":"devastation-economist-uncovers-searing-truth-about-the-trillionaire-threat-to-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=1594","title":{"rendered":"Devastation: Economist uncovers searing truth about the trillionaire threat to democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Economist Justin Wolfers delivered a searing shock to the hosts of MS NOW\u2019s \u201cThe Weekend\u201d on Saturday. And his news carried an unnerving warning to the state of the nation\u2019s vulnerable democracy.<\/p>\n

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Government statistics released this week show the annual inflation rate hit 4.2 percent in May \u2014 the highest in three years \u2014 while the latest YouGov poll shows almost 60 percent of Americans say the economy is getting worse. <\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t the extent of the pain the vast majority of the nation is suffering. While it is aching, it is losing power too.<\/p>\n

Newly minted trillionaire Elon Musk invested more money than most Americans even dream of in President Donald Trump\u2019s re-election effort. But his new trillionaire status means his investment was even more effortless than before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not going to start with Musk being worth a trillion. I’m going to go back to 2024, when he invested $250 million in the American election,\u201d said Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. \u201cThat was almost certainly enough to win Donald Trump the election. Trump winning margin across the three swing states was only 230,000 votes, so you needed to switch 115,000 voters. \u2026 Even if he was so inefficient, it cost $1,000 per vote switch, Musk’s money won the election for Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that was just the start of it, assured Wolfers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s Scary Fact No. 1: we’ve already got an oligarch who put a billionaire in charge of our country. Let me blow you away with Scary Fact No. 2,\u201d Wolfers went on. \u201cThis is where you need to understand the difference between $1 trillion \u2014 that\u2019s what the bloke\u2019s got \u2014 and $250 million, which is what he spent.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s not 1 percent of his wealth,\u201d continued Wolfers. \u201cIt’s not 0.1 percent of his wealth. It’s 0.025 percent of his wealth. Musk bought one American election, and has enough money left over to buy another 3,999 elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolfers did not even touch upon the \u201cpolitics of resentment\u201d beginning to seize Americans watching Musk expand his trillions while they struggle to pay for gas and beans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t need to [do that],\u201d said Wolfers. \u201cWhat we really need to do is talk about protecting democracy in an age of this sort of concentration of wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Justin, you just made me very angry talking about that,\u201d admitted Weekend co-host Eugene Daniels, who was already pulling up stats from Inequality.org and the Federal Reserve revealing the top 1 percent of U.S. income brackets owns 31 percent of the wealth share while the bottom 90 percent have 32.6 percent of the wealth share.\u201d<\/p>\n

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