The rich prepare for the apocalypse

CEOs’ desire for even more wealth a preparation for end-times luxury

…Hoarding for the apocalypse calls for belief that the end is coming and that wealth will insulate the wealthy from the misery that will befall the rest of us. (The rest of us might harbor apocalyptic fears, from time to time, but we haven’t figured out what to do about them. We’re wage-earners, for the most part, or the owners of small businesses. We haven’t all that much to hoard – not enough to make a difference, anyway – so we keep working to keep the bills paid and the kids fed.)

The apocalyptic rich have hoarded cash and assets – and they continue to accumulate as much as possible – and they’ve built retreats to allay a deep fear that, when the world starts to fall apart, they will be at the top of a mountain, in a secure compound with its own source of energy and potable water (and a decade’s supply of cabernet), isolated from the screaming, rioting masses.

As the world’s population grows, as the recession expands and unemployment worsens, as the globe continues to warm and the oceans rise, as questions about the future of energy and natural resources become graver, as civil unrest becomes a greater concern, the masters of the universe grab all they can. It’s an Idaho panhandle mentality on Wall Street – hoard money and assets, and enough golf balls to ride out the coming cataclysm. There’s social Darwinism at play in this, to be sure – survival of the richest – but it’s the most cynical and self-centered kind, based not on enterprise or capitalism, but on a dark view of the future. Their concept of the greater good is gone, and they certainly display nothing you might call civic-mindedness or patriotism.

Of course, the cynics always existed among us, but they’ve grown in number in recent years, and they have more power and influence than ever. Those who work in financial markets and deal in commodities, those who watch global trends in energy and food production and population growth – those who have seen the numbers – I believe they have become gravely pessimistic about what life on Earth in the next quarter-century will become, and that’s what drives them.

Baltimore Sun