Fighting back when greed goes too far.
🙌 As of April 2026, the world’s six largest fossil fuel companies are on track to earn nearly $3,000 per second in profit – an increase of over $37 million per day more than they were making before the Iran War. 💰💰💰
In the 8 to 10 seconds it took to read that (not so) fun fact from Oxfam International, Big Oil has likely raked in almost $30,000. Something fun to think about, next time you’re filling the gas tank.
Billionaires used to be a rare breed. In 1970, there were believed to be just five in the U.S. When Forbes issued its first billionaires list in 1987, there were only 140 in the whole world. Today, the U.S. is the planet’s undisputed Billionaire Capital, with 1,135 of them sitting on a combined fortune of more than $5.7 trillion.
To put one trillion dollars in perspective, you’d need 478 semi-trailers to haul it in $100 bills. Or try this: if you had somehow earned a million dollars a day since the birth of Christ, you still wouldn’t have a trillion dollars yet. Not counting the interest, which today’s billionaires absolutely enjoy (along with tax breaks).
Who needs this kind of money? How are these the people freaking out about school lunches and Medicaid? You could take the money from one of their bank accounts and they’d never notice it was missing.
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
Hoarding is the psychological trap where too much is never enough. And once you possess something, the mere thought of letting it go can cause real distress. Experts estimate that as many as 15 million Americans — about 3 to 6 percent of the population — struggle with hoarding.
When regular people hoard, we call it a disorder. When billionaires do it, we call it the economy. Either way the compulsive accumulation of more than a person can use is dangerously unhealthy.
Indeed the morbidly rich are the most hazardous hoarders of all, because their piles don’t just sit there collecting dust. They buy influence that allows them to skirt laws, traditions and regulations for their own gain. Unchecked, they’ll crash through every guardrail like the Kool Aid man, even trash the very planet their own children will inherit.
Our billionaires are out of control. They’re addicted to riches! They need an intervention, and unfortunately for everyone, we appear to be the grown-ups in the room. We need a plan, and it’s going to take all of us. Step one is a no-brainer: stop listening to billionaires.
Circle Up
They want us pointing fingers at each other instead of at them, because they know where the real power is. It’s not in their yachts, rockets, bunkers, or whatever weird island nonsense they’re into this week. It’s in us, the regular people.
Without us, nothing moves. Nothing gets built, delivered, cleaned, cooked, taught, fixed, stocked, staffed, answered, cared for, or kept alive. Let’s not sell ourselves short.
We make the world billionaires live off, profit from, and take for granted. And we can remake it, too, if we choose to organize. The challenge, of course, is that organizing requires us to deal with each other — a tall order in this age of social anxiety.
With a big assist from COVID, smartphones, and America’s long-running “me first” curriculum, a lot of us have started treating ordinary social discomfort like a personal violation. Instead of practicing conflict resolution, we’re told to set boundaries. Instead of learning how to trust each other, we’re sold guns, walls, cameras, locks, and apps that let us avoid talking to anyone at all.
But our peaceful existence in a world of self-destructive billionaires depends on the opposite: trust, cooperation, and the ability to be mildly uncomfortable without fleeing the scene.
Safety in Numbers
The good news is, community is a basic survival skill. We are hardwired for social connection; it’s literally a fundamental need. Those synapses are just under the surface of our disquiet, waiting to fire to life when needed. Deep down, we all crave connection. We all hunger for a sense of belonging, and maybe that’s why we’re so quick to cut ourselves off — self-defense from the pain of feeling excluded.
Collective action is the perfect antidote. Organizing gives us a chance to exercise social skills we may not have used in a while. We learn to listen, negotiate, speak up for our ideas, and survive criticism without immediately dissolving into mist. We practice introducing ourselves, remembering people’s names, and sitting with our jitters long enough to claim our space on the squad.
Team Human
This is healthy growth, overall. Will there be disappointments and personality clashes along the way? Of course. Community doesn’t mean everyone agrees with or even likes each other. It means we’re willing to build something together anyway. There’s no purity test for coming together against billionaires, and we don’t need total agreement to recognize a common threat.
Not to say the rest doesn’t matter — it does, deeply. But right now, the emergency is bigger than any one issue, identity, party, or argument. The goal is to stop the world’s wealth hoarders in their tracks before they gut the whole jawn and leave us the bill.
No one is coming to save us. We’re all we have — emphasis on “all.” Not just you, not just me, not just the loudest people or the ones with the most free time. All of us. That’s not a consolation prize; that’s the whole toolbox. It’s time to draw the widest circle possible and get in here.
Tips from a People Person
(or: How to Build Alliances With Folks You Wouldn’t Invite to Thanksgiving)
- Treat context like a superpower, not a compromise. You don’t need to know someone’s childhood trauma to hand out flyers together. Let the task be your connection. Not every relationship has to be a deep dive.
- Practice “face‑value appreciation.” Maybe you’ll never agree on their taste in bumper stickers or thoughts on voter ID. But maybe they’re reliable. Maybe they bring snacks. Notice what works, not what grates.
- Retire the Purity Olympics. There’s no such thing as perfect people with perfect politics. Progress is built by coalitions, not clones.
- Use your inside voice for inside thoughts. You don’t have to correct every word choice or debate every difference. Save the heavy conversations for your trusted circle. Out in the world, focus on the mission.
- Remember that cooperation is a muscle. It gets stronger with reps. Start small: a shared table, a shared task, a shared afternoon. You don’t have to like someone to work with them. You just have to respect the part of them that’s trying.
- Let “good enough” be good enough. We don’t need perfect harmony to get things done. We need enough trust to pass the clipboard, enough patience to get through the meeting, and enough humility to remember that none of us is the main character.\
Get started! Find a list of local events and volunteer opportunities at mobilize.us, and please consider joining forces with the good folks at Indivisible Philadelphia.
What do you think? Click the links for more info, and please leave your questions and comments below. Or email editors@nwlocalpaper.com — we love to hear from readers!
Be the first to comment