237.8 - Clown Award: Steve Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone private equity firm

Clown Award: Steve Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone private equity firm

Now it's time for our other regular feature, the Clown Award, given for meritorious stupidity. Oh, and we have a real one this week. A callous jerk and a brain-dead bozo in one fatuous package.

The winner of the Big Red Nose this week is Steve Schwarzman, the CEO of his own private equity firm, called Blackstone.

Schwarzman, a billionaire and one of the world's richest people, was attending the annual gathering of corporate and government honchos in Davos, Switzerland - a meeting I still want to call Davros - and told Bloomberg TV that he just can't understand why American voters seem discontented.

He expressed astonishment at "the amount of anger whether it's on the Republican side or the Democratic side" and said of Bernie Sanders in particular "How is that happening?"

Steve "The Clown" Schwarzman

Well, let's see. Pew Research has found that the wealth gap between upper-income and middle-income households in the US is the biggest it's ever been, that between 1983 and 2013, median household net worth for middle-income families went up a paltry 2%, for lower-income families is went down by a stunning 20%, which for upper-income families, it doubled.

That is an inequality that is growing as wages have stagnated and health care costs, despite the promises of Obamacare, continue to rise.

And yet Steve Schwarzman, who back in 2010 likened the prospect of a tax increase to Hitler invading Poland yes literally, he just can't understand, can't fathom, what those angry people are on about.

And you know what's really very sad and even more telling? He probably doesn't understand. He probably is that out of touch with the basic reality that exists beyond his well-insulated bubble.

Steve Schwarzman. If it wasn't for the enormous power buffoons like him wield, I could almost feel sorry for him. My gosh, what an utter clown.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/01/22/1473651/-Billionaire-bewildered-that-American-voters-are-angry
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/17/wealth-gap-upper-middle-income/
http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/inequality-in-american-cities-is-on-the-rise
http://www.ibtimes.com/health-care-costs-us-rise-hospitals-now-charging-10-times-medicare-rates-common-1957271
http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-schwarzman-taxes-hitler-invaded-poland-2010-8?IR=T