In a recent statement to the press Stephen Schwarzman (CEO of Blackstone hedge fund) said he was astonished to learn that Americans of all political backgrounds are “angry.” He has a net worth of about $11 billion. I will suggest that his net worth is the cause of his astonishment.

[image: Forbes.com]

A Message for Stephen A. Schwarzman

Dear Stephen:

National wealth is the net effect of all our economic activity, the most accurate reckoning of all we do that affects what we are worth (our assets minus our debts). It’s a value thing, something that bankers, lenders, and hedge fund managers have a need to know about; it isn’t something that is tangible and readily knowable to most of us. Still, if we could convert it all into cash, we would find our national total is rising by about $10 trillion per year. Of that total about $9 trillion of it flows to those at the top of the wealth heap—including hedge fund managers like you..

It’s fair to say that the United States is the wealthiest country in the world. That fact is known by one and all except by—the bottom 90 percent of those who live here. You cannot prove it by our meager bank accounts, or by our nonexistent private jets, or by the absence of our moored yachts, or by our lavish homes that are yet to be. Few of us have maids, nannies and gardeners to attend to our homes and children, nor chauffeurs to drive us hither and yon when we feel the urge to merge. But some of us have high hopes.

Still, if we could see it, we would know how much your wealth is rising on a daily basis. That daily total would come to $25 billion. Just use your imagination and visualize $25 billion being sucked out of our pockets and being dumped on the door steps of every wealthy person’s residence across the land. The suction power would be enough to rip our clothes from our bodies, while the wind would chill us to the bone. Dollars would be flying away so fast they would make a roaring sound as they flew at an average velocity of 62 miles per hour around the clock an average distance of 1,500 miles each. We would be a shivering, quivering mass of humanity caught up in a draft of currency while all around us those dollars would be roaring and soaring in a deafening stream from us to you (and to them).

That is imagination at work, but it is not exaggeration at work. Instead of a giant sucking sound we only have a feeling of losing out on all that we do. After all, we create all that wealth, but only the few at the top get to partake of it. Still, we know its effects when we see the price of stocks, bonds, and real estate rise—and we are not participants. We know it when we see the cost of education rise—and neither we nor our kids can afford to pay the bills. We know it when we get sick and our health bills outstrip our ability to pay them. We know it when each day we must work harder and faster just to stay in the same place. We know it by our weakened economy that does not produce enough jobs. We know it by our growing poverty levels, by our drug usage rates, by our crime rates, by our illiteracy rates, by our incarceration rates, by our suicide rates, by our slums, and by our shorter life spans. We know it by the pollution of our air, lakes, and streams. We know it by a growing number of corporations and individuals that flee the country to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. We know it by our falling tax revenues. We know it by our rising public debt, and by our inability to fix our crumbling infrastructure. We know it when we reach retirement age and we cannot afford to retire. And we know it by our inheritance laws that seek to build and to perpetuate family dynasties far into the future. We know it by the millionaires and billionaires (like you), and by the super PACs that seek to maintain or to expand all these elements far into the future. And we know it by a political system that is rigged to keep all the aforementioned elements intact, that buys and pays for politicians who want to “carpet bomb” their will upon those in the world who refuse to see things their way.

And that, Mr. Schwarzman, is why we are angry.