The 69 Idiots of 2018: Capitalists


2018 was a year filled with idiots—including the idiots who rule our cursed capitalist hellscape. Here are some of the worst.
Crypto enthusiasts
If you don’t understand the “crypto” space, imagine a system in which you give someone all your money, and in return they give you an imaginary thing that doesn’t exist at all or mean anything, like magic beans without the beans. “YOU’RE GONNA LOSE ALL YOUR MONEY,” we screamed helpfully, along with many other, less respected financial experts. Alas, people did not listen to us, and lost all their money. Guess you should have listened to Splinter—idiots!!!
David Rolf, Andy Stern, and the gig-friendly labor thinkers
In January, Uber found an unlikely ally: The former Seattle union leader David Rolf, who signed a joint statement with Uber’s CEO advocating for “portable benefits” for workers—which would conveniently allow the company to avoid treating its workers as actual employees. As labor movement ideas go, this is of the same intellectual lineage as the stuff spouted by former SEIU head Andy Stern, who now advocates for a universal basic income (in speeches at the Aspen Ideas Festival) because he considers traditional unions to be incapable of dealing with modernity. Not to be all “circular firing squad,” but with labor leaders like these, who needs Republicans?
Elon Musk
Elon Musk, you fake-haired Twitter psycho: Your overworked, injured-on-the-job, racism-sick factory employees are going to UNIONIZE one day, motherfucker. Save a spot for yourself on a rocket to Mars.
Haim Saban
Univision is a fucking mess. No one deserves more credit for that than warmongering Israel ultra-hawk Haim Saban, Univision’s chairman and our boss. This is a man who peaked at “owning the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.” Since then, he has run Univision into debt penury, dragged the Democratic Party to the right, and been one of the most prominent moneyed supporters of Hillary Clinton—our current president. Adios, Saban. We’ll see you around!
Jeff Bezos
Bald neo-Rockefellerian and plutocrat for the ages Jeff Bezos was smart enough to sell more sheer tonnage of useless crap than anyone in American history, but not smart enough to be able to think of anything to spend his money on except building space ships. Need a good charity, Jeff? How about paying your workers a living wage, you newly-muscled fuck? (Or, buy GMG! It worked out well for Haim Saban.)
Joe Ricketts
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Republican billionaire Ricketts funded ads saying Donald Trump was unfit to be president—and then, when Trump won the primary, he donated a million dollars to help him become president. In 2017, Ricketts shut down DNAinfo and Gothamist just because he hates unions. Joe Ricketts is one of the ten most despicable people in America. There is not a joke here.