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Dirty money

Comedian Steve Martin has an old joke where he says he’s going to teach people how to become a millionaire. “First, get a million dollars.”

There are only a couple ways to become wealthy without working for it: win the lottery, inherit it (life’s lottery) or rob it from someone else.  Beyond that, gaining and maintaining wealth comes from a combination of good ideas, hard work and maybe a little luck. That’s the most common route for most people.

Today, the descendants of one of America’s original multi-millionaires, John D. Rockefeller, have great wealth because of their patriarch.  Good for them.  As a friend of mine, who is a person of means, likes to say, “I made my money the old fashioned way; I inherited it.”

Still, it’s their money and they can do with it as they wish. However it’s ironic, if not hypocritical, when the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (The Rockefeller Foundation) announces that it is divesting its $860 million philanthropic organization from assets tied to fossil fuel companies.

The New York Times reports that Steven Rockefeller, a son of Nelson Rockefeller and a trustee of the fund, said he “foresees financial problems ahead for companies that have stockpiled more reserves (of carbon fuels) than they can burn without contributing significantly to climate change.”  Rockefeller says the move has “both a moral and economic dimension.”

So the Rockefeller heirs in control of the fund are so wealthy as a result of oil they can afford to turn up their noses at the very source of their wealth, and in doing so attain a kind of moral superiority that no doubt plays well with the limousine liberal crowd.

West Virginia’s Senator Jay Rockefeller was not in on the decision.  Rockefeller, who is named after his great-grandfather, told the Charleston Gazette through a spokesman that “He has no money invested in the fund and is not involved in any of the decision making.”

That’s a relief, since Rockefeller has for the last half-century represented a state whose primary industry is a carbon fuel.  However, Rockefeller’s daughter, Valerie Rockefeller Wayne, is chairwoman of the fund.  “It is a moral imperative to preserve the planet,” Wayne told the Times.

Folks of lesser means typically don’t have the luxury of engaging in such lofty ambitions.  If the anti-carbon movement prevails, today’s cheap energy will be replaced by more expensive alternative fuels.  Energy bills will rise and the economy will slow because of increased production costs.

That won’t matter much to those who have already gotten theirs, but it will make it more difficult for the rest who want to achieve success and financial independence, which was what John D. Rockefeller originally set out to do.

 

 





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