Earlier today, science fiction and comics writer Saladin Ahmed tweeted a thought about a news story that had reported "Wall Street minted 56 new billionaires since the pandemic began."
Ahmed didn't address the problematic idea of "minting" billionaires (what does that mean, anyway?), but rather the term "billionaire" itself:
more and more convinced we need to change the very language we use to talk about this — even calling them 'billionaires' sorta presupposes the wealth belongs to them, when by any reasonable standard it belongs to working people and has been stolen
'robber barons' sounds too cool and two-fisted
Some of the suggestions from his respondents were:
Vampire capitalists?
PJ Holden
How about digital plantation owners?
Erik @parsenome
Leeches
Economisers
Kwame Mbalia @KSekouM
Trust fund tapeworms and kleptocrats.
Simon Hildebrandt @apocraphilia
Wealth hoarders
@yotekay
Money Vultures? Cash Parasites?
@Cwalton73
Para$ites?
Jess Nevins
Those are some good ones. I would add free-riders and extractors to the pile.
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