MOZART

Randy W.: “Mozart WASN’T bured in a pauper’s grave. He made quite a bit of money from his music.”  

→ Apparently, he did — yet died more or less penniless.

EINSTEIN

Rob N.: “Yes, Einstein died with just $65,000.  While not a huge amount of money back then, the value today would be about $825,000.  Not a fortune — but not exactly broke.”

→ Fair.  But still.

INEQUALITY

Marcus W.: “I read your thoughts about wealth inequality.  It’s not that simple.  See: What Liberals Get Wrong About the Middle Class.”

→ The middle class is shrinking, the authors say, but so is the proportion of Americans below the middle class — because the upper-middle class is growing.  Then again, wealth inequality has become grotesque.  As of 2022, they report, the share of wealth held by the middle class had fallen to 8% from 24% in 1989, while the share held by the top 3% rose from 26% in 1989 to 53% in 2022 — and has surely only grown more unequal since then.

Join the Patriotic Millionaires, if you are one — or their grassroots arm if you’re not!

HEGSETH: PREMEDITATED MURDER

Top Pentagon Official Admits Boat Strike May Have Killed Victims of Human Trafficking.  

Worth reading.  I believe you will conclude Hegseth intended to kill all aboard; that most were likely not drug smugglers; that even suspected drug smugglers deserve a fair trial; that, if convicted, deserve something less than the death penalty; that drug smugglers on a small boat heading away from the United States pose no threat to the United States that would warrant their execution.  (And that murdering the two final passengers, clinging to their capsized boat, is the very definition of a war crime — look it up.)

Hegseth should be fired and tried as a war criminal.