Part 1: MLA CITATION
Farhad, Manjoo “Even in a Pandemic, the Billionaires Are Winning.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Nov. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/opinion/coronavirus-billionaires.html?searchResultPosition=6.
PART 2: SUMMARY
In “Even in the Pandemic, the Billionaire Are Winning.”
Farhad, Manjoo report that billionaires have not lost their shirts, which means they have not been impacted financially by the pandemic; instead, they have grown in their pockets. They’ve grown richer than ever. The Author talked about the unfairness of the American economic and political system in a way that, the richer somehow are given opportunity to better themselves while the underdog strive to make ends meet. “The Economy is now connected “head you win, tail I lose”. “That quote is quite sad to believe.
While millionaires and billionaires are accumulating millions and billions of dollars, many other Americans are sinking into appalling financial situations. The number of individuals who have lost their jobs and many other sources of income through this pandemic is very high. The authors point out that other people on the verge of losing some valuable benefits that the government could provide, Congress was not very responsive to people. They sit in their comfortable seats and not make any conscious efforts to provide needful assistance to the people for them to secure some food and shelter during these challenging times.
Prime beneficiaries (private owner and private investors) of economic and technological trends and fast digitization like zoom for work meetings, religious meetings, and for educational purposes as well. Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube among other social media platforms that typically serves as entertainment for the people at the start of the devastating lock-downs that state and local governments imposed to curb the pandemic, it was serving huge profit to the “Big Boys” who have stocks invested in these companies while the social status between the rich and the poor is widening, the author reveals it threatened the country’s democracy. He justly said they would typically use their considerable wealth to undoubtedly gain more considerable power and necessary leverage for political gain.
PART 3A: REFLECTION
This article tells me that the pandemic has presented great opportunities for the rich in many respects, unlike the poor, as was expected on many social issues. The fact that a lot of low-income Americans have had to rely on government assistance to survive, you can’t say the same for the wealthy. It is evident that the stock and cryptocurrency market has taken a huge spike and many investors have made massive profits out of it.
The author reported that, the public relies on government funding as a job allowance, stimulus checks, rent and housing assistance and so on. He also noted that, if a federal moratorium on evictions is allowed to expire at the end of the year, millions of Americans will have to pay months of back rent — making them vulnerable to what housing advocates warn will be a wave of eviction.
According to the writer, Eric Yuan, Zoom’s general manager, became a billionaire in 2019.It now stands at close to $20 billion. In addition, Dan Gilbert, the president of Quicken Loans, had a value of less than $7 billion in March; today he has over $43 billion. This demonstrates the inequality between social status as the divide widens. We see millionaires become billionaires, but average and ordinary people barely scratch in everyday life.
PART 3B: RHETORICAL ANALYSIS
This article was written by Farhad, Manjoo, an American journalist and in this piece, he shared is viewpoints on how during the pandemic the rich used all necessary means to positively impact their pockets. Since the author is sharing his opinion which may come along in some way as biased to the way the rich exploit different ways of making money. Farhad, Manjoo shows the perspective of how both the rich and poor were financial impacted based during the pandemic. The intended audience of the article are those in businesses, financial advisor, potential investors, and business clients.
PART 4: NOTABLES QUOTEABLES
“But in the coronavirus recession of 2020, most billionaires have not lost their shirts. Instead, they have put on bejeweled overcoats and gloves made of spun gold — that is, they have gotten richer than ever before.” (Collins)
“…. $1 trillion That is the amount of new wealth American billionaires have amassed since March, at the start of the devastating lock downs that state and local governments imposed to curb the pandemic.”( Farhad, Manjoo )
“The political results point to the continuing danger to our democracy of the rise of super billionaires — that they will use their wealth to build a political fortress around themselves, allowing them to gain even more wealth and influence.” ( Farhad, Manjoo )
