The clueless, cruel caviar crowd

My question is this: Do you have to be a horrible, soulless individual to become a billionaire in America or does becoming a billionaire make you a horrible, soulless individual?

Okay, to be fair, the authenticity of the recent audio clip of billionaire L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling pleading with his girlfriend not to bring black people to Clipper games (irony alert: she is black and Latino) is still not clear, but after two days the man has not issued any statements saying that the tape was phony or altered.

Sterling is merely the latest in a long list of billionaires who have recently revealed their ignorance, arrogance and hubris by simply opening their mouths.

There was billionaire GOP supporter Harold Simmons calling President Obama a “socialist” and “…the most dangerous man alive because he would eliminate free enterprise in this country.”

And Tom Perkins, the Bay Area billionaire who equates critics of the wealthy with Nazis, who also believes you shouldn’t be able to vote unless you pay taxes, and that the more money you make the more votes you should get.

And Bud Konheim, the co-founder and CEO of the luxury clothing company Nicole Miller, who said that the 99 percent should shut their pie holes because if they lived in China they’d be rich. He thinks we’re a nation of whiners.

And who can forget Mitt Romney’s famous “47 percent” quote, where he virtually wrote off half of the country as government-dependent moochers who would vote for Obama no matter what Republicans did.

Finally, there’s the Obama-phobic Donald Trump, who reveals his ignorance and cluelessness with every word that leaves his mouth.

This rogues gallery of ugly ultra-wealthy Americans speaks volumes about the attitudes of those at the very top of the ladder, and demonstrates clearly why nothing serious is being done about income inequality in this country.