According to Forbes, as of March 18th, there are 2,095 billionaires in the world. Cumulatively, the world's billionaires are worth $8 trillion. Their average net worth is $4.1 billion. Bill Gates of Microsoft topped the list for 18 of the past 24 years. He was overtaken by Jeff Bezos of Amazon for the past three years in spite of his divorce losses. The U.S. remains the country with the most billionaires, with 614, followed by greater China (including Hong Kong and Macao), with 456.

The top 8 billionaires own as much as the poorest half of the human race. Eight people. They are Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Bernard Arnault (LVMH), Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway), Larry Ellison (software), Amancio Ortega (Zara), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Jim Walton (Walmart).

Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Here in the U.S. those 614 billionaires dominate our nation more than Presidents, Congress, the Supreme Court, or even our armed forces. Why? Because they buy influence through offering wealth and favors to those who bend to their will.

Only a few hundred years ago, this kind of power belonged only to kings and queens, the leaders of nations. However, revolutions and new forms of government emerged providing temporary leaders rather than perpetual families, creating a power vacuum. Enter the merchants, creating millionaire titans of industry, followed by billionaire corporate CEOs, soon to be trillionaires if things continue as they are going.

It takes more than luck to reach these financial heights. It also takes skill, ruthlessness, cronyism and political accommodation. Those with great wealth have the ears of one another, even as they compete. Elites take care of elites for the most part, helping the next generations carry on the wealth and power as royals have done for millennia.

It is hard to fathom the lifestyle of the mega rich who can buy anything, seek any pleasure, avoid penalties for most things, and be surrounded by sycophants sucking up to them. They have bodyguards more numerous than the secret service who guard presidents. No one can get close to them without going through many defensive layers of personnel. They don't walk the streets or shop for themselves or drive themselves without being carefully surrounded at all times.

Most lead insulated lives behind tall walls and darkened limos, and travel in privately owned helicopters, planes and yachts. As isolated as they are, they have no clue how the rest of us live, how we worry about putting food on the table or keeping the lights on. They feel superior, arrogantly believing that their money means they are wiser and better than anyone else, which is ludicrous. How can they relate to the suffering of others when so isolated? Short answer, they can't.

The percentage of taxes they pay in comparison to the rest of us is miniscule. They write off every expense possible and set up shell companies in foreign lands to evade paying taxes from their country of origin. This makes them kings of the world rather than national kings. They hold no national loyalty when they hire workers they can pay the least across the world rather than provide all their jobs and pay for the workers from their home country.

They seek international markets to peddle their products because they are saturated back home. So they have a multitude of passports to many nations, and products made and pushed in emerging third world countries, banks in Europe, and multiple mansions in the most beautiful of scenery wherever they desire.

What they most want is globalism, go anywhere, sell anything, extracting wealth from the entire world right into their personal pockets. With free trade, no borders tariffs, and no laws or leaders stopping them, these few thousand people want to run the entire world.

To put it in perspective, that's fewer people than went to my high school, 2,095 billionaires making decisions affecting 7.8 billion people, exploiting them in order to increase the billionaires' own personal net worth. That's 7.8 billion people without advocates or alternatives. These billionaires weren't elected from being voted in by anyone. They don't have to follow the same laws in their corporations that people do in their nations. They don't have to follow much of the Constitution at all.

For example, if they want to invade the privacy of their workers, or the public even, they can. If they want to fire people who have different political views than them, they can. If they want to pollute, they can. If one place has rules, they just go somewhere there are no rules. And if they have little companies getting in the way of their monopolies, they buy them or put them out of business. Who will prevent it? Certainly not our so called leaders.

Third world nations are so desperate for opportunities, they work for tiny wages in terrible conditions with very long hours. Some workers are enslaved even. Who is to know? Who will stop them? Certainly not the cartel or war lord or whoever is in charge who enjoys the pay offs they've received. Not all billionaires conduct their businesses this way, but many if not most turn a blind eye to the suffering of those at the bottom of the pyramid, those whose shoulders hold up the corporations and provide the massive profits with their labors.

How easy would it be to end the suffering of the world if these 2,095 people spent half their personal profits giving back. No? How about 25%? No? How about 10%? No, they don't even give back 1% of their profits to alleviate the suffering of the world.

There are some who say they want to give back, create charitable trusts and support worthy causes. I could name several who have helped others financially regularly, particularly Warren Buffett. But the vast majority give more lip service than anything else to those in need, and that must change.

The billionaires of the world are indebted to the rest of us for their wealth, for they would not have earned it without us. A hundred years ago, the titans of industry understood that they needed to give back for the greater good, if for no other reason than pride of putting their name on something and good publicity to keep them earning good will. Never the less, museums and libraries, roads and bridges, music, art and even education were supported for public welfare.

They paid much larger percentages of taxes then than now, by today's standards. Jobs were created at home in the land of their success, passing on the good fortune to those of their home land, which led to the rise of the nation. Not so today. Politicians kept a thumb on millionaires, breaking up companies with monopolies, requiring laws protecting workers, unions were strong and less corrupted, and there were limits to millionaires' power. Again, not so today.

There cannot be unlimited profits allowed to be earned with no demands placed on billionaires for the opportunities provided them. One person is not more valuable than a million others combined. If a corporation has that much money to burn, they should be required to pay much, much more in taxes. It is unconscionable that politicians who make laws favorable to a select few can be bought to serve their narrow desires when the needs of so many go unfulfilled. If we can go to the moon and back, we can provide clean water, food, clothing and shelter adequate to meet the minimum needs of humanity.

If not, what is the point of society? Is it to render 2,095 people kings while the rest of us are indentured servants or slaves to them? Is that what has become of modern society, vulgar trappings of wealth for a handful and meager possessions and opportunities for the rest? Where is democracy? Where is the middle class?

Here we are, in a pandemic, told to stay home and avoid one another. Our jobs are lost or very difficult to do to provide income for us, our leaders are more interested in arguing than helping us, the billionaires are getting richer while the rest of us are getting sicker and poorer. Our children aren't learning and are mentally withering from isolation. Our small businesses are dying as are our elderly. We are sick and tired, and angrier every day.

Many things must change but right now, I'm looking at the billionaires. Because if they don't step up immediately and help humanity, they will lose everything they hold dear to those whose desperation removes their caution. And if bickering politicians think they can continue to allow the laws to only benefit the billionaires they are beholden to, they will find that the nation's citizens are unwilling to accept their indifference any longer.

Those to whom much is given, much is required.