| ...
| The likes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, however,
| surely have that kind of money, yet they're prostrating
| themselves before Trump. They aren't stupid; they have to
| know what kind of person Trump is and understand -- whether
| or not they admit it to themselves -- the humiliating
| nature of their behavior. So why do they do it?
|
| The answer, I believe, is that many (not all!) rich men are
| extraordinarily insecure. I've seen this phenomenon many
| times, although I can only speculate about what causes it.
| My best guess is that a billionaire, having climbed to
| incredible heights, realizes that he's still an ordinary
| human being who puts his pants on one leg at a time, and
| asks, "Is this all there is?"
|
| So he starts demanding things money can't buy, like
| universal admiration. Read Ross Douthat's interview with
| Marc Andreessen, in which the tech bro explains why he has
| turned hard right. Andreessen says that it's not about the
| money, and I believe him. What bothers him, instead, is
| that he wants everyone to genuflect before tech bros as the
| great heroes of our age, and instead lots of people are
| saying mean things about him and people like him.
| ...
<https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-pathetic-billionaires-club>
--bks